This is a picture of women in World War 2 dressed in the different women's service uniforms. Ranging from nurses to the Wave and Red Cross, they are part of Harrods employees in the war effort. These women would have been serving on the home front.The picture clearly shows the types of uniform for different services like the t-shirt, skirt, apron and nurses hat for the nurses and the shirt, skirt, coat, belt, sashes and hats with the service symbol on it.
Summary:
This artifact shows the different types of services that women were allowed to join in during World War 2. This was a big change from being the housewife that looks after the children. The government had always discouraged women participating in any kind of military service. Then the government soon realised that there was a bigger demand in war than expected. It had then been the women who were working and doing the technical jobs so that the men would be able to go fight in the war.
For the different military services, there was an auxiliary corps. Women who joined the Australian Air Force (AAF) were part of the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF). Same goes for the Australian Women's Army Service (AWAS) and the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS). These auxiliary corps were created so that the women could limit the number of men needed in the country so they were free to fight for our country overseas. But soon the government yet again realised that the situation was worse than they expected so some of the women were called to serve overseas. They then worked as anti-aircraft gunners, drivers, mechanics and radio operators.