On this Thursday in 1941, the United Kingdom started universal female conscription, making the UK the first nation in the world to have done so.
The British and the members of the Commonwealth, had created a variety of military female service organizations to support their armed forces during the war, but after two years of war the drain on male manpower was proving to be just too much. Now that war with Japan had also arrived, the United Kingdom ordered that unmarried women ages 21 through 30 were conscripted into British wartime service, with them having a choice between the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women's Royal Navy Service, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Civil Defense, Land Army or taking employment in war industry work. It might be noted that the conscription was therefore unique in that it contemplated non-martial choices as well as martial ones, or that it allowed for choices at all.
The organizations, all of which were temporary wartimes establishments, had their roots in World War One. The WRNS, for example, had been a Great War formation which had been disestablished in 1919, but brought back during World War Two. 75,000 women would serve in it, of which 102 would lose their lives in service.
Nurses on air duty with the WAAF.
The WAAF had also existed in World War One, in the form of the Women's Royal Air Force. The WRAF had existed from 1918 to 1920 The WAAF didn't have a direct flying role, i.e., it didn't contribute pilots, but rather a support role to the RAF. Oddly enough, unlike the WRNS, its role declined towards the late war which probably reflects the increase manpower brought about by the American entry into the war, as well as an increase in Commonwealth troop support. The Air Transport Service, did, however.
Female pilot of the Air Transport Service entering a Spitfire.
That non-combatant role no doubt counted as wartime service for conscription tallies, but it was not in the listed options due to the special requirements it obviously had.
The Auxiliary Territorial Service, of which the future Queen Elizabeth II was a member, served a role similar to that of the WAAF, but for the Army. Watchers of British television are familiar, to an extent, with this service through the British television series, Foyle's War.
Queen Elizabeth II as a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
What Civil Defense is, is more obvious, and less martial. Women like men played a role in its various functions. The Land Army had existed as a very extensive organization during World War One, which ultimately included Canadian and American expressions. It was recreated during World War Two to bring women, often urban women, into farm work.
The Land Army is also the subject of a British television drama, Land Girls. I haven't watched it as unlike Foyle's War, it apparently leans pretty heavy into romance type drama.
It's worth noting with all of this, once again, that the British were stretched to the manpower limit by this point in the war. The British government had remarkably introduced conscription in April 1939, before the start of the war, with it applying only to 20 to 22 year olds and with the expressed purpose only to train men and then release them as "militiamen" with ongoing annual training obligations. When the war arrived in September conscription was expanded to include those who ranged from ages 18 to 41. Ultimately the conscription age, starting in 1942, would expand up to age 51, which means that it reached back to the same generational cohort who had been eligible for the draft in World War One. In addition to this, the British Home Guard accepted men age 17 to 65, and was a much more serious military organization than it has often been credited with being.
The manpower crush would start to be alleviated with the American entry into the war. As noted, the WAAF's role decreased late war. The Home Guard was demobilized in December 1945, prior to the end of the war, when it was obvious that it was not going to be further needed.
As the citations to televisions shows here shows, in many ways World War Two has come to be fondly remembered, oddly enough, by the British. Churchill termed it Britain's "finest hour", and they tend to very much remember it that way, even doing so fairly nostalgically
More on this here:
The British experienced a Pacific setback when the Japanese landed on Hong Kong.
German general Fedor von Bock relinquished his command to Gen. von Kluge. Illness was the pretext, but he was one of forty German senior commanders to be relieved due to alarming German setbacks. He'd be recalled into service in 1942 and would die on May 4, 1945 along with his wife and stepdaughter when their car was strafed by an RAF Typhoon. He'd outlive von Kluge who committed suicide in August 1944 out of fear that his knowledge of the July 20 plot meant he was going to be arrested and executed.
The S-1 Committee of the Manhattan Project met for the first time.
The War Powers Act of 1941 became law, the same being an organic act for the prosecution of the war.
President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 3983 forming a body to investigate what occurred at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Of interest, it appointed Chief Justice Owen J. Roberts as its head.
December 18, 1941
Pursuant to the authority in me vested by the Constitution of the United States, I hereby appoint as a commission to ascertain and report the facts relating to the attack made by Japanese armed forces upon the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the following:Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, United States Supreme Court,
Chairman;
Admiral William H. Standley, United States Navy, Retired; Rear Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, United States Navy, Retired; Major General Frank R. McCoy, United States Army, Retired; Brigadier General Joseph T. McNarney, United States Army.
The purposes of the required inquiry and report are to provide bases for sound decisions whether any derelictions of duty or errors of judgment on the part of United States Army or Navy personnel contributed to such successes as were achieved by the enemy on the occasion mentioned, and if so, what these derelictions or errors were, and who were responsible therefor.
The Commission will convene at the call of its Chairman at Washington, D. C, will thereafter proceed with its professional and clerical assistants to Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, and any other places it may deem necessary to visit for the completion of its inquiry. It will then return to Washington, D. C., and submit its report direct to the President of the United States.
The Commission is empowered to prescribe its own procedure, to employ such professional and clerical assistants as it may deem necessary, to fix the compensation and allowances of such assistants, to incur all necessary expenses for services and supplies, and to direct such travel of members and employees at public expense as it may deem necessary in the accomplishment of its mission. Each of the members of the Commission and each of its professional assistants, including civilian advisers and any Army, Navy, and Marine Corps officers so employed, detailed, or assigned shall receive payment of his actual and necessary expenses for transportation, and in addition and in lieu of all other allowances for expenses while absent from the place of his residence or station in connection with the business of the Commission, a per diem allowance of twenty-five dollars. All of the expenses of the Commission shall be paid by Army disbursing officers from allocations to be made to the War Department for that purpose from the Emergency Fund for the President.
All executive officers and agencies of the United States are directed to furnish the Commission such facilities, services, and cooperation as it may request of them from time to time.
The Afrika Korps was in full retreat in North Africa due to a lack of armor. German forces northwest of Moscow executed a successful retreat there such that the Red Army lost contact with them, and they were allowed to reestablish defensive lines.
