THE WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS
The Waacs is the name we all know them by and shall, it seems,
continue to. It will have to go into future dictionaries beside Anzac.
The deeds of the Anzacs in Gallipoli and France are immortalised in
many records--magnificently in John Masefield's "Gallipoli"--an epic
in its simplicity. The work of the Waacs is the work of support and
substitution and its records only begin to be made.
The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps is an official creation of this year.
At the Women's Service Demonstration in the Albert Hall in January,
1917, Lord Derby asked for Women for clerical service in the army and
official appeals were issued in February and repeatedly since that
time, and now all over the country we have Recruiting Committees
organizing meetings and securing recruits. They are recruiting at the
rate of 10,000 a month.
The Waacs had many forerunners in some of our voluntary organizations,
in the Women's Reserve Ambulance, of "The Green Cross Society,"
attached to the National Motor Volunteers--the Women's Volunteer
Reserve--the Women's Legion--the Women's Auxiliary Force and the Women
Signallers Territorial Corps. The Women's Signallers Corps had as
Commandant-in-Chief Mrs. E.J. Parker--Lord Kitchener's sister. They
believed women should be trained in every branch of signalling and
that men could be released for the firing line by women taking over
signalling work at fixed stations. Their prediction came true more
than two years later, for today they are in France. They drilled and
trained the women in all the branches of signalling semaphore--flags,
mechanical arms; and in Morse--flags, airline and cable, sounder
(telegraphy), buzzer, wireless, whistle, lamp and heliograph. They
also learned map reading--the most fascinating of accomplishments.
This Corps had the distinction of introducing "wireless" for women
in England in connection with its Headquarters training school. When
one of the Corps later accepted a splendid appointment as wireless
instructor at a wireless telegraph college--the Corps was duly elated.
[Illustration: W.A.A.C.'s. ON THE MARCH]
[Illustration: WOMEN OF THE RESERVE AMBULANCE]
The Women's Reserve Ambulance had the distinction of being the first
ambulance on the scene in the first serious Zeppelin Raid in London
(September, 1915). They came to where the first bombs fell, killing
and wounding, and did the work of rescue, and when another ambulance
arrived later, "Thanks," said the police, "the ladies have done this
job."
They worked assisting the War Hospital Supply Depots, that wonderful
organization run by Miss MacCaul, they provided orderlies to serve the
meals and act as housemaids, and make the men welcome at Peel House,
one of the Canadian Clubs. Others helped in Hospitals, washing up and
doing other work.
Others met and moved wounded--others at night took the soldiers to
the Y.M.C.A. huts. The Women's Volunteer Reserve, too, seemed to be
everywhere doing all sorts of useful, helpful things--disciplined,
ready, and trained. The Women's Legion led the way in providing cooks
and waitresses for camps and sent out 1,200 of these inside a year.
The first convalescent camp to have all its cooking and serving done
by women was managed--admirably, too--by the Women's Legion, so
the Waacs had many voluntary forerunners, who are mostly in it and
amalgamated with it now.
The Waacs are a part of the Army organization--are in His Majesty's
Forces and when a girl joins she is subject to army rules and
regulations. They are working now in large numbers in England and in
France, at all the base towns, and in quiet places, where things that
matter are planned and initiated.
The girl who goes to France knows she is going to possible danger by
being handed, before she goes, her two identification discs.
For France, no woman under twenty or over forty is eligible. After
volunteering, they are chosen by Selection Boards and medically
examined. They receive a grant for their uniforms. The workers wear
a khaki coat-frock--a very sensible garment--brown shoes and soft hat
and a great coat. At the end of a year they get a £5 ($25) bonus on
renewing their contracts, and they get a fortnight's leave in a year.
Their payment is not high--it works out about the same as a soldier's
when everything is paid--and that, with us, is just over 25 cents a
day, so the khaki girl, like the soldier, does not work for the money.
The whole organization is officered and directed by women. Mrs.
Chalmers Watson, M.D., C.B.E., is the Chief Controller, with
Miss MacQueen as Assistant Chief Controller. Under them are the
Controllers--Area, Recruiting, etc., and the officer in charge
of a unit is called an Administrator, and under her are deputy
administrators and assistant-administrators. They are not given
Military titles and do not hold commissions, but their appointments
are gazetted in the ordinary way. There is always a strong feeling in
England that Military and Naval titles should be strictly reserved.
The equivalent of a sergeant is a "forewoman," and there are
quartermistresses in charge of stores. Rank is shown as among the men,
by badges, rose and fleur-de-lys.
Administrators are being trained in large numbers. They have a short
course of drilling, learn to fill up Army forms, make out pay sheets,
how to requisition for rations, catering generally, and how to run a
hostel. They also attend practical lectures on hygiene and sanitation.
When this is done, they go to camp for a fortnight's training under an
administrator in actual charge of a Unit. If they have not done well
in this course, they are not appointed.
An administrator receives a $100 grant for her uniform and is paid
from $600 to $875 a year out of which $200 is deducted for food. There
is generally one officer to every fifty women.
The administrator must drill her girls. The W.A.A.C. is proud of its
tone and its discipline. Its officers make the girls feel much is
expected of them, because of the uniform they wear, and the girls have
made a fine response. There are very few rules and as little restraint
as possible. The girls are put on their honour when not under
supervision. The administrator has considerable disciplinary powers,
but they are very little needed.
It does not seem to be by discipline that the officer succeeds best.
There is a nice story told of an Administrator who had been away from
her unit some days, returning and being met at the station by one of
the rank and file who had come for her bag.
"I _am_ glad to see you, Ma'am," was the greeting, so emphatic a one
that the Administrator inquired nervously if something were wrong.
"Oh, no. Seems as if Mother had been away, Ma'am," explained the girl.
The Administrator can help her girls by sorting them out well,
putting friends and the same kind of girls together; it makes so much
difference.
The Administrator has not only to handle her own sex--she has to deal
with men officers and quartermasters, and she succeeds in doing that
well, too.
Our Administrators are naturally women of education and carefully
chosen and there is plenty of opportunity of rising "from the ranks."
The girls cross over to France on the gray transports, are received
by the women Draft Receiving Officers, and go up the lines to their
assigned posts.
The women are billeted in some of the base towns in pensions and
summer hotels that have been commandeered, in big houses and in one
case in a beautiful old Chateau where the ghosts of dead-and-gone
ladies of beauty and fashion must wonder what kind of women these
khaki clad girls are. The girls in these make their rooms home-like
with photographs, hangings, and little personal belongings.
The greater number of girls live in camps, and different types of huts
have been tried. Some of the camps are entirely of wooden huts--large
and roomy. Other camps have the Nissen hut of corrugated iron, lined
with laths wood floored and raised from the ground. These have
been linked together in the cleverest way by covered ways. In the
sleeping huts the beds are iron bedsteads with springs and horse-hair
mattresses. Each bed has four thoroughly good blankets and a pillow.
No sheets are given--there is no labour to wash the thousands of
sheets, and the cotton is needed. Each woman has a wooden locker with
a shelf above, and a chair. Washing and bathing is done in separate
huts, and in every camp hot and cold water is laid on.
The mess room is a big hut. The girls wait on themselves and the food
is excellent. They receive in rations the same as the soldiers on
lines of communication--four-fifths of a fighting man's ration and
whatever is over is returned and credited, and the extra money is used
for luxuries, games and for entertaining visitors from other camps.
Here is a typical week's meals and it shows how well they are fed:
MONDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, baked mince, jam.
Dinner: Cold beef, potatoes, tomatoes, baked apples, custard.
Tea: Tea, bread, butter, jam. Supper: Welsh rarebit, bread,
butter, jam.
TUESDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, boiled ham,
marmalade. Dinner: brown onion stew, potatoes, baked beans,
biscuit pudding. Tea: Tea, bread, butter, jam, cheese. Supper:
Savoury rice, tea, bread.
WEDNESDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, veal loaf. Dinner:
Roast mutton, potatoes, marrow, bread pudding. Tea: Tea,
bread, butter, marmalade, jam. Supper: Rissoles, bread,
butter, cheese.
THURSDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, fried bacon. Dinner:
Meat pie, potatoes, cabbage, custard and rice. Tea: Tea,
bread, butter, jam. Supper: Soup, bread and jam.
FRIDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, rissoles, marmalade.
Dinner: Boiled beef, potatoes and onions, Dundee roll. Tea:
tea, bread, butter, jam, slab cake. Supper: Shepherd's pie,
tea, bread, butter.
SATURDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, boiled ham, jam.
Dinner: Thick brown stew, potatoes and cabbage, bread pudding.
Tea: Tea, bread, butter, jam, cheese. Supper: Toad-in-hole,
bread jam.
SUNDAY.--Breakfast: Tea, bread, butter, fried bacon. Dinner:
Roast beef, potatoes and cabbage, stewed fruit, custard. Tea:
Tea, bread, butter, jam. Supper: Soup, bread, butter, cheese.
They are divided into five big classes for work. There are large
numbers of them cooks and waitresses, and many of these cooks come
from the best private houses in England, so the Waacs and the soldiers
fare well. In one camp in the early days sixty women cooks walked in
and sixty men out, released for the fighting lines. The saving in fats
done by the women is very great and their economies admirable and the
women are waitresses in the camps and messes.
In one base in France when twenty-nine cooks came to take charge in
the early days the commanding officer issued an order that expresses
very well the spirit in which the women are regarded.
BASE DEPOT.
The Officer Commanding Base Depot wishes to draw the attention
of all ranks to the following points in connection with the
Domestic Section of the Women's Auxiliary Army, which is
employed in this depot:
These women have not come out for the sake of money, as their
pay is that of a private soldier. In nearly every case they
have lost someone dear to them in this war, and they are out
here to try to do their best to make things more comfortable
for the men in regard to their food.
It, therefore, is up to all ranks to make their lot an easy
and not a hard one during their stay in France. If any man
should so forget himself as to use bad language or at any time
to be rude to them, it is up to any of his comrades standing
by to shut him up, and see that he does not repeat this
offence.
To the older men I would say: Treat them as you would your own
daughters. To the younger men: Treat them as you would your
own sisters.
----, Comdg., Base Depot.
They are doing the clerical work more and more, and in a few weeks
have become so technical that they know where to send requisitions
concerning 9.2 guns or trench mortars or giant howitzers. There is a
favourite story told against an early Waac that when a demand came for
armoured hose, she sent it to the clothing department, but she knows
better now.
French girls are also helping in the clerical department, working side
by side with the Waacs.
Others, the telegraphists and telephonists are in the Signalling Corps
and these are the only ones who wear Army badges. They work under the
Officers Commanding Signals and are so successful that the officers
want thousands more.
Another small group are called the "Hush Waacs." There are only
about a dozen of them and they have come from the Censor's Office and
between them have a thorough knowledge of all modern languages. They
are decoding signalled and written messages, script of every kind.
Numbers more are motor car and transport drivers working with A.S.C.
An intensely interesting piece of work at the front in which the Waacs
now are, and in which French women have worked for a very long time,
and are still working in large numbers, is the great "Salvage" work of
the Army. In the Salvage centre at one ordnance base 30,000 boots are
repaired in a week. They are divided into three classes--those that
can be used again by the men at the front--those for men on the lines
of communication--those for prisoners and coloured labour, and uppers
that are quite useless are cut up into laces. They salve old helmets,
old web and leather equipments, haversacks, rifles, horse shoes,
spurs, and every conceivable kind of battlefield debris.
The work of repair and of renewal of clothing, which goes over to
England to be dealt with, is a wonder of economy.
The women are helping in postal work and we handle about three million
letters and packets a day in France for our Army there.
One other piece of work that falls to trained women gardeners in the
Corps, is the care of the graves in France. There are so many graves
in little clusters, lonely by the roadside, and in great cemeteries.
They mark them clearly and they make them more beautiful with flowers.
No work they have come to do, is done more faithfully than this act of
reverence to our heroic and honoured dead.
The Y.W.C.A.'s Blue Triangle is going to be the same symbol for the
Waacs as the Red Triangle for the Soldiers. They are building huts
everywhere in France and in England, and the girls like them as much
as the men do.
In these recreation huts the girls enjoy themselves and there are
evenings when the soldier friends come in, too, and have a good time
with them, for Waacs and the soldiers know each other and meet at all
the Bases and Camps.
They dance and play games, and act, or sing, or come and talk, and one
visitor tells us of seeing a girl doing machining at the end of a hut
with one soldier turning the handle for her and another helping.
One evening at a dance some gallant Australian N.C.O.'s arrived
carrying two enormous pans of a famous salad, that was their
specialty, as their contribution to the provisions. So life in the
Waacs is not all work--there is play, too, wisely. Every camp has a
trained V.A.D. worker to look after the girls in case of sickness.
If the case is bad they are sent over to Endell Street Hospital in
London.
The Navy is going to follow the Army--so our women will be "Soldier
and Sailor too," and we shall have to sing, "Till the girls come
home," as well.
The Admiralty has decided to employ women on various duties on shore
hitherto done by naval ratings, and to establish a Women's Royal Naval
Service. The women will have a distinctive uniform and the service
will be confined to women employed on definite duties directly
connected with the Royal Navy. It is not intended at present to
include those serving in the Admiralty departments or the Royal
Dockyards or other civil establishments under the Admiralty. There
are thousands of women in these already, as there were in Army pay
offices, etc., before the Waacs were formed.
Dame Katherine Furse, G.B.E., will be Director of the Women's Royal
Naval Service, and will be responsible under the Second Sea Lord, for
its administration and organization.
Already we hear they are likely to be known as the "Wrens." And so our
women are inside the organized forces of defence of our Country--the
last line of usefulness and service.
THE WAR AND MORALS
"Evils which have been allowed to flourish for centuries
cannot be destroyed in a day. If the nation really wishes to
be freed from the consequences of prostitution it must deal
with the sources of prostitution by a long series of social,
educational, and economic reforms. The ultimate remedy is the
acceptance of a single standard of morality for men and women,
and the recognition that man is meant to be the master and not
the slave of his body. There are thousands of men both in the
army and out of it who know this, and for whom the streets of
London have no dangers."
--Dr. HELEN WILSON.