World War II: Women at War (Atlantic In Focus photo gallery)

[pokerfan]

For the nations who were deeply involved in World War II, the war effort was total, with women volunteering in huge numbers alongside men and filling traditionally male positions at home, in industry, and the military. Women took both active and supporting positions in factories, government organizations, military auxiliaries, resistance groups and more. While relatively few women were at the front lines as combatants, many found themselves the victims of bombing campaigns and invading armies. By the end of the war, more than 2 million women worked in war industries, hundreds of thousands volunteered as nurses or members of home defense units, or became full-time members of the military. In the Soviet Union alone, some 800,000 women served alongside men in army units during the war. Collected here are images of women involved directly in the events of World War II, and some of what they experienced and endured. A note: most of the captions are from the original sources from the 1940s, complete with the frequent use of the term "girl" to describe young women. (This entry is Part 13 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II) (45 photos)









http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/world-war-ii-women-at-war/100145

[RZM]

1. In the Soviet Union the stats are quite striking

Not only did hundreds of thousands of women serve in combat roles, but 100 percent of Red Army nurses were women. Also, about 56 percent of the wartime industrial workforce in the Soviet Union was female. For all we hear about 'Rosie the Riveter' (and yes, their contribution was very important), women were about 15-20 percent of the wartime industrial workforce in the US. The exact scale of child labor in the wartime Soviet Union has never really been precisely determined, but it was almost certainly quite high.

There was also an all-female bomber wing in the Soviet Air Force, which the Germans dubbed 'Die Nachthexen' (the nightwitches).

Given the incredible losses the Soviet Union sustained during the war, women also outnumbered men by a large margin after it was over. The Soviet region with the closest male/female ratio after the war was Central Asia, and even there (I forget which Republic, I believe it was the Tadjik SSR) it was 72 men for every 100 women. In the Smolensk region, it was 17/100!

[sarge43]

2. 100% of US military nurses during WWII were women.

Men were banned from all Nurse Corps until the mid 50's.

Don't know how reliable this is, but it's estimated that 20M people in the Soviet Union died as a direct result of the war.

[RZM]

5. A lot of doctors in the Red Army were also women

Though I believe most of the surgeons remained male. Don't know the comparable stats for the US army and I don't have the Soviet data in front of me, but I doubt the US had a higher rate. Like in other countries, a lot of Soviet women were pushed out of their jobs after the war, but medicine actually remained somewhat more feminized into the postwar era.

[sarge43]

7. As memory serves during WWII women were either banned from the US Medical Corps

or there were so few they could all fit in a walk in closet. Certainly nothing like the Soviet numbers.

[RZM]

6. BTW, regarding the deaths

That's still up for debate. Something around 8 million Soviet military personnel died in the war (that's not counting partisans, either) and civilian deaths have never been fully determined. Some estimates go as high as 35 million total war-related deaths. Living standards were already low before the war and they crashed after 1941. There were undoubtedly many 'gray area' deaths - people who may or may not have pulled through with better nutrition and health care, etc. The death rate in the GULag system too peaked in 1942 at about 24 percent.

It's been a while since I've looked at some of the relevant data (historians have compared prewar and postwar population data and birthrates to make stabs at the number of deaths from war-related causes). My own sense is 20-30 million is a reasonable estimate.

[pokerfan]

4. good article

on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

800,000 women served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war.<1> Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. They served as pilots<2>, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles.<3>

[HockeyMom]

3. My Mom worked for the War Department

Cutting GI's paychecks. When a local group asked about female Vets and Rosies, and I mentioned what my Mom did during the war, I was told she definitely would be considered a part of the war effort. I am sure those soldiers appreciated getting their service paychecks. Mom told me how she would come home at the end of the day and her fingers would throb from typing hundreds (no computers then) of checks a day.