In reply to aln:
My mother joined the ATS in her teens and trained as an identification, range and hight finder on anti-aircraft guns.
She went to europe, just six weeks after D-day.
She was strafed by german aircraft on at least one occasion. ("Why weren't you in the air raid shelter mum?"; "Because we were running to man the guns - that was our job" - Doh!!) Some of the crew were killed including a boyfriend and some other women!
Another time her crew shot down a german aircraft and she watched the pilot parachute to safety some miles away. She heard later that the pilot asked his capturers if he could congratulate the crew who shot him down. This was granted and he arrived at the gun site. Upon seeing it was manned entirely by women, he refused to get out and insisted on being driven away.!!
She even managed to hitch a lift to the front line, when she heard that her brother was in the front line some miles away. Upon meeting her older brother, my uncle, he immediately told her to clear off or he'd tell their mum upon return home!!!
Like many allied servicemen and women she was taken to a number of liberated concentration camps and saw the ex prison guards reburying the dead prisoners.
There is an elderly woman in our village who waded ashore from the Invicta, a converted ferry, on the French beaches at Arromanches, just two days after D-day. She was in the QANS - a nurse!
To see her walk along our road to church you be able to knock her over with a feather now - but not then when she was younger!
Its a bit of a shame that the women who fought - and were killed don't get a better mention.
Post edited at 21:19