Canary Girls : The Munition Workers of WWII

The Canary Girls is my second book featuring wartime munitions workers. This book examines women’s place in social history from the end of the First World War through the 1920s and 1930s to the Second World War. Just as in WWI, women were called upon to once again replace men in a wide variety of jobs. The work these women carried out has again been largely overlooked, despite its being an important part of Britain’s social history. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of forgotten heroines became known as the Canary Girls. This book endeavours to depict ordinary women’s lives and their essential contributions to the Second World War. In this war, women were recruited into the armed forces. Almost all women were conscripted into the war effort from 1941 and had very little choice as to how they would serve their country. But serve they did in so many ways, braving daily dangers against a background of shortages, rationing and blackout. Here, you will find accounts recorded by the Mass Observation Project. Along with descriptions of the building of giant munition factories, along with some of the experiences and stories from the young women who worked in these vast factories. They may have come from differing walks of life, but nevertheless, solid friendships were forged. Undoubtedly, because of shared hardships and danger, along with the horrors of witnessing or sustaining injuries.