Forgotten Warriors

The assumption that the frontline of war is exclusively male and that fighting is unfeminine is a Victorian stereotype that has stuck. But as this startling new history shows, women have always been on battlefields, some fighting disguised as men (a marvelous example of this is Casimir Pulaski, the famous Polish general only discovered to have be female once exhumed), others mobilized in times of national survival (Stalin had a deadly all-female bomber division in WWII that the Germans called the Night Witches), and many others serving essential non-combat functions on the front (one in nine in the Duke of Wellington's army in 1813 were female). Rip-roaring tales of derring-do and heroism pulse with an awareness of the endemic sexism that has suppressed their stories till now. For once the conflicts were over, these women were forced back into their previous lives, their achievements whitewashed from the record . Until now, that is...

In this book brilliant young historian Sarah Percy tells the fascinating and surprising stories of these women, often for the first time. In World War II, British women worked in all-female anti-aircraft batteries, doing all the work except actually pulling the trigger - a job that was reserved for a man. British women were allowed to fight and kill, but only covertly, as members of the Special Operations Executive. Women spies fought in France with great distinction, but the fact that they were authorized (and expected) to kill was kept deliberately quiet. In fact, some of the most distinguished female spies in British service were not given the same military honours as men because their combat could not be publicly acknowledged. WOMEN WARRIORS is determined to set the record straight.