Template:POTD/2022-09-19
Women took on many different roles during World War II, including as combatants or workers on the home front. In the United Kingdom, as before in World War I, previously forbidden job opportunities opened up for women, including in factories to create weapons that were used on the battlefield. The roles of women shifting from domestic to masculine and dangerous jobs in the workforce made for important changes in workplace structure and society.
This April 1945 photograph depicts Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) standing beside an ambulance in the uniform of a second subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army during the war. Appointed to the honorary position in February 1945, she trained and worked as a driver and mechanic, and was given the rank of honorary junior commander five months later.Photograph credit: Ministry of Information; restored by Angerey