The ATS was the British army’s branch for women during the Second World War, performing a range of tasks to free up men of fighting age to go to front line units. I have been cataloguing records about the ATS to make them more accessible.
I started cataloguing the Palestine ATS records (WO 447) in October 2024, with over 4,000 individuals’ details captured for our database, Discovery. Once completed, I catalogued the Overseas Clearing Wing (WO 459) and I am now working on the British Auxiliary Territorial Service series (WO 440).
The data includes individuals’ forenames, surname, military number, age, marital status, religion, main military unit, enlistment, and discharge dates. There are no photographs of the individuals serving within the ATS in these record series.
The poster below demonstrates some of the many trades and roles women did once they enlisted and passed their training in the ATS.
National Savings poster: Action Stations, The ATS Go to War, 1939 to1945. Catalogue reference: NSC 5/854
Servicemen as well as women
Interestingly, both WO 447 and WO 459 contain units of non-British-born men, as well as units of women.
The Overseas ATS units in WO 459 came from across the British Empire, including Commonwealth nations such as the Caribbean Islands, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Hong Kong, Gibraltar and India, along with Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone. This emphasises the vast breadth of participating nations, forming a united ‘Allied Front’ helping in the fight against the enemy.
In WO 447, records exist for the Royal Army Service Corp (RASC) in Egypt, the General Service Corp (GSC), established in 1942 as a ‘Reception Corp’ for army recruits before allocation to field force units, and the Pioneer corps, an army unit primarily responsible for providing manual labour and light engineering support in Palestine. These include men’s units, including Jewish men fleeing persecution, who were interned in Mauritius during the Second World War. These men were subsequently granted their freedom under the condition of serving within these units.
WO 447 records typically consist of each service person’s registration and attestation papers, their record of service, and their discharge forms. They can also contain military court procedures including witness statements and punishments, medical documentation, pay books and a wide variety of correspondence and memoranda.
This might detail when and where they enlisted, which military units they served in, and any commendations or hospital stays during their service, alongside the start and end dates of military service. The medical papers often include dental treatment cards, and occasionally x-rays.
It is also worth noting that the Palestine ATS records also include Hebrew on the right-hand side of each enlistment form, as well as English, as shown below.
Open military record of Marie Wetzler, born 1903. Catalogue reference: WO 447/W/PAL/203525
The records themselves are sometimes in quite fragile condition due to their age, and since coming to The National Archives, they have been re-boxed to meet the correct archival storage standards.
In some instances the data within them is very limited, and sometimes the subjects’ full military records are held within another series. This is a recurring issue in the WO 440 series. Individuals may have two military records – one original, and one duplicate in a different series.
The catalogue data from these series will be used to provide members of the public and other users access to military records that up until now have been unavailable. To comply with current data protection legislation, each ATS record is only available to the public 115 years after its subject was born. This means that currently only records about people with a date of birth before 1910 are publicly available.
Hugely varied careers and backgrounds
The records for the Palestine ATS (WO 440) arrived without an index and have been catalogued from scratch. They are particularly interesting, with just under 4,000 female individuals serving in Palestine or Egypt over the course of the Second World War.
Although 80% of the women who enlisted were classified as ‘Palestine nationals’, many of these women where refugees fleeing from persecution. Significant numbers of these women were multilingual, and led fascinating careers while in the military.
This is highlighted in the example shown below of a BA200 form from W/PAL/203525. The form shows the variety of military units women in the ATS served in, including Base Ordnance depots, Mechanical Transport stores, Signals units and Hospital clerical units, among others.
B200 form from Marie Wetzler's military record. Catalogue reference: WO 447/W/PAL/203525
The Palestine ATS records show us the hugely varied careers that these women had during their civilian lives. In the ATS, women were offered the opportunity to learn new skills and trades not subsequently open to them as civilians pre-Second World War.
Insights from ongoing analysis
The series comprising the records of the Overseas Clearing Wing (WO 459) is quite small, containing just under 500 individual military records. Many of these individuals served and were discharged overseas in areas including Ceylon, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Mauritius, Jamaica, West Africa and the West Indies. Analysis has yet to be undertaken on this series but will be worked on in due course.
There is also ongoing work on the records of the British (home) ATS (WO 440), which includes many duplicates of records in the series WO 413. Previously, much of the series has already been indexed, and I have focused my attention on completing the rest of the series, comprising 258 archive boxes.
Already the initial raw data from the cataloguing shows that, much like the Palestine ATS, these women came from hugely varied backgrounds. Many initially enlisted as volunteers in 1939, as ATS women in the British Army did not receive pay for their services until 1941.
The cataloguing has already allowed new insights into the impact these women had during the Second World War. As shown by the photograph below, many ATS women served in the Anti-Aircraft ‘Ack Ack’ – mixed military units who were involved as height spotters, supporting Royal Artillery units attempting to shoot down German bomber aircraft. Many women also re-enlisted for Extended Service after the end of the Second World War, joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC) when it formed in 1949.
Photography of an ATS height finder crew at work, 1942. Catalogue reference: INF 2/42 (474)
Catalogue entries for these records have now been added to Discovery. For open records, the surname, initials, service number and full date of birth of each ATS member are visible to anyone searching the catalogue. Closed records, as well as those with descriptions redacted until 115 years from birth, only show the individual's surname, initials, and year of birth.
These military service records have not yet been digitised. Therefore, only service records with a birth date before 1910, due to the 115-year-closure rule, will be accessible to view and order through the Discovery database to view in the public reading room.
These records are of interest to historians, academics and anyone researching their family’s military history. Further data analysis will provide more insight into the individuals recorded, and hopefully offer an exciting window into their time in military service.
