38 NAVY NEWS, OCTOBER 2010 Never say never...


‘NEVER at Sea’ was the World War 1 motto of the newly- established Women’s Royal


Naval Service. ‘Never’ turned out to be around


seven decades – women did not officially go to sea until 1990. But never say never – there


were plenty of opportunities for women to serve at sea before the pioneering group joined Type 22 frigate HMS Brilliant.


Some taking up the early challenge paid with their lives. Numerous


examples the Association of


‘unofficial’ sea-going Wrens have been chronicled in the magazine of


of Wrens, a


group which has been celebrating its 90th anniversary throughout this year. Association members supported and set up the early Sea Ranger units for girls between the wars. And when Vera Laughton


Mathews, County Coxswain and first


editor of the


magazine, was invited to become Director WRNS in 1939,


Association this


network of former Wrens was more than ready to serve alongside the RN.


Wren Boat’s Crew ‘manned’


small vessels for conveying mail, stores, and liberty boats for the matelots. One new Wren, on boarding a


75ft harbour launch, was greeted by the Captain RN with the following: “Scrub the boat from stem to stern, clean the bilges,


clean and grease the chains and point and splice every rope.” The first woman river pilot


was a Leading Wren boat’s crew coxswain, who navigated HM Ships through the tricky waters of the Plymouth area – for which she received an additional ten shillings pilotage fee per trip. This payment stopped after ten


trips, but her duty didn’t... Some transatlantic ships, both merchant and RN, had WRNS cypher officers serving on board. Many other Wrens travelled by sea to their overseas postings – sadly with loss of life.


A Book of Remembrance is held


at the Wrens’ church, St Mary le Strand, listing all those who died whilst in service. French-born First Officer Madeleine Barclay (or Bayard) WRNS was thought to be the first female Executive Officer on a Royal Navy ship – but this was no


ordinary ship. HMS Fidelity was a special


service vessel, a French freighter converted to land agents and commando raiders on hostile shores.


The largely French-manned


ship was sunk in the North Atlantic by U-435 on the penultimate day of 1942, having fallen behind her convoy en route to the Far East. 1/O Barclay drowned alongside 274 of the crew, 55 Royal Marines, and 44 survivors of the armed merchantman Empire Shackleton, sunk by


the same U-boat as


the Fidelity and who had been plucked from the sea earlier the same day.


The submarine depot ship HMS


Medway had two Wren coders on board whilst docked. The pair requested, and were permission


granted, to stay


with the ship on passage from Alexandria to Haifa and Beirut, but the big ship was torpedoed by U-372 with the loss of 30 men shortly after leaving harbour. The Wrens


were amongst


the 1,105 survivors, and one was mentioned in despatches for her medical assistance work with survivors on the recovery destroyer.


Not all forays to sea ended in disaster – some ended in dinner... After a dance at Campbeltown a number of Wrens were invited to go for a meal on board one of the RN submarines. Perhaps surprisingly the Commanding Officer gave his permission, and they duly stepped on board, accompanied by a Wren officer.


They had just finished their first


course when the message came in that a ship had crossed the boom, so the boat immediately set sail, passengers and all. When it was identified to be


an American ship the submarine turned back to the jetty and the Wrens finished their meal before returning to their quarters. The end of the war was greeted by the British public with a sense of elation, and a progressive vision for the building of a new Britain. Even


so, there was still a


fundamentally conservative view of women, strengthened by fears about the falling birth rate and the need to recreate a safe domestic setting for ex-Servicemen. Women lay at the heart of the


family, the building block of this new, utopian society. Many women were happy to


return to home life – but others found it difficult to readjust to domesticity.


The calling up of men continued for another five years, with young men completing


two years of


● Sea-going RN photographer and Association of Wrens member PO(Phot) Amanda Reynolds during Gulf boarding operations


National Service between 1950 and 1960. However,


there was little


prospect of staying on for many of the half million women in the


● PO Wren Ena Howes, Second Offi cer Musters and LWren Fanshawe, part of the Advance Party ANCEF at Arromanches after the D-Day landings, pictured here in August 1944


national reunion would have been attended by hundreds of members, all wearing splendid hats. “On one memorable occasion,


November 1 1957, the president, Dame Vera Laughton Mathews, announced to 3,500 enthusiastic members in the Royal Festival Hall: ‘Dear Wrens, he’s really here!’ as she turned to greet the guest speaker, a blushing young lieutenant, Prince Philip RN,” said Celia.


“More recently the reunions


● AOW Cardiff branch members with appropriate tallybands for the city’s starring role in this year’s Armed Forces Day event


Services, and the majority of them returned to civilian life. In particular, many Wrens had undertaken a diverse


range of


duties in wartime, with tasks that were challenging and required a certain level of authority. Such Servicewomen must


have felt it difficult to reintegrate back into civilian society upon demobilisation – the austerities and conservatism of postwar Britain


could not provide


1993 and fully integrated into the RN in 1994. Even the prefix ‘W’ has gone. But the spirit lives on, as


the term crops up in national newspapers,


here in Navy News the


freedom or independence that they had enjoyed during their wartime service.


Those who did remain in the Services also had limited opportunities – though some still enjoyed sea time. Post-war Wrens had occasional


opportunities to work on board RN ships for short periods, perhaps to maintain equipment or take part in training operations, but they were not regarded as ship’s company. The status of Wrens can perhaps be gauged from the Silver Jubilee Fleet Review in 1977, when a Wren serving at the Portland shore office of a participating frigate wore the ship’s tally band. A senior officer thought it


would be good fun to have “the little Wren” on board, so she travelled to Portsmouth and lined the ship, along with the rest of the ship’s company, generating a fair amount of publicity.


Real sea-going came in with huge blaze of publicity exactly 20 years ago, on October 8 1990, when the first WRNS personnel were drafted to HMS Brilliant – these pioneering Wrens are to be featured in The Wren magazine. There was so much to learn at


sea, to say nothing of the domestic dramas to overcome; for example, the advice was “don’t send your smalls to the Chinese laundry – with only one setting (boil wash), they’ll get smaller...”


● The fi rst offi cial sea-going Wrens of 1990 on board HMS Brilliant


Since then the badges have changed from blue to red to gold, and there are ‘Wrens’ no more, the WRNS being disbanded in


and also when visiting HM ships. “We Association members have been amazed to hear of the many ‘Wrens’ there still seem to be in the Royal Navy,” said Celia Saywell, vice chairman of the Association of Wrens, who provided much of the information for this article. “We noted that just weeks


ago, on board HMS Portland, it was reported that ‘Wrenominoes Pizzas’ had been prepared and served by the 26-Woman Mess. “We like that!” The AOW has remained a factor


constant throughout all


those years, all those changes. Association members recognise


and value the contribution made by women of previous years, together with those serving now, and plan to


celebrate that contribution


alongside the organisation’s 90th anniversary.


The celebration will take the form of a service of commemoration and rededication on November 13 at the Naval church of St Martin in the Fields in London. The AOW currently has 64 branches in the UK and seven overseas,


together with two


affiliated associations and at least 15 ‘informal groups.’ In its heyday the association’s


have featured a Thames cruise on two large river boats, and a weekend celebration on campus at the University of York.” The June out-of-town council meeting was hosted by the WOs & SRs Mess at HMS Drake. The


Association has also


changed over the years; there are fewer members and fewer formal branches, but the informal groups may prove the way forward. “One group is planning a ‘pampering evening’, and other activities range from barbecues, long-distance walks,


skittles,


Pickle nights, canal cruises, TV programme contestants, lots of eating out and, of course,


full


support for local military and civic parades,” said Celia. The association’s magazine, The


Wren, has evolved from a small black-and-white pamphlet in 1920 to a large magazine-style publication with colour photos and articles presented alongside historic items, while the Where Are You Now? page reunites friends after many years.


One recent example was the


publication of a member’s photo of the first three WRNS personnel to go to Arromanches with the ANCEF advance party 1944, which drew a response from the other two Wrens in the photo – one of them from New Zealand. The association’s website supplements the magazine and features various events, members’ photos, the history of the WRNS, a calendar of events and more. This year AOW members have


run stalls around the UK on 23 occasions


at various RN and


military events, collecting many new members along the way. Needless to say, the association


is always recruiting – see www. wrens.org.uk for details. The Association also supports


the work of the WRNS Benevolent Trust, www.wrnsbt.org.uk Perhaps the last word should


go to Wren Lorna Bernard-Smith, and an extract from her poem 1919 published in The Wren magazine in June this year: “And when they asked what won


the war?


Their signal straight appeared, The Navy did its damnedest. But the Wrens it was, we feared.” Other sources: Blue Tapestry


by Vera Laughton Mathews and The WRNS by M H Fletcher.


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