The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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238429 Sheila Mary McGowan Womens Land Army from:Bold St, Blackburn, Lancashire My mother Sheila McGowan served with the Women's Land Army during World War Two. The government has recently recognised the immense contribution of the Women's Land Army in providing seventy per cent of Britain's food supply during wartime. Working in all weathers in backbreaking and dangerous conditions, enduring cold and privation, and often under risk of shrapnel and enemy action, my mother was one of thousands of women who volunteered to serve their country in locations often far away from home for the duration of the war and into the years of peace immediately following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945. It is a saga that has been too easily taken for granted. The WLA was a service force in wartime with a defined role, to make Britain self-sufficient during the dangerous and stressful years of the war and prevent starvation and submission to the Axis Forces. Without the WLA, the U-boats would have triumphed and a consequent submission and surrender of a starving population would have occured. There is no doubt that this is so and that contribution should have been recognised in 1945, with the issue of badges, service medals and gratuities, pensions, along with those awarded to the other services. Not until 2008 were representatives of the WLA allowed at the Cenotaph to honour the fallen. My mother is alive and well for her age. At 89 she still remembers her years in the Land Army. As a former Land Girl, my mother is entitled to receive some accolade for her contribution in wartime. She deserves it along with thousands of other WLA members. Tomas Alberto Maria Levette Add to this record.  Related Content: Womens Land Army Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.