Dan Snow's History Hit - Elizabeth II: A Princess At War

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

As a mark of respect and remembrance to the late Queen Elizabeth II, we've chosen to focus on Her Majesty's personal history as a veteran of the Second World War.For this episode, James is joined by Tessa Dunlop to learn more about how the inspirational, dedicated, and devoted monarch that was Elizabeth II went from a young girl living through the blitz, to serving as a second subaltern in the all-female Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) by the end of WW2.Note: This episode was recorded before the announcement of Queen Elizabeth II's death.Edited by Aidan Lonergan.Listen to Elizabeth II: The Making of the Queen.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hello everyone, welcome to Down Snow's History Hit. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last week, we thought we'd bring you another episode about her military service as a young woman. This is an interview conducted by James Rogers of our Sibling Warfare podcast. He talked to Tessa Dunlop, a brilliant historian, she's been on this podcast before. She's brought other female veterans of the Second World War onto this podcast. And she talks particularly about the Queen's service in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, which is the part of the British Army that women were allowed into. Unmarried young women under 30 in the Second World War had to perform some sort of national service. The Queen chose, when she turned 18 in 1944, to do the same.

And she became a mechanic in the ATS. You'll be hearing a lot more about it. You'll be hearing about her role in the wall from the very, very brilliant Tessa Dunlop. If you wish to hear more about, in a general sense, how the Queen's young life created the monarch that we all knew, then you can go back and listen to the obituary episode last week, which was broadcast on the day that Queen Elizabeth died with Professor Kate Williams. Thanks to James Rogers and Tessa Dunlop for this fascinating conversation. I hope you enjoy. It's always struck me that Princess Elizabeth was just 13 years old when the war broke out on September

3rd 1939 and she was evacuated like so many other children with Princess Margaret to Windsor but that didn't stop her taking part in the war she gave her first address from Windsor to evacuee children does this epitomize the Queen's role in the war? Was she ever present and ever active, even from that incredibly young age? I think the Queen very much, we've got to remember that her childhood radically changed direction when darling Uncle David advocated. You know, she was just an also-ran princess and suddenly, crash, bang, wallop, she's heir to the most significant throne on the planet. Now, you've got to bear in mind that put her father, who was something, well, he was hardly

a performer, was he? He had a very bad stutter and never expected to take the lead role, suddenly thrust into the limelight. And what they had to do was redefine monarchy in the face of what they considered to be a profound familial and institutional disappointment which was the abdication of behavior of Edward VIII so they reframe their existence as a dutiful one and actually the second world war is something of a PR gift for them because they nail that duty. The Queen Mother, as we now know her, she was obviously at the time Elizabeth, the then Queen, goes, we're jolly well staying put. So it's all about from the get go. That's the kind of front foot narrative is we're staying put. We're going to do our duty because a lot of posh girls do actually go off to Canada and places like that are evacuated early on in the war.

of posh girls do actually go off to Canada and places like that are evacuated early on in the war not the case with Margaret and Elizabeth you're right the main woman in my army girls book whose life staggeringly parallels the queen but on a different class obviously is Barbara and she's really interesting she was born nine months apart from the queen just a smidgen older and she said she grew up you know with a ladybird a sepia ladybird book all about princess elizabeth and it you know she said our family were royalists but then most families were royalist it was a hugely deferential era and when you've got a country that's now in war for the second time in 20 years and that requires huge militarization royalty really come into their own and we see that even today and i think sometimes if you look at say Prince Philip's funeral or what was all the hoo-ha about Andrew and Harry not all wearing honorary military uniform it's about that titular head and one of the women in my book

Lady Martha Bruce who actually had the same nanny as the Queen Crawfee she had Crawfee before the Queen got Crawfee she's one of those landed Scottish families. But classic aristocrat, getting info and gossip about the Queen. It was like squeezing blood from a stone. Discretion, the hallmark of that generation and class in terms of, so she wouldn't give me anything except that Crawfey was her nanny. And she didn't want that in the book, actually. So it's not in the book. There's a bit of an extra secret for you, James. We have a bonus. There we go. You have a bonus. Yeah, you have a bonus. But Martha really spelt out the role of royalty for me.

And Martha, incidentally, I should say, later to become a colonel lieutenant in the Territorial Army. She said the whole function of the force is the chain of command right down to the private demands somebody to look up to. And that's what the royals provided. And Mary did it very well. Who is Mary? You well may ask at this stage, because I know you thought you were going to get a whole load of Princess Elizabeth. Who is Mary? Well, as you pointed out, Princess Elizabeth was 13 at the beginning of the war. I mean, she had a little softie for Philip. She'd met him as a naval cadet a few months earlier. But no, she's still a child. Mary is our Queen's aunt, OK? OK. She is the only daughter of George V.

And she had a nursing, a sort of modest nursing role in World War I. And she's a very dutiful woman, a relatively impressive woman, wore a uniform very well. That slightly sort of puffy wins the profile, but does her job very well. So early on in the Second World War, she becomes the commander, the controller rather, of the Yorkshire branch. And then when it's clear we need to significantly upscale, she quickly assumes the role of controller commandant. So she's

basically the titular head of the ATS, beyond your director, who initially was Dame Helen Gwynne Vaughan. And she's very good at what she does. A lot the women testify to this and in fact one of martha's letters she's working on a gun site martha radar operator and she says it's hysterical everyone's desperately whitewashing all the um all the barracks and they're trimming the grass around the special instruments to bring down their enemy raiders because of course the queen's coming to visit and then oh the princess royal is coming to visit so whenever there's a royal visit there is a sort of you know big emphasis on presentation and order and best foot forward and operating as one all those things that the army's about that i think if you don't belong to the army you don't fully understand

and um the princess royal was this sort of disciplinarian she was uniformed she was the epitome of female military meanwhile the actual queen our queen consort Elizabeth now known to us all of course as the queen mother was the commandant-in-chief of all three female services and that was that was given to her that title at the beginning of the war but unlike Mary her sister-in-law she didn't wear the military uniform we know that her hallmark was keeping it normal, face of regularity, smiling through the billets, you know, wearing her little hallmark hat and two-piece and twin set and pearls and handbag, stumbling around, or not as the case may be, walking very neatly in her heels. So she, it was sort of like the two different faces

of the female military there. One is, you know, keeping on, keeping on. And the other is actually, you know, we've got to tool up and skill up. We're in the military and they complemented each other very, very well. You listen to Dan Snow's history. We're hearing all about the Queen's military service in the Second World War. More coming up. You're hearing all about the Queen's military service in the Second World War. More coming up.

I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes.

Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. Vikings, Normans, kings and popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. it sounds to me tessa like the queen had queen elizabeth the second had some remarkable role models at this point in time absolutely maybe you could even say helped her to become the leader and the person that she has been for so long when buckingham Palace was bombed on September 13th, 1940, the Queen Mother, the then Queen, came out and said, I'm glad we've been bombed. Now we can look the east end in the eye. Are there other points in the war that the Queen or the Royal Family really put this message out

there that, you know, we're all in this together? Oh yeah, that was absolutely the residencia. And that's, I think, why there's so much photographic evidence of just how often the Queen and the King and the Princess Royal are visiting the female army alone, the ATS alone. What's interesting is the progress that our Queen makes. You know, she goes, like all, most of the girls I was working with, or now very old women, She goes like all most of the girls I was working with are now very old women. They grow up under the umbrella of war. So they start the war as young teenagers and end as young adults. And during that time, we've seen really not a revolution in terms of our thinking about women,

because that was absolutely held within the gender kind of gridlock that there was at the time. But there's a massive shift in expectation of what a woman can do in war. So in 1939, Woman's Zone goes, you know, men go to their posts and we shall stand by ours, meaning the kitchen sink. Now that's been turned on its head with conscription in 41. And actually, there's a lot to suggest that Princess Elizabeth is keen to get out of those traps and be joining, signing up and working with the other girls. And it was the same in all households up and down the country. Huge numbers of girls, all the girls I talked to. Please, please, we want to sign up. We want to join the army. Their boyfriends just died. You know, in one case, Penny, a boyfriend. You know, we don't want to stay at home doing some dull little job if you're lucky enough to have a job or finishing off at school. You want to get out there and join these boys in the hero games and actually as you know we've

discussed before I think James you know the parents are the stopper on that you know we don't want that to happen and the generation above them and it was the exact same narrative in the house of Windsor so just as you know Betty oh I don't want to be at this you know domestic science college I want to be in the army just as a Barbara oh I don't want to be at this, you know, domestic science college. I want to be in the army just as a Barbara. Oh, I don't want to be stuck in this converted mill, you know, working as a factory girl. I want to be in the army. Exact same for the queen. She does the odd photo opportunity. You know, she is in, she's a commander of the Grenadier Guards. It's an honorific title. So she's worn a uniform. She's allowed in the laws changed for women when the labor exchanges are able to work out who

and which girls are available for work etc this happens just before conscription so she says oh i'm going to go and put my name down at 16 but of course no one's going to call her for a job are they you know so there's sort of this push but the the real truculent individual the real man who absolutely doesn't barge is george her father george the sixth he doesn't approve of women in uniform he's an old-fashioned stickler you know wars about men and it's all very well his sister bodding about in a tip in an honorific uniform because she was remember her role was honorific but it's very different your actual daughter signing up and becoming a soldier really effectively although they of course were never called soldiers and so he stops it in Crawford the nanny and we know who first of all

served for Lady Martha she wants to join the wrens because which girl didn't and he's no don't be so ridiculous says George the Faithful just end up making some old admirable his own breakfast stay put and so she did so Crawford stays but know, as Elizabeth gets older and the war progresses and women become more and more part, we mobilize proportionally more women into our war effort, whether uniformed or not, than any other country, any other belligerent in the world, perhaps with the exception of Russia. It's quite hard with Russia to work out exactly what's going on, but certainly if any other belligerent in the West. but certainly of any other belligerent in the West. So Elizabeth's champing at the bit. And what changes, of course, is the political conversation. And by 1944, the War Office back the idea of Elizabeth joining the ATS. Should be said, conscription for women, December 1941,

starts from the age of 20. That age has to 19 Elizabeth's still only 18 remember as you pointed out she was just 13 at the beginning of the war so there's no obligation but she wants to play her part and I think it's rather well timed the whole thing because certainly from the king's point of view because she gets to fight in the war but only just but the paraphernalia and the letters I went to the National Army Museum, honestly, letter upon letter, ladies and waiting, talking to controllers of the ATS, you know, all frightfully self-important, talking on behalf of this girl who just wants to get cracking and wear a uniform and be like everyone else, and of course can't be. But there's also, it's interesting to me how the extent to which they manage the press even then, there is concern that they want to put her in

on a trainee officer course effectively, while she's not even yet a private. And she will come out and eventually come out in July 1945. She'll be a junior commander and she'll be a subaltern by the spring of 45. So she's basically lep-frogged ahead of many of the girls at a time when we're trying to say, you know, the ATS, the army are no longer class bound. It's all about talent, selection tests. You too could become whatever. It doesn't matter what your birthright is, but the queen is an exception and, or the princess. And there are these set questions of how the royal family and the press machine is going to respond to newspaper inquiries. you know what and one of the questions is why is she an officer and funnily enough in in the letters about what her training

should consist of then her mother the queen consul writes hrh has a brain already trained to learn in other words she can skip that bit you know and she did and rather wonderfully i was very lucky and she's become something of a friend actually although a remote one she lives in Selby is um in the book I um spent a lot of time with Barbara um now Barbara with uh Wethergill is almost the exact same age as the Queen as I think I've mentioned and she did the exact or almost the exact same training course the motor transport mechanical and maintenance course, in the same place, Camberley, as the Queen. The difference was the Queen did it two years later, so she went in in March 1945 and Barbara went in in March 1943. But in terms of understanding what the Queen's work would involve, she gave me this wonderful story. Yes, I'm fascinated. Tell us,

what did the Queen do in the ATS? Well, you know, in The Crown, where she gets under the bonnet of a car, you know, and says, oh, I did this in the war. Yes. She did. That's true. And Barbara's hysterical. She's, I can't do her accent. She's got a lovely Yorkshire accent. I love her accent. And she reckons she can still take apart an engine. She knows how the combustion engine works. She drove over the really big trucks, the 1800 weight trucks, you know, the ones that, and by the way, that wasn't the weight of the vehicle, that was the weight that they could carry. You know, so we are talking a woman who goes on,

by the way, and drives the trucks for the anti-aircraft gun site. So she's tanking along with like 20 men in the back of her van and kit. She's quite something. She's a real good girl. And she ends up being a trainer, a driving instructor after the war. Lance Corporal, she's promoted to, and she goes off to a Welsh driving school. So she's a real good girl and she ends up being a trainer a driving instructor after the war lance corporal she's promoted to and she goes off to a welsh driving school so she's pretty

impressive tessa was she driving those trucks to the anti-aircraft guns under fire no well interestingly under fire well there were v1 rockets by now it's 44 by the time she's doing yeah and she was the one of the sole drivers between the light anti-aircraft gun sites interesting about them the light anti-aircraft gun sites what's interesting about them the light anti-aircraft ones were the mobile ones that you moved around they weren't the static 3.7 guns the really big guns they were the static ones which required far smaller teams and because the teams were so small women weren't allowed to work on them because you couldn't trust men in a small group you couldn't have just a couple of women on their own with men. But Barbara had to go and drive and deliver their stuff.

But I never had any problems, she reckons. I wouldn't mess with Barbara by the sounds of it. I'll tell you that, Tessa. You wouldn't. I'm telling you, you absolutely wouldn't mess with Barbara. But she's fascinating. So you do, they absolutely knew. The mechanical, the emphasis on mechanics was fascinating and rigorous. Rigorous. They did know their way.

I can't even oh she can roll it off even today Barbara just whack it down the line to you about what she was doing then what you every single day once you become a qualified driver is you have to check a set part of your vehicle and every day there's a different part of the vehicle that's checked and on day 14 it means you've checked all the vehicle in that fortnight and an artificer signs it off. And then you go all over again for the next 14 days, which means you always have a vehicle that's really well serviced, which is how they prevented too many breakdowns. So all of this had to be checked and double checked. And what's fascinating is there's a photo opportunity where the poor queen, you do feel sorry for the princess.

I mean, she's 18, trying to be normal. And of of course there's quite a lot about what she did that wasn't the same as the other girls naturally I can only imagine I saw a headline I think I was reading a little bit about her time in the ATS and they dubbed her princess auto mechanic yeah which um is that a good title I think that's quite a good title that's fair enough but in terms of what the queen didn't have to do if if you're interested. Yeah, I am. Because I saw, so her daily programmes were written out. This again is in the National Army Museum archive. But she's exempt from the dreaded physical training that all girls had to do, except the princess. Okay, they loathe that. There's perks to being a princess.

There is. There is. They had to wear like slug-coloured shorts and stuff. They really hated it. She didn't have to do that. She didn't have to do gas training, which of course when you have to go in with your gas mask okay yeah and she didn't have to do drill marching she was exempt from those things she exempts in some of the more basic sort of um mental training as well not the mechanical stuff but remember hrh

has a brain trained to learn and um most crucially of all and i think where she really missed out she didn't stay in the barracks at camberley she went home to windsor every night but a lot about and most crucially of all, and I think where she really missed out, she didn't stay in the barracks at Camberley. She went home to Windsor every night. But a lot about that training, Tessa, is about breaking people down in a way so you can rebuild them as a group to operate together. I suppose the last thing you want to do for a future monarch is to break them down physically and mentally and mould them in any way in that form. This is a future leader is to break them down physically and mentally and mould them in any way in that

form this is a future leader of the country of course it's symbolic very much the queen's training but then a huge amount of what the army was doing was you know symbolic maintaining morale keeping girls engaged making sure everyone felt they were part of a bigger mission which really worked very well in the british war story narrative and the likes of Barbara today Barbara's actually a bit gutted because she had her heart set on being a driver because as she explained only girls from the top bracket drove so I wanted to be a driver it was like the thing to do you know couldn't fly an airplane well a few girls did in the WAF as we know they transported the aircraft absolutely generally not but Barbara's so thrilled to become

a driver but when she does her test because all the ats girls are thoroughly tested so they can be appropriately selected this comes in in 41 we're much better at working out where to allocate girls by 1941 and in the test they say you've got really exceptional hearing which she still does incidentally and aged 97 and was she 96 96 she's my youngest I think she's my baby baby spice army girl and um and she said but you know what she said they they said I could go and do some some other kind of job and they were a bit flimsy about what this involved well of course they were because they couldn't explain a lot of the secret work was under the official secrets act so if you were going to go to bletchley park or you're going to be a wireless interceptor part of the y station operation that fed into the intelligence service

station x you aren't going to be told what job you've got before you go there and barbara was so myopically obsessed with becoming a driver she turned it down and i think there's a bit of her that still regrets oh i could have been an agent or a spy or something with my amazing ears and um instead she goes and drives but she it kind of it's almost like a consolation it doesn't matter because at least she got to do the same job as the queen and she goes off to Camberley same place and she always talks about these really upper bracket women who trained them because of course the ATS relied heavily especially initially on the Fanny the first aid nursing yeomanry who were renowned for their transportation initially one of their main roles was transportation

so um they were the trainees and of course these grandies who'd driven in world war one in France you know terrifying women were training Barbara and the queen and there was quite a lot of written work and then you had to go and work with your truck you had to work out you know the caps that you put on things under the bonnet anyway the poor old queen she's doing her test because they're always being tested and along come her family can you imagine anything more embarrassing her mother her sister and her dad and her dad changes one of the caps under the bonnet and you can tell she's just like mortified it's like go away dad you know but the whole thing is oh look you know we're all part of the war effort together and um i think the queen she very much i managed to find

an interview from the commandant of the training the motor transport corps at camberley when she was there who was fascinating and said that you know the queen was fully engaged and said all the right things obviously about the future queen and the queen explaining you know how much i would love to stay with you guys and to work with you guys, but I can't because I'm always being called away. And there is this, you get this sense of really early on in her life, aged 18, her being pulled in two directions. And it's the only time, she later said to Barbara Castle, the Labour MP, it's one of the very few times she could compare herself with her peers when she was working alongside them. You know, she had this rarefied education.

We know that she went off to the province of Eton for a bit of constitutional history, otherwise pretty much educated alone. Suddenly she's in the thick of it, although dragged away to Windsor Castle every night. But I think it probably was one of the great times of the Queen's life. And there she is on the balcony, of course, on VE Day, looking down, representing something to the people, you know, the people's princess, and at the same time begging her father, can I go and join the people, please? And he says in his diaries, you know, that she, at that point, you know, dawning on him, she's had a really sheltered life. And even her war story was a heavily curated one. But what has to be remembered is that wasn't

her fault. She wanted to take part and she did as much as she could and she's got the photos to prove it does she not and the queen did get to celebrate with everybody else didn't she yeah she sure did she got let out that night yeah she got to get down and be among the people and sort of do the lambeth walk there you go pulling her cap down over so she's not recognized and absolutely going into the crowds as the sun began to set and then she's not recognised and going into the crowds as the sun began to set. And then she's promoted to junior commander by the July, you know, as a titular role again. But I think it's been very important for her as a female monarch that she had that time in the military and is so important to our military. She's terribly loyal, absolutely dutiful and especially for our british historic narrative

she more than any other army girl ties us back to the second world war back to the blitz absolutely tessa thank you so much for your time thank you of our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all work out.