On Monday 17 April 2023, the ACRPS Strategic Studies Unit held a lecture titled “Women and Intelligence Studies: The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in British Air Intelligence during the Second World War” by Sarah-Louise Miller, a visiting scholar at the Faculty of History of the University of Oxford and a tutor in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. The discussion was chaired by Muhanad Seloom, Assistant Professor of Critical Security Studies at the Doha Institute.

Miller opened her lecture by indicating that the bravery of the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots known as “the Few”, who faced the Luftwaffe and defended their country during the Battle of Britain (1940), is often celebrated, and that efforts have recently been made to recognize the thousands who supported the RAF behind the scenes. In this context, the lecture focused on the contributions of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), a group traditionally left out of the narrative.

Women were active in the British forces during World War I, Miller explained. Though there was no need for women’s auxiliary units during the interwar period, they became increasingly involved during World War II after the British government announced mobilization, albeit without seeking to enlist women at first. The public was, furthermore, uncomfortable with women in uniform, but the government had no choice given the volume of casualties in the men’s ranks. Miller stressed that women’s participation was not solely numerical, even if it began due to a personnel shortage, and that some ascribe victory in the war to their active role.

Miller illustrated that the WAAF’s operations during WWII were largely behind the scenes, working to collect and disseminate intelligence that was vital to allied victory in individual air battles and operations, then to the final victory in 1945. These women worked in radar, integrated air defence, signals intelligence, communications, photographic reconnaissance and interpretation, and various other forms of intelligence that were critical to the RAF’s efforts and to which the allied victory is, at least in part, attributable.

In the same context, Miller mentioned that the case of women’s participation in the armed forces in Britain was similar to that of the Commonwealth states such as New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, which followed the British model. However, the British experience was different from that of other countries in Europe and the Soviet Union, where women carried out advanced roles as snipers and pilots, whereas Germany only involved women to a minimal extent. Miller indicated that women’s participation in the British armed forces increased during the tenure of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, due to his belief that German troops looked down on women and considered them less dangerous than men. Churchill saw this as a weakness to be exploited and sought to employ more women in intelligence.