Doing Our Bit: New Zealand Women Tell Their Stories of World War Two

The author has interviewed fifty New Zealand women about their service in World War Two. These include the nursing sisters and VADs who braved battlefield conditions in Egypt, Italy, and the Pacific Islands; the Waacs, Waafs and Wrens who took over administrative roles to release men for active duty; radar operators, balloon command technicians; the Wren who trained navy gunners in a forerunner of a flight simulator, the woman who delivered Spitfires from the factory to combat airfields around Britain, and the women who ran a secret listening post in an isolated Marlborough farmhouse, tapping into Japanese submarine communications. The stories show the courage and fortitude of a generation of Kiwi women who were also wives, sisters, daughters and fiancees of men on active service, dealing with the emotional toll of warfare as well as its practicalities.