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WAAF and RAF officers wearing greatcoats; the similarities between male and female uniform, which underlined the integration of the two services, are apparent here. (Imperial War Museum)

parachuted into France in February 1944. Through the loss of several other leaders she became the commander of no less than 7,000 Maquis fighters in Auvergne, rallying them and leading them in battle against the Germans when the time came to link up with the Allied armies which landed in the south of France.

United States of America
There was an unfortunate lack of zeal and uniformity in the compiling of information on the early days of the American women's services in World War II, which handicaps the historian. Through lack of manpower, time or opportunity, or in some cases through a doctrinaire unwillingness to collect separate statistics for women, the carious army departments failed to collate information in a systematic way. This omission does less than justice to the Women's Auxiliary Corps, which rose to a peak strength of some 100,000 members; and is the more obvious today, with women moving further towards complete integration in the new volunteer US Army than their parents' generation would ever have thought possible.
It may generally be stated, however, that in terms of human and administrative problems, often unanticipated or inadequately thought through by the authorities, American experience closely followed that of Britain. America is and was no less conservative a society than Britain in its view of a woman's place in life. There was a psychological resistance to the concept of women in uniform; and when the principle had been accepted, the special requirements in the fields of discipline, regulation of conduct and recreation, medicine and welfare, and the general problems of introducing girls to an army life and atmosphere, were often handled by trail and error. It was some time before the difficult problem of reconciling the needs to treat women equally with men, but not identically, was resolved. At what may be considered a rather trivial level, there was much argument over uniform design. The women had to be provided with a uniform military in appearance, with a maximum of comfort, style and fit, and yet not identical to that of the men. At a more serious level, which would centrally effect the success of the recruiting effort, the US Army had to stand as guarantor to the concerned public for a high standard of conduct, well-being and training for the women entrants. By the end of the war most, if not all, of these problems had been overcome. The boost given to the general cause of female emancipation by the women's services was enormous. 

The WAAC and WAC
It is interesting to note the haste with which plans for the formation of the women's corps were prepared following the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The Secretary of War sent his approval of the WAAC Bill to Congress on 24 December. By the last day of that month a Mrs Rodgers had incorporated the War Department's proposed amendment into the Bill and reintroduced it as H.R.6293.
The Navy Department lacked confidence in the Bill and attempted to delay it, and to persuade the War Department to drop their sponsorship of the
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