Women in World War II
Women took on many different roles during World War II, including as combatants and workers on the home front. The war involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale; the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable, although the particular roles varied from country. Millions of women of various ages were injured or died as a result of the war.
Several hundred thousand women served in combat roles, especially in anti-aircraft units. The Soviet Union integrated women directly into their army units; approximately one million served in the Red Army, including about at least 50,000 on the frontlines; Bob Moore noted that "the Soviet Union was the only major power to use women in front-line roles,": 358, 485 The United States, by comparison, elected not to use women in combat because public opinion would not tolerate it. Instead, as in other nations, about 350,000 women served as uniformed auxiliaries in non-combat roles in the U.S. armed forces. These roles included administration, nurses, truck drivers, mechanics, electricians, and auxiliary pilots. Some were killed in combat or captured as prisoners of war. Over 1600 female nurses received various decorations for courage under fire. Approximately 350,000 American women joined the military during World War II.
Women also took part in the resistances of France, Italy, Poland, and Yugoslavia, as well as in the British SOE and American OSS which aided these.
Some women were forced into sexual slavery: the Imperial Japanese Army forced hundreds of thousands in Asia to become sex slaves known as comfort women, before and throughout World War II.
Women soldiers and auxiliaries on all sides of the conflict, when enlisted in the military, were eventually taken prisoners of war, just like their male counterpart. They were often discriminated,: 356–377 particularly by the Axis and the USSR, which were more likely to violate the Geneva Convention.: 4–5 Among the earliest women POWs of the war were women who served in the Polish Army (Germans avoided using women in the military except as auxiliaries—Wehrmachthelferin— until later years: 365–366 ); including Janina Lewandowska, Polish aviator and army officer captured by the Soviets during their invasion of Poland and subsequently murdered in the Katyn massacre.: 370–71