The true story of the role women played in the Second World War is being told in a two-day exhibition at the site of the wartime RAF airbase in Hornchurch.
Their uniforms, photographs and wartime memorabilia are on show at the Ingrebourne Valley Visitor Centre, ahead of next month’s 80th anniversary of the end of the war on VJ Day.
It has been organised by women’s military local historian Kim Smith, from Rainham.
“The role of women at war should never be forgotten,” Kim said.
“Women made a major contribution which freed up men to join the armed forces and bring total victory against the enemy.”
The stories include women pilots in the Air Transport Auxiliary, who ferried aircraft from the factories to front-line airfields, as well as those in the Auxiliary Air Force and Royal Navy Service.
Essential civilian war work was in agriculture in the Land Army and in munitions factories — but especially helping the code-breakers at the secret Bletchley Park intelligence centre which cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code.
The exhibition at the centre in Hornchurch Country Park, the site of the RAF base that took part in the 1940 Battle of Britain, runs from 10am to 4pm both Saturday and Sunday (July 12-13).
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