This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
"With a white gown over her khaki uniform and wearing a gauze mask, a 19-year-old ATS private, Rose Williams of Bromley, Kent, left the operating theatre ... she had just seen a major operation and felt that she was well on the way towards a nursing career." The News Chronicle reports today on the vocational training for post-demobilisation careers offered by the Salisbury Plain and Dorset district of the Army's Southern Command. "From cookhouses, AA gun sites, quartermasters' stores and teleprinting offices these girls have come to Salisbury determined to make a successful return to civilian life." The paper also interviews Private Nellie Smith, a 19-year-old mess orderly from Norfolk, who in pre-war life had been a domestic servant: but, she explained, "I don't want to do that again." She is now in a placement program in a department store learning bookkeeping, accountancy, and retail service skills.
The Manchester Guardian includes a reminder from 'F.R.B.' in East Africa. “I doubt whether it is generally realized that many men in the Army who have served for four years still do not know when they will be released.”
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