‘Our department was called the Uncommon Language Department and was in the Adams Room of the Princess Hotel. And of course, the mailbags were distributed and we had to memorise black lists of any trade that was going on between the Axis and the Americas. I remember so many letters, pathetic letters, they were coming from Jews, written on scraps of paper, you known, pleading for funds, because they were in such a bad way in Europe and of course those letters had to be confiscated and that was hard to read those letters … Sick, sick, sick, all those boys, and they were all so young.' Maisie Farge, Censor at Bermuda, 194042.‘One of the nasty parts of being in the know was the fact we would know when the ships were sunk and sometimes indeed we used to have the survivors coming into Bermuda, and we were part of all this, although you knew it was happening, we knew where it was happening, right outside of Bermuda.' Corporal Mary Cousland, Royal Canadian Air Force, Women's Division, 194345.Years ago, in the ancient times of ‘Boots of Spanish Leather', ‘No Woman, No Cry' and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', I struck up a friendship with a Mrs Ellicombe, an antiques dealer of some age in the English town where I was learning the trade of archaeology. The lady, tall and of “traditional build” (as Mma Precious Ramotswe would say), lived with “Nanny”, a faithful retainer of some longevity in that employ. Mrs. Ellicombe was the wife of a former commissioner of police for Ceylon) and carried on her breast, long after his decease, a brooch of that office, and in her heart, the remains of the British Empire. Nanny's cakes were an enticement seldom denied, if an invitation to “tea” was proffered.One day, when the conversation ranged back to Britain, after several cakes and cups of tea in the hills of what is now the unmelodious Sri Lanka, Mrs Ellicombe told me the tale of her sister, an aeroplane pilot during the Second World War. During that conflict, England was running out of things and men, so women were allowed to become pilots, but only for repositioning of planes or cargo flights within the country. One night, her sister was at an airfield when an utterly exhausted pilot, who, having just flown back, was ordered out immediately for another bombing run over Germany. Mrs Ellicombe's sister protested that that would sign the man's death warrant and volunteered to take the flight for him. After much chauvinistic muttering, the Air Command agree, provided that she did not wear a parachute: ‘After all, we do not want the Boche to think we are down to our women, do we?'The prejudice against women taking a combatant part in war has only been overcome in recent decades. As far as is known, no Bermudian women fought on the front lines in any of the conflicts of the last century, though it could be that dealing with Bermudian men might so qualify, or merit a combat medal or two. We do know that one Bermudian lady served overseas in World War One (191418) and 29 embarked by normal ship or flying boat for overseas service in World War Two (193945); one of the latter, Daisy Vallis, is the only Bermudian woman to have died on active duty.Of the earlier conflict, according to Dr. Charlotte Andrews, ‘Cassie B. White was a shining example of the major role played by Bermudian women during the First World War. In a 1977 Royal Gazette article, she was described as “probably Bermuda's only heroine of the First World War”. White's wartime actions were especially remarkable and prompted General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Forces in France, to cite her “for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at great risk under fire” in 1919.The women who served overseas in the Second World War were in the following forces: Royal Canadian Air Force (Women's Division), Royal Air Force, Auxiliary Territorial Service, Women's Royal Naval Service, Women's Auxiliary Air Force, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and the UN Relief & Rehabilitation Administration. Locally, Dr Andrews has noted: “Civilian women were also employed by local forces, gave refugee and medical assistance, and supported or operated a host of wartime charity efforts, such as the Bermuda Women's Auxiliary Force, St. John's Ambulance Brigade, and the Bermuda Services Overseas Association.”Two such ladies, who served here, in this case with the Bermuda Militia Artillery, were June Reid Smith and Betty Ingemann, both childhood friends. Of Miss Smith, Ira Philip wrote: ‘She was secretary to the Commanding Officer, worked at headquarters at St. David's Island, wore a BMA uniform with a distinctive “Sam Brown” insignia, and she had most of the privileges and perks of her fellow BMAs.'Two other friends, Lobelia Curtis (later Bubenzer) and Eva Robinson, headed to Britain to serve in the British Army's Auxiliary Territorial Service, braving convoys across the North Atlantic and bombings of cities and towns in England. At the end of the war in Europe, Miss Curtis was the only enlisted Bermudian woman to march in the June 1945 Victory Parade in London; she later married a German whom she met in England when he was a prisoner of war. Seventeen Bermudian women eventually joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, Women's Division and served in various capacities in Canada.A gallery in the Defence Heritage Exhibition at the Commissioner's House of the National Museum of Bermuda is dedicated to the Bermudian women who served in the Second World War; the family of Betty (Mary Cousland) Leighton kindly donated the room to that end.Perhaps one of the best commendations on Bermudian women who went away to the wars can be taken from the remarks of one Captain Edward Sweet, who with that name commanded a detachment of nurses, including Cassie White: ‘They are soldiers, not posing, affected, self-satisfied heroines, but plain unassuming, sound-hearted girls who faced the greatest of horrors of the war without flinching. Theirs was a job that many a man would have refused, but they stuck to it and won through.'On the other hand, one wonders how that male officer would have taken the ‘sweet' remark by White, who never married: ‘Me?' she joked, ‘Oh no! I paddle my own canoe.'Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum of Bermuda, incorporating the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments may be made to director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480.