Never doubt a woman’s ability to rise to any challenge

The complexity and breadth of the part women played in D-Day is breathtaking. Women stepped into unfamiliar roles at a time of crisis with a great sense of determination to excel at the tasks at hand.

While this book in no way detracts from the heroism of the men who landed on the beaches of Normandy, it shows what a vital contribution women made to the operation’s success, including

• the pilots who ferried over 80 different types of aircraft all over Britain to be in the right place at the right time, far more than any male pilot would ever fly and without the benefit of weapons or radio
• the archaeologist who surveyed the landing beaches not just to establish where the landing crafts could safely approach but also to establish where the engineers could drill for water so that the cooks could feed the infantry once there
• the photographic interpreters at RAF Medmenham who established down to the finest detail all aspects of the enemy terrain
• the artists who created precise scale models based on that intelligence
• the plotters who plotted the location of every single ship and aircraft that took part in the landings by interpreting incoming messages and adding their positions to the plotting table at breakneck speed
• the munitions makers producing explosives and weapons

women were involved in just about every aspect of D-Day and were vital to its success.

© Julie Summers 2027 (P) Penguin Audio 2027