Hell Hath No Fury (2 page)

In trials conducted during the war, the Americans discovered that the women serving in their equivalent anti-aircraft batteries were as good as the men when it came to dealing with a potential enemy raider. But the acquisition of this skill was deemed “unladylike.” Male commanders could not countenance the idea of British and American women in the front line. In the case of the Special Operations Executive, where the number of women in harm's way was small, it was easier to turn a blind eye.

In the Soviet Union, however, where the fight for national survival against a ruthless enemy was at its most savage, the Red Army had no qualms about employing women to fight on the ground and in the air. Even on the Eastern Front, however, male resentment at the presence of women surfaced with some regularity: “Why are you bringing those girls here?” demanded one Red Army officer faced with a detachment of some of the 800,000 Russian women who served in the armed forces during World War II, 70 percent of them at the front.

In the years following the end of World War II, the women who had kept the war production lines rolling from Los Angeles to Leningrad were encouraged by their governments to melt back into domestic life. Nevertheless, in postwar struggles for independence in countries like Algeria, Vietnam, and Eritrea, they continued to play an important role. In contrast, in the developed world the role of women in the military was largely confined to fields in which women had traditionally played an accepted part. In the Vietnam War, for example, the majority of the female US service personnel in the theater were nurses.

Still the belief persists that men go to war, and if women are involved at all, they simply trail behind, “following the flag.” Military experts are particularly insistent that women only enter the annals of warfare as hapless bystanders or as the spoils of war. This could not be more at odds with the true story of the range of women's involvement in the past and with today's vibrant and ever-changing reality of mixed-gender combat units and asymmetric warfare. In the years following World War II, women have made steady advances in gaining entry to armed forces throughout the world. But progress has not been consistent everywhere, and many still feel that allowing women to fight is not progress at all, either for women or for the forces of the country they serve. A survey of a number of different countries reveals differing attitudes toward women fighters and highlights problems that are often ignored but refuse to go away.

Should the military have become a battlefield at all? Identified as a bastion of male dominance—one of the oldest on the earth, along with religion—the military assumed a symbolic importance in the quest for female equality far greater than it deserved: most women, whether feminists or not, have no desire to join up and serve. Nevertheless, female penetration of the armed forces—and the resistance to it—has been a struggle of huge significance, which has led to distortions on both sides. A key tenet of feminism is that equality for women must not mean trying to do things in the same way as men. This has been forgotten or obliterated in the drive to be fair to women and to be seen to be fair. This laudable aim cannot, however, disguise some real problems of integrating women into armies, navies, and air forces worldwide.

Many would argue that women's newfound equality in the armed forces of some Western societies merely reflects the chronic shortage of men. As with stenography in the United States of the nineteenth century, women only gain entry to certain professions when men are leaving them. The oldest professions of the military and the church, both of which offer the chance of considerable power and influence, retained their attraction for men longer than most. But it is significant that the conclusion of the Vietnam War coincided with the end of the draft in the United States, causing a recruiting crisis within the US military and the introduction of volunteer professional armed forces. Subsequently the number of American women serving in the military began to rise and continues to do so to this day. So the suspicion remains: Have women only been acknowledged as members of the US armed forces because men no longer wish to sign up?

The question can be asked of other armed forces in the First World, although the pattern varies from country to country. This phenomenon has sparked a heated debate between those who have championed the integration of women into mixed-gender units and those who remain deeply skeptical about the development. The latter argue that far from being an advance, the arrival of women in the armed forces is only a symptom of a wider malaise pervading military life. They contend that, as with other professions, when a growing male reluctance to serve is offset by the introduction of women, the policy has to be forced through at the expense of physical standards and unit cohesion.

It is doubtful that this argument against women at war would impress the redoubtable British SOE veteran
Pearl Witherington
(see Chapter 11), who during the closing stages of World War II commanded an army Resistance of some two thousand. She sufficiently impressed her German enemies for them to place a million-franc reward on her head. Witherington's British bosses were less impressed, and after the war, she was offered a civil, not a military, decoration to reward her work. Spirited as ever, Witherington declined it on the grounds that she had never done a civil thing in her life.

Witherington resisted the official attempt to confine her to a footnote in history. But her career illustrates another abiding truth about women at war. Wherever they serve, they have always had to fight a double battle, and the easier of the two has been the straightforward engagement with the enemy. On the home front they still battle against suspicion and prejudice when they first join the ranks, and often have to live with ingrained resentment afterward.

Powerful women may be the subject of myth and legend, but the fascination they exert is tempered by a fear that demands they must be tamed. So the term “battle axe” is applied to bullying and loud-voiced women, sundered from its original connection with the Great Goddess, whose double-headed labrys was once invoked to bring victory but now serves as a perennial gibe at any woman of character and drive.

The reasons for this are not hard to understand. It deeply offends many men to think that they need the help of women in an essentially masculine affair. They query the women's motives—although no one ever questions why a man would want to fight—and insist that women fighters can never be as good as men.

By a painful paradox, male leaders are often very glad to have women's help at the beginning, particularly in a revolutionary war, or one where the struggle is likely to be hard, long, or extreme. But once it is won, the women's contribution is diminished and dismissed and they themselves often downgraded and vilified. This process can be seen in the seventh century after women's involvement in the early battles of Islam and was still vigorously at work in the twentieth, in Africa, in Algeria, and in Mexico, where
soldaderas
were stigmatized as no more than a rabble of whores.

Yet there remain thousands of women ready to go to war, following the millions through the ages who have gone before. In January 2007, the first all-female United Nations peacekeeping force was dispatched to the West African state of Liberia, which from 1989 to 2003 was wracked by a civil war in which some 200,000 people died and 1.5 million people—half the country's population—were displaced. The female force consisted of 105 Indian policewomen, veterans of insurgencies in such trouble spots as Kashmir, where they battled Islamic militants, and central India, where Maoists were active. Their principal tasks included training Liberia's national police, maintaining prison security, and supervising elections. Their unit commander, Seema Dhundia, explained: “Women police are seen to be much less threatening, although they can be just as tough as men. But in a conflict situation they are more approachable, and it makes women and children feel safer.”

It remains to be seen whether the introduction of women to the Gurkha Regiment, one of the British Army's most feared and formidable formations, will have a similarly calming effect. In the summer of 2007, hundreds of Nepalese women—many of them former Maoist rebels—began high-altitude training in the Himalayas in the hope of joining the Gurkhas, previously an all-male preserve numbering some 3,500 men. One of the women's instructors, retired Gurkha Yam Bahadur Gurung, observed, “More and more women are joining the private training program. We are happy for women to be allowed the same opportunity as men. Many of them aren't being taken seriously by the men, who see them as weak, but I disagree. The women work as porters climbing the Himalayas. They are incredibly fit. There is no reason why they cannot take their place alongside men.” Eventually, around fifty women will qualify for a pilot entry scheme to the regiment. The women Gurkhas will have a proud tradition to live up to. In two world wars the Gurkhas suffered 43,000 casualties and won twenty-six Victoria Crosses—more than any other regiment.

Our story of women at war reaches a positive conclusion with these individuals, each one affirming women's courage, loyalty, and strength, often to the point of extreme suffering and death. For each of us, there is a responsibility to see that their story is better known. We have therefore included a range of references in the hope of encouraging further reading and stimulating a wider interest in these women and their experiences. Women who served, fought, and died must be given their due. They fought for us, and we must fight for them.

This story will never end. Women have always gone to war, knowing that in this arena they could make a real difference. And as long as war goes on, they will, too. As you read this, some woman somewhere is cleaning her rifle, checking her ammunition, and preparing for action. We hope we have done her justice. We have certainly tried.

We would like to thank the Wiener Library, the Imperial War Museum, and the librarian of the Reform Club in London for their help in the preparation of this book. To all those who have had faith in the project and given us their support, we extend our warmest gratitude.

—Rosalind Miles and Robin Cross

1

IN THE BEGINNING

Women Warriors of Myth and Early History

When war comes, even women have to fight.

—Vietnamese proverb dating back to the Trung sisters, who drove the Chinese from their homeland, Vietnam, in 40
CE

W
HAT MAKES WOMEN FIGHT
? A better question would be, why shouldn't they? At the dawn of time, as our primate ancestors evolved into human beings, aggression and speed of response to sudden threat would have been as important to the female of the species as to the male, bred into both genders by natural selection, since those who could not fight would die. We are all the descendants of those females who won, and the living proof that they did. Their genes are to be seen in women of all ages, races, and nations, from the female gladiators of the ancient world to the most decorated women fighters in US Army history today.

As they matured, our primitive foremothers would have borne children. The defensive instinct of a mother is arguably the most powerful trigger for aggression in the world, and this overriding maternal drive to protect and defend has drawn many women into war who might otherwise never have lifted a sword, spear, or gun. Many of those who proved the fiercest and bravest fighters of all were only impelled to fight when their country was invaded or their homes attacked, like the Celtic warrior queen of the first century, Boudicca (see Chapter 1). A goddess in the eyes of her people, she led a fighting force estimated at seventy thousand men against the Romans in 61
CE
, with terrifying consequences.

With the advent of social organization, females no longer faced a daily struggle to stay alive, but the instinct to fight lived on. Yet the reality of the woman fighter, taking up her weapons for war and staking her life on her strength and skill, has proved hard to accept. Images of female catfights, or women wrestling in mud, are served up for erotic delight in popular fiction like Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and as a staple of modern pornography, but society remains deeply resistant to the true story of women's history of combat. The pervasive image of women in early societies remains that of a wilting sexual stereotype, huddled in fear inside the cave or castle, waiting for the men to come home.

In reality, women have always fought, and accounts of their activities are to be found in the earliest annals of history. Women warriors were everywhere in the ancient world, with a surprising continuity over a long period. Roman accounts of battles record finding numbers of bodies of female warriors on the battlefield. Thirty captive Gothic warrior women were paraded in front of Emperor Aurelian in a triumph at Rome in 273
CE
. There are centuries of records like these.

And like men, the women of the classical period fought for sport and recreation, too. During the Roman Empire, women fought in the public arenas, both as free women and as slaves, and competed at the opening of the Colosseum in 80
CE
. Around the year 100
CE
, the Roman satirist Juvenal recorded that it became fashionable for women of the nobility to fight in the arenas, and so many signed up for training that they were finally banned in 200
CE
.

Individual warriors such as the seventh-century Arab princess
Khawlah bint al-Azwar al-Kind'yya
(see Chapter 1) often sprang from royalty or nobility, and their family or tribal pride drove them on. As high-born women, too, they would have access to weapons, horses, and armor, which were normally available only to the rich. But the lack of all these never deterred those women who wanted to fight from finding the means.

A striking number of these early women warriors rose to become commanders-in-chief. From the days of the Great Goddess of prehistory, also known as Magna Mater, the Great Mother, and Mother Earth, women held power in their tribes and communities based on their connection with the land. As the human representatives of the sovereignty and spirit of the land, women were the land's logical defenders. Despite their tribal differences, the Celts living and fighting throughout continental Europe and the British Isles made no distinction between men and women in choosing a leader, and women also held sway in Egypt, China, and elsewhere in the East.

Traditional historians often dismiss the earliest female commanders as mythical, but many of them have been shown to exist.
Women Intelligent and Courageous in Warfare,
a treatise attributed to the Greek intellectual Pamphile of Epidaurus writing in the first century
CE
, features a number of bold and successful female war leaders whose military exploits are well documented and generally agreed upon.

Women warriors mostly saw full combat in preindustrial times, when hand-to-hand fighting was the order of the day. Undoubtedly some fighting women were taller or stronger than the average: Khawlah bint al-Azwar al-Kind'yya was at first taken to be a man because of her height, and she revealed herself as a woman only reluctantly, when the battle was won. But more important than size for any fighter, female or male, is a fighting spirit, which Khawlah and all women warriors have in abundance. Muhammad himself paid tribute to the prowess of the most famous female warrior of the period,
Nusaybah bint Ka'b,
also known as Umm 'Umara (see Chapter 1), recalling, “On the day of [the battle of] Uhud, I never looked to the right nor to the left without seeing Umm 'Umara fighting to defend me.”

As with men, a deficiency in size or strength could be made up by swiftness, confidence, and skill. There are many records of women receiving martial training. Perhaps the greatest tribute to its success can be seen in the career of the semilegendary female samurai
Tomoe Gozen,
in twelfth-century Japan (see Chapter 1). A consummate fighter, she is described as skilled with many different weapons, an outstanding swordswoman, a remarkably strong archer, and a superb horsewoman. In battle, her commander always sent her out at the head of the host, “equipped with strong armour, an oversized sword, and a mighty bow, [with which] she performed more deeds of valour than any of his other warriors.”

There is a compelling poignancy in the image of this tiny Japanese woman leading troops into battle and laying about her with her massive sword. But even for a small woman, handling a sword, shield, spear, or bow would not have presented an insuperable problem in these early times, since the size difference between male and female was far less marked, an effect still observed in the great apes today. In addition, as each item of warfare had to be handmade, women could always have the tools of war adapted to their personal needs, as smaller or less able-bodied males had to do.

Fighting women flourished in an age of single combat and had no place in the organized military formations that began to emerge. The Macedonian battle phalanx, a key military innovation of the ancient world, consisted of a densely packed mass of fighting men, each wielding a
sarissa
or spear up to twenty-three feet long and weighing thirteen to fifteen pounds; not surprisingly, this was an all-male affair. Similarly, women, excluded from the Roman army, took no part in warfare involving the
testudo,
or tortoise, a Roman infantry maneuver that required the shields of the attackers being held above their heads in time of siege to shelter them from bombardment from above.

The decline of the fighting woman continued into the early modern period, when military experts argue that the first military firearms, such as the musket, were too heavy for women to bear. However, at ten pounds, a French musket of 1777 represents less than the weight any normal woman puts on in pregnancy and less than that of a one-year-old child, which in the days before contraception, a woman would carry everywhere, very probably along with a newborn infant or an older child as well.

Modern weapons such as the automatic rifle are considerably lighter than the weapons of the past. But weight is not the real issue. Through the ages, the decline of the fighting woman has gone hand in hand with the progress of “civilization,” which in every age has insisted on women's weakness and inferiority through a battery of religious, biological, social, and cultural constraints that have kept women out of public life and in the home. In particular, anything that smacked of “mannish” or “masculine” behavior was severely discouraged and even punished by law: wearing men's clothing remained a capital offense in Europe until the eighteenth century. How were women to fight when they were not allowed to wear pants or any form of masculine attire, the offense for which
Joan of Arc
(see Chapter 3) was burned to death in 1431?

But even in the depths of the Dark Ages and up to the present day, some women were still active in the front line, battling it out, unfazed by any supposed weakness of their sex. History has consistently refused to grant the dignity and status of warrior to the female of the species. The women we have chosen to write about seized it for themselves.

AMAZONS

Female Fighting Bands of the Classical World

“Golden-shielded, silver-sworded, man-loving, male-child-killing Amazons”: so the Greek historian Hellanicus described Amazons in the fifth century
BCE
.

Stories of women who organized themselves to fight in bands are found in history, literature, and legend from the dawn of time. They are most persistent in the Mediterranean region and the Near East, where written and oral accounts record the existence of a tribe of women warriors who lived and fought together, taking men to sire children but destroying any boy babies who resulted, rearing only the girls. Amazons were also famous for their skill in horse taming and were among the first people in history to be recorded fighting on horseback. Their association with horses is evident from the recurrence of the Greek
hippos
(horse) in their names: three Amazons known by name were Hippolyta (stamping horse), Melanippe (black mare), and Alcippe (powerful mare).

Most famous of all the Amazons was the queen Hippolyta, who became the target of the great hero Heracles around 1250
BCE
, when he demanded her girdle, the symbol of her sacred and sexual power. The whole tribe of Amazons rose against him in anger, and Hippolyta met him in pitched battle, where she was thrown from her horse and lay helpless at Heracles' feet. He offered to spare her life if she would submit to him, and she chose to die rather than yield. Heracles killed her, stripped her of her girdle, seized her battle-axe, and slaughtered all the other Amazon champions, one by one. Only when the tribe had been savagely reduced did the Amazon commander Melanippe seek a truce. Heracles granted it on condition that she, too, give up her girdle, symbolically handing all her power as queen and woman over to him. Heracles then raped her and let her go, knowing the humiliation would be worse than death.

Heracles gave another of the surviving Amazons, Antiope, to his friend Theseus, who bore her off to Athens as his concubine. The remaining Amazons mounted a war party to rescue her and in the succeeding battle, Antiope was killed and the Amazon force was heavily defeated and driven off.

The Amazons suffered many such assaults at the hands of the Greeks, who were bent on imposing their patriarchal rule on tribes who followed the older earth religion of the Great Goddess, a belief system honoring womankind and led by queens. Driven to revenge, the Amazon queen Penthesilea traveled to Troy around 1250
BCE
to fight on behalf of the Trojans, who were also at war with the invading Greeks. She fought with great distinction on the Trojan side and more than once drove the greatest champion of the Greeks, Achilles, from the field.

But in their final encounter, Achilles ran her through. Stripping the dying body of its armor, Achilles realized for the first time that his enemy was a woman and, falling in love or lust with her as she died, had sex with her body while it was still warm. Another Greek, the troublemaker Thersites, taunted Achilles for his sexual perversion and boasted that he had gouged out Penthesilea's eyes with his spear while she was still alive. Achilles promptly killed him, and in revenge one of Thersites' kinsmen dragged Penthesilea's body around the battlefield by the heels and threw it into the River Scamander (the modern-day Menderes), before it was finally rescued and buried with great honor. Penthesilea was the last true Amazon, and the tribe died with her.

Astonishing stories—but are they truth or myth? Later historians, writing in more strait-laced times, puzzled over the anomaly of women who chose to fight. The word “Amazon” was taken apart and interpreted as deriving from the Greek
a
(without) and
mazos
(breast). This paved the way for the explanation that these fighting women cut off their right breasts to improve their skill at arms.

This fanciful derivation of the Amazons' name is now known to be linguistically spurious as well as anatomically ridiculous: how many women have a right breast so unmanageable that they cannot swing a sword or draw a bow? It also implies that women who want to fight must be so perverted and unnatural that they would mutilate themselves. This detail adds a thrill of violence and horror to the eternal fascination of male-dominated societies with women's breasts. Perhaps this explains why this piece of nonsense has passed into common currency and remains the only “fact” many people know about the Amazons.