FIVE DIFFERENT THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE WRENS

1. In World War Two the jobs undertaken by ‘The Wrens’ extended far beyond traditional ’female’ roles.  They repaired ships, they maintained and fitted torpedoes, they  drove every type of mechanical transport, they kept the secrets of D-Day strictly to themselves, and they operated the plots which allowed command to keep control of operations, among  a host of specialisations.
2. The WRNS was a highly desirable service in which to serve. Smaller than the other two women’s services and more tightly knit it had a high degree of spirit and pride in the uniform and the service.  During a period when conscription was common to fill the vacancies, the Wrens was an all-volunteer service and at times competition to get in was fierce. 
3. The ‘Bombes’, the huge electro-mechanical computing devices invented by Alan Turing to crack incoming German messages at Bletchley Park, were operated by a specialist group of Wrens who spent long hours servicing them and passing on the results to the code-crackers. They all signed the Official Secrets Act and kept strictest secrecy about their work until many years after the war’s end.
4. Despite being a uniformed service run on military lines, legally the Wrens were civilians throughout the war. The other women’s services came under the military discipline acts in 1941 but the admirals with responsibility for the Wrens refused to put them under such draconian rules.  Their view was that the ladies of the Wrens could be expected to behave properly without the need for the harsh regime of the Naval Discipline Act.   Given their exemplary record of reliable service, perhaps the admirals were right. 
5. At the war’s end most of the Wrens were demobbed and returned to civilian life. But a small rump of a service was kept on and formed the basis for women’s involvement in the Navy in the post-war years.  As society ashore evolved in the years that followed, so did the role of the Wrens and after first going to sea as Wrens in 1993, the women of the Wrens were absorbed into the Navy and the WRNS as such ceased to exist.  But its ethos of service to the Navy remained and the women who in the twenty-first century take for granted their right to stand alongside the men at sea and ashore, have the long tradition of the Wrens to thank for their status now.