Type: Lab
Hannah’s research project focused on my grandmother’s wartime diaries while serving in the Women’s Royal Navy (WRNS) to shed light on the female war experience and the role that women undertook. By focusing on the pivotal days surrounding the D-Day landings in June 1944, she put her grandmother’s diaries in conversation with other wartime accounts to understand the female experience. Hannah presented her research in the form of a blog that has allowed her to analyze the entries in the context of other oral historical accounts and the wider narrative of the war. Her research focused on four aspects: the changing role of women, expectations placed on women, representations of women, and how women perceived themselves. Despite greater expectations placed on women to ‘play their part’ in the war effort, the diaries reveal how young women like my grandmother benefitted from independence, friendship, satisfaction, and pride.