Untold stories - Women in the Armed Forces

My name is Maureen Dickson; I want to raise funds necessary to complete and publish a book about the young women of colour who fought for Britain in WWI and WWII but whose stories have been untold. The funds will also be used for travel to obtain interviews needed to complete the book. These women are dying out, so we must tell their stories, as, without them, we would have lost an essential part of history. (See Video)

I became interested in Black History after speaking to my terminally ill father about his childhood and experiences as a teenager during the war. I became passionate about the subject after realising that so few people knew that people of colour fought in the war, let alone that there were, Pilots and Navigators.

During my research for my first book, “Pilots and Soldiers of the Caribbean: Fighting Men of the Caribbean,” I discovered that very little was said about the women who contributed to the war effort in WWI and WWII. Not only in the Caribbean but Africa

and America.

Their journey was challenging; women in the West Indies faced problems from the war office who did not want them. However, when they discovered they were short of staff, they accepted them but with restrictions.

The women of colour who joined the Armed Forces had to be financially viable to pay their fair to travel to Britain to help in the war effort. It was also stipulated that they had to come from an excellent upper-middle-class family with good manners.

They came because they wanted to help Britain fight against a common enemy, as they believed her when she said she was “The Mother Country.”