Women in Combat

Nancy Wake – “The Socialite Who Killed a Nazi With Her Bare Hands”

Women Warriors.

Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

I thought the recent news story of the combat ban (for women) being lifted was intriguing. I have to admit, my initial reaction was a flurry of mixed feelings.

On the one hand, you imagine the horrible, gritty, and even dehumanizing experiences people have to go through when engaged or subjected to battle, but on the other, women fighting for their cause and their country is nothing new! We’ve been doing it forever, in one form or another.

One of the best experiences I had when researching and writing The Tower’s Alchemist was learning the stories of the brave women who not only spied during WWII, but fought behind enemy lines. If you’ve followed my blog or read any of my guest posts about the Special Operations Executive, you know what I’m talking about. These women were parachuted into Nazi-occupied France and did everything from espionage to sabotaging Nazis, and yes, some even engaged in gun fights along the way.

So, when I think of women in combat, I think of amazing women like Nancy Wake, Noor Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo, and a host of other ladies who were truly “women warriors.” During WWII many did not like the idea of women spying and fighting against the enemy the way these women did, and their deeds were even scorned as “cloak and dagger” work by the male-dominated intelligence community.

Well, I guess that’s why they were known as The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare 🙂