Worldwide
Several hundred thousand women served in combat roles, especially in anti-aircraft units. This necessity to use the skills and the time of women was heightened by the nature of the war itself. While World War I was mainly fought in France and was a war arguably without clear aggressor or villain, World War II involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale against certain aggressors. In these circumstances the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable. The hard skilled labor of women was symbolized in the United States by the concept of Rosie the Riveter, a woman factory laborer performing what was previously considered man's work. The war in Europe ended in May 1945. At this time there were 460,000 women in the military and over 6.5 million in civilian war work. Without their contribution, our war effort would have been severely weakened and it is probable that we would not have been able to fight to our greatest might without the input from women. Ironically, in Nazi Germany, Hitler had forbidden German women to work in German weapons factories as he felt that a woman’s place was at home. His most senior industry advisor, Albert Speer, pleaded with Hitler to let him use German female workers but right up to the end, Hitler refused. Hitler was happy for captured foreign women to work as slaves in his war factories but not German. Many of these slave workers, male and female, deliberately sabotaged the work that they did - so in their own way they helped the war effort of the Allies.
United Kingdom
In Britain, women were essential to the war effort, in both civilian and military roles. The contribution by civilian men and women to the British war effort was acknowledged with the use of the words "Home Front" to describe the battles that were being fought on a domestic level with rationing, recycling, and war work, such as in munitions factories and farms. Men were thus released into the military. Many women served with the Women's Auxiliary Fire Service, the Women's Auxiliary Police Corps and in the Air Raid Precautions services. Others did voluntary welfare work with Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defense and the salvation Army. Women were "drafted" in the sense that they were conscripted into war work by the Ministry of Labor including non-combat jobs in the military. British women were not drafted into combat units, but could volunteer for combat duty in anti-aircraft units, which shot down German planes and V-1 missiles. Civilian women joined the Special Operations Executive, which used them in high-danger roles as secret agents and underground radio operators in Nazi occupied Europe.
Soviet Union
Klavdiya Kalugina, Served in USSR military
The Soviet Union mobilized women at an early stage of the war, unlike most countries at the time they integrating them into the main army. Some 800,000 women served, most of whom were in front-line duty units. About 300,000 served in anti-aircraft units and performed all functions in the batteries—including firing the guns. A small number were combat flyers in the Air Force. Women played a large part in most of the armed forces of the Second World War. In most countries though, women tended to serve mostly in administrative, medical and in auxiliary roles. But in the Soviet Union women fought in larger numbers in front line roles. Of the over 800,000 women who served their Motherland in World War II; nearly 200,000 of them were decorated and 89 of them eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. They served as pilots, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles. Very few of these women, however, were ever promoted to officers.
America
Although the U.S. decided not to use women in combat because public opinion would not tolerate it, Nineteen million American women filled out the home front labor force, not only as workers in war factory jobs, but in transportation, agricultural, and office work of every variety. When the United States entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and other American territories in the Pacific, the US government called on women to contribute to the war. With hundreds of thousands of American men entering the military and going overseas, more women would work outside of the home than ever. Many would be promoted to positions never before attained by women, all the while managing their households alone for the first time. Though professional and personal growth opportunities were many, women’s main charge was to support the war and the men fighting it. The War Department stressed to women that the harder they worked, the quicker their brothers, husbands and sons would return home. There were just over a thousand women in the military before World War II, serving either as Army or Navy nurses stationed in the United States. When war broke out, women wanted to contribute militarily and fought for the opportunity to join. The Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps came to rely heavily on women in crucial stateside jobs, as well as work overseas. By the end of the war, there were more than 288,000 women in the US Armed Forces.