Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, the women's auxiliary services were revived in Britain. Disbanded in the aftermath of the First World War, they were re-formed to undertake ancillary tasks for the army, RAF and Royal Navy in time of war. This chapter investigates the re-establishment of these women's services as events in Europe were becoming increasingly ominous.

The conclusion explores how the wartime women’s auxiliary services represented a considerable gender advance for women, as well as a transformative experience for many servicewomen. But the women’s services did not achieve equality with their ‘parent’ services; across a wide spectrum of military life servicewomen were treated differently to their male counterparts. Perceptions of bravery could also be gendered and to illustrate this the book is rounded off by the story of WRNS officer Audrey Roche, who, in 1943, was mentioned in despatches for having helped save the life of a sailor at sea.

This chapter examines the release scheme for the women’s forces and the steps taken to help prepare servicewomen for re-entry into civilian life. It also recounts the deliberations within the service ministries leading up to the inauguration of the permanent women’s services in 1949. These, for the first time, afforded women an opportunity to forge a career with the British armed forces.

On the eve of war, the range of jobs undertaken by the women's services was limited in scope. But once hostilities commenced, new job opportunities opened up as manpower shortages compelled the military authorities to broaden the span of employments in order to release servicemen for combatant duties. This chapter investigates this expansion of roles. It also investigates workplace interactions between servicemen and women and the service departments’ assessments of female performance. In the ATS, auxiliaries served in mixed-sex anti-aircraft batteries and particular attention is paid to these female ‘gunners’.

At the start of the war, members of the ATS, WAAF and WRNS were technically civilians and not subject to the full panoply of military law as incorporated in the Army Act, Air Force Act, and the Naval Discipline Act. This chapter describes how the ATS and WAAF were given military status and sections of the Army and Air Force Acts were applied to these forces. The WRNS, however, was excluded from this process of militarisation and was not brought under the Naval Discipline Act.

The dramatic events of the interwar period constituted a watershed, separating millennia of interconnectedness and interdependency in the Persian Gulf from an era of geopolitical rivalry and Arab-Iranian conflict. Indeed, these two decades heralded the dawn of economic and political modernity in the Persian Gulf subregion. This period witnessed the collapse of the Qajar dynasty, the coming to the fore of Reza Shah Pahlavi and his assumption of the nationalist mantle, the introduction of nationalist policies into the Persian Gulf, and the incorporation of the Gulf Arab shaykhdoms into the Arab nationalist awakening. Reza Shah’s Iran took issue with Britain’s dominant position in the Gulf and rejected its claim to protect the Arab shaykhs of the southern littoral and strove to make Iran the main security provider in the Persian Gulf waterway. Iran’s ambition to gain sovereignty over the entire Persian Gulf region and regain territories of its former days was an ambition that resonated in the minds of many Iranian people. Iran’s bellicose policies also made a substantial and lasting impression on the rulers and inhabitants of the Gulf Arab shaykhdoms.

The geopolitical rivalry between the Gulf Arab states and Iran has its origins in the interwar period, the period between the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which marked the end of the First World War, until 1941 when the Persian Gulf became a theater of the Second World War. The interwar period was a formative period because it marked a transition from a Gulf society characterized by symbiosis and interdependency to a subregion characterized by national divisions, sectarian suspicions, rivalries, and political tension. The introduction of Iranian nationalism to the Persian Gulf waterway, islands, and littoral and the unprecedented interventions of the British government in the Arab shaykhdoms including Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ras al-Khaimah, constituted a watershed in the history of the Persian Gulf, disrupted centuries of unrestricted movement, refashioned frameworks of exchange between the two shores, and forged an acute Arab-Iranian dichotomy that would characterize the Persian Gulf into the twenty-first century.

This chapter discusses Iranian nationalism during the years of Reza Khan’s rise as a nationalism rooted in territorial concepts. It describes how the emerging military rule of Reza Khan coalesced with the foreign policy efforts of the Iranian statesmen until parliamentary politics were overshadowed by the military’s arbitrary rule. Against this backdrop, the greater part of the chapter is devoted to depicting Iran's policy toward the Persian Gulf and toward the Arab shaykhdoms in the Gulf during the period of Reza Khan's rise, and the rhetoric and conduct of Iranian officials in the port towns and islands where the paths of Arabs and Iranians from different walks of life intersected. The assertion of central authority over Arabistan (renamed Khuzestan) is viewed as a decisive step in Iran’s more ambitious goal of reducing British influence in the Persian Gulf waterway, islands, and littoral.

This chapter examines the intersection between Trucial States, Iran, and the British during the interwar years with a particular emphasis on the crises of 1926‒1929. The events surrounding Iran's reoccupation of Hengam in 1928 and capture of an Arab dhow off the coast of Greater Tunb Island can serve as an apt example of how the Arab rulers and merchants of the Gulf perceived Iran and the British during the interwar years. The chapter concludes with an examination of the shifting power distribution within the shaykhdoms in the 1930s, due to the collapse of the pearl industry and the rise of revenues from air and oil agreements, with particular attention to the position of the Iranian immigrant communities in the Trucial States

This chapter analyzes Iran’s policy toward the Persian Gulf during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. The analysis is roughly divided into three periods: the years of 1925‒1932, during which time Reza Shah's court minister, Teymurtash, tried unsuccessfully to regularize the situation in the Persian Gulf through negotiations with the British government; the year of 1933 during which time various crises in the Persian Gulf arising from local challenges to British authority became part of the negotiation process; and the period of 1934‒1941 during which time Iran, encouraged by British withdrawal from Hengam and Basidu, strengthened its reliance on the tactics of deception, bluff, and intrigue in pursuit of its aspiration to obtain a paramount position in the Persian Gulf. This analysis is preceded by a brief discussion of the nature of the Pahlavi state because it provides the necessary context for Iran’s policy toward the Persian Gulf.