The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-09-26
Hank! Hark! Hark! The Girls Are Marching!
1000 British Ton,niettes Aid British Troops at Front
English Women Prove They Can
Excel in All War Work Ex-
cept Actual Fighting
BY KENNETH w. PAYNE.
(Staff Correspondent in London Of the
Do;l mi

Daily Tribune.)
London, Sept. 2C.-And now it's the
Tommiette!
Behind the zone of fire at the Rri-
fish front in France, billets for 1000
girl soldiers have just been COM
pleted!
And the girl soldiers are already on
the job, actively helping their brother
Tommies win the war
They are snappily disciplined men,
bers of the Women's Army Auxiliary
corps-the "W. A. A. c." They have
enlisted for one year or the duration
of the war, Which implies that it's
likely to be long war yet; and when
it has finally been won there will be
serious question whether women or
men did most.
Short Of actual fighting there are
few kinds of work behind the front
these girl soldiers will not soon have
taken over. Drivers in the motor
transport service, orderlies, military
telegraph and telephone workers, air.
plane repairers, mechanics, cooks, car.
penters, shoemakers, tailors and mes
sengers-the list of their occupations
is endless.
For every four Tommiettes, three
Tommies are released to do actual
fighting, the only war work in which
men can still excel.
1t is hardly so years since any war
service was though impossible for
women. Florence Nightingale opened
up the hospital field. Today almost
the only men in the big military hos
pitfalls are the wounded soldiers and
the surgeons. In the Third London
general hospital, caring for 1000 sol
diers, are 500 women, nurses, order
lies, mattresses, cooks and masseuses.
They are quicker, gentler, more eff
cient.
The munitions works are practical |
ly run by mum tionettes, 25 to so per
cent more efficient than men.
The ministry Of munitions has just !
asked for more women to make air.
planes. In this work of extreme deli |
cacy, such as measuring to the ten
thousandth part of an inch, their |
hands and eyes are more precise.
Ill tuc Clfllldu
which they have released men for the
front, the efficiency of the women has
long been familiar here. Thousands
are on the farms, hoeing, harvesting,
dairying. In London the girl bus con-
ductors, working 10 hours day six
days a week, for about 81 a day with
a war bonus of $1.25 week, have be.
come such models of CHEEKY public
servants that nobody wants them to
quit.
In the postoffice 10000 women have
taken the places of men. Policewom-l
en- are familiar personages now in
Hyde park and Leicester square.
And yet, while all London was ia. !
miliar with these successes, there has !.
been a tendency the past summer to
smile patrOnizingly at the uniformed
girls patiently drilling in Hyde park.
What were they good for?
And suddenly London has been
awakened to the fact that they are
actually members of an officially rec
ognized military force, the Women's
Army Auxiliary corps. Their drilling
has been in grim earnest, and now
they have marched off to France as
soldiers to take up the work only en-.
listed Tommies did before.
: {: : :: = : = : : {: : : : : : :
: GIRLS WAR SONG. =
:. The Tommiettes haven't yet ::
= developed their own songs, but :
= the land girls" since early :
: spring replacing men on the :
:. farms, have whole bookful :
(: Tune, 1.-THE Long, Long Trail" :
:. There's long, long line of hoe ::
= ing
:. Before my lunch draws nigh. I:
:: There's big, big space inside :
: me :
: For that piece of apple pie. :
:: Its long, long time since break ::
/: fast, :
:: But when my dreams come !:
:: true, :
:. I'll be tearing down yon path :
:: way /"
:: To my pork and rabbit stew" {:
{: :: =: :: = :: :. :. :: I: : : : :. :: :"