The Forgotten Army of the Women’s Timber Corps
By: Cindy Heath
Tags: World War II, Cooking, Alaska, Feminism, History

The Forgotten Army of the Women’s Timber Corps

A famous cookbook author was one of the Lumber Jills of WWII.

Photo credit Wikicommons

Diana Kennedy is one of my heroes. A noted cookbook author, self-declared ethno-gastronomer, environmentalist, and all-around badass, she’s 97 years old, lives by herself, and sleeps with a loaded .25 under her pillow.

She lives in her “ecological house” built of handmade adobe and recycled materials, outside Zitácuaro in western Mexico. Her studies of native edible plants have been digitized by the National Committee for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity in Mexico.

Kennedy helped inspire an increased world-wide appreciation of authentic Mexican cooking, traveling the country, and writing nine cookbooks.

In a 2019 New York Times interview, Diana said, “I learned everything from wartime.” She says nothing’s worse than apathy and ruder than waste.

She still grows a lot of her own food, including coffee, that she roasts herself. Kennedy spent 17 years traveling throughout Mexico cataloging edible plants and noting recipes.

She grew up in the U.K. and joined the Timber Corps during World War II.

Recently, I learned another fascinating fact about her that inspired my curiosity. She was a member of the Timber Corps of the Women’s Land Army during World War II, and I wondered how this experience shaped her future.

I grew up on a homestead in Alaska, and the neighbor woman carried a rifle, in case of bears, while she picked berries. Looking back, my experiences gave me confidence in my strength and resilience I might not otherwise have, and I thought of these women, only a few of whom had grown up in the country.

Diana Kennedy must have already been willing to stand up for what she believed when she signed up for the Corps. She refused to cut down trees, so she spent the war years in Wales, sizing up suitable trees as one of the measurers. These experiences surely contributed to her love of nature and independence as she later traveled solo through Mexico studying indigenous plants.

Photographer unknown. Credit to the UK Ministry of Information

The Women’s Timber Corps had its roots in the pre-war years, Britain,1939. War seemed likely, and officials feared it would disrupt the national food supply, as they called men to military service. The Women’s Land Army was formed to encourage women to supplement the supply of farmworkers. Eventually, women were drafted, and by 1944 it had over 80,000 members.

World War II started, and factories needed more beech wood for aircraft manufacturing. Demand for wood props to hold up mine tunnels also increased.

The Lumber Jills were created to fill the gap.

Men had been the sawyers, tractor, and truck drivers, but they were being called into military service. Necessity broke down the former bias against women in the logging industry, and the Women’s Timber Corps was formed.

About 250 women a month joined the group, informally called the ‘Lumber Jills’, a take-off on Lumber Jacks. As long as a woman was healthy, she needed no experience, just enthusiasm, resilience, and good humor.

For six weeks, instructors trained the recruits in the needed skills — handling draft horses, using axes and saws, and running the sawmills.

The Corps opened doors of autonomy and self-sufficiency for women who felt hemmed in by the expectations of 1930s society. Many of these women left the Corps with a deep appreciation for the forests and nature.

Along with stronger bodies, many had a greater sense of freedom and purpose. Many of the Lumber Jills, including Diana Kennedy, left the UK for Canada, possibly as a result of meeting many Canadian soldiers who served in the UK.

By comparison, in the United States, it wasn’t until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the Forest Service hired women for field positions. Some jobs such as smokejumper remained off-limits until 1981.

The fieldwork of the Forest Service is strictly a man’s job because of the physical requirements, the arduous nature of the work, and the work environment. —1950 official USFS employment leaflet

Thanks to women like those who served in the Women’s Land Army and the Timber Corps, it became obvious that females could get the job done. They created opportunities for future generations of women to work wherever they choose.

Russell Meiggs, the timber industry's official WW2 historian, referred to a few ‘female Amazons who rivalled men’.

Another commenter, James Tait, remarked ‘‘I have to admit that a mere man will have to take care if he is to be recognised as a forester in the future. The woman in charge could lay a tree with the best of men and it is some considerable time since I saw anyone so knacky [proficient] in the handling of an axe.”

— from The Forgotten Army of the Woods: The Women’s Timber Corps during the Second World War by Emma Vickers