Photograph of a West Indian member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), 1943-47.

In October 1943 a group of 30 women from across the Caribbean arrived in Britain. Motivated by loyalty to the ‘mother country’, they were the vanguard of over 100 West Indian women eventually recruited to the ATS in Britain. Despite the wartime personnel shortage these pioneers faced a long struggle to be accepted for enlistment by a sexist and racist War Office that seemed determined to restrict black people from the British women’s military services.

One of 69 photographs relating to the West Indies Auxiliary Territorial Service, 1943-1947.