Princess Elizabeth and war service

Many lists state that on 25 February 1942 Princess Elizabeth, heir to the British throne, registered for war service. The date needs correcting. Elizabeth, born on 21 April 1926, did not turn 16 until April 1942, and only then did the duty to register young people apply to her. She registered on Saturday 25 April 1942, exactly two months later than those lists say. Another date, however, does belong to February: on 24 February 1945 Elizabeth was appointed an honorary second subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s auxiliary service of the British Army. The two events form a single story: how the most important girl in the country shared the wartime duties of her generation.

The princesses in wartime

When her father came to the throne as George VI in December 1936, ten-year-old Elizabeth became heir presumptive. The outbreak of war in September 1939 found the royal family at Balmoral in Scotland. There were suggestions that the princesses, like thousands of British children, should be sent somewhere safe, preferably to Canada. Queen Elizabeth is said to have answered with words that went round the country: the children would not go without her, she would not leave without the King, and the King would never leave. Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret stayed in Britain. After spells at Balmoral and Sandringham, from May 1940 they lived for most of the war at Windsor Castle.

On 13 October 1940 the fourteen-year-old Elizabeth spoke on the radio for the first time. On the BBC programme Children’s Hour she addressed children evacuated from the cities, including those sent to Canada, Australia and the United States. She said that the children at home were trying to help “our gallant sailors, soldiers and airmen” and to bear their own share of “the danger and sadness of war”, and assured them that “in the end all will be well”. At the close she asked her sister to join her in saying goodnight to the children. At Windsor the princesses put on pantomimes every Christmas, the proceeds of which went to the Queen’s fund for buying wool for soldiers’ jumpers and gloves. Elizabeth belonged to a Girl Guide company and later to the Sea Rangers.

Registration in April 1942

Year by year Britain drew on ever wider sections of the population. From the spring of 1941 successive age groups of women registered at labour exchanges, and an act passed in December 1941 introduced the conscription of unmarried women aged 20–30 into the auxiliary services, civil defence and industry. Registration also covered young people aged 16–18. This was not conscription: the aim was for the authorities to know what every teenager was doing and to encourage those who did not belong to any organisation to join youth organisations, preparatory courses or auxiliary work.

Elizabeth’s 16th birthday, on 21 April 1942, was the first occasion for a public appearance. In January 1942 the Duke of Connaught, a son of Queen Victoria and since 1904 Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, a regiment of Foot Guards, had died. The King appointed his daughter as his successor, and according to most biographers Elizabeth inspected the Grenadiers at Windsor on her birthday, which is regarded as her first public engagement in her own right. Four days later, on 25 April, she reported to the labour exchange as the regulations required, like the other sixteen-year-olds of her age group. The press reported it, presenting it as proof that the royal family did not place itself above the duties of its subjects.

The King, however, would not allow the heir to the throne to take up work or service. It was felt that she was too young and should continue her education, including the history of government and the constitution, in which she was being prepared by the Vice-Provost of Eton College, Henry Marten. Elizabeth, who wanted to do the same as girls of her age, pressed her father for three years. In the process she discovered how different the position of an heir to the throne was from that of an ordinary sixteen-year-old: her registration was of symbolic rather than practical significance.

Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor

The change came in the last year of the war. In 1943 parliament amended the regency legislation so that once she turned 18 Elizabeth could become one of the Counsellors of State who deputised for the King during his absence. She performed this role for the first time in July 1944, when George VI was visiting the troops in Italy. On 24 February 1945 she became an honorary second subaltern in the ATS, with service number 230873. She took a driving and mechanics course at the motor transport training centre at Camberley near Aldershot. She learnt to drive lorries and ambulances, read maps, change wheels and strip down engines. She did not, however, live in barracks: she returned to Windsor at night, and her training was individual, which set her service apart from the ordinary kind. Towards the end of the course her parents visited her, and photographs of the princess in overalls beside an engine went round the press. In July 1945 she was promoted to honorary junior commander, the equivalent of captain.

Elizabeth is considered to have been the first woman of the royal family to serve on active duty in the armed forces. At its peak the ATS numbered about 200,000 women, and almost half a million served in all the British women’s auxiliary services. Among them was the daughter of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Mary Soames, in a mixed anti-aircraft battery.

Place in the war

Elizabeth’s service had no influence on the course of the war, and her registration in April 1942 was a gesture. But the gesture mattered in a country that in February 1942 was living through the worst weeks of the war: the surrender of Singapore and the passage of German warships through the English Channel. The royal family, which had not left the country, visited bombed cities and shared in rationing, was one of the things that held the British home front together, and the heir to the throne in uniform showed that the duty of service applied to everyone.

On 8 May 1945, VE Day, Elizabeth and Margaret went out incognito into the streets of London and celebrated among the crowds outside Buckingham Palace. In 1952 Elizabeth came to the throne as Elizabeth II. She reigned for more than 70 years and towards the end of her life was the last serving head of state to have worn uniform during the Second World War.