[ Broadside ]. Join the Wrens and Free a Man for the Fleet

[London: Stationery Office, [n.d., ca. 1939-1944.] The publisher and location of the present item are uncertain, but similar recruitment posters were printed by the Stationery Office in London. . Buff paper sheet. . Broadside, 15 " x 23". Richly color-printed with an illustration of a Wrens member saluting. Lettered in black, silver, and gold. Creased, b400ut now stored flat. Pinpoint holes at corners (where poster was hung up). A very good, bright, and clean copy of a fragile and scarce recruiting poster for the Wrens, the women's branch of the British Royal Navy. The Women's Royal Naval Service, popularly known as the Wrens, was formed during World War I. It was disbanded in 1919, then revived in 1939 for World War II under the direction of Dame Vera Laughton Mathews. At its peak in 1944, there were 75,000 enlisted Wrens, who filled a wide variety of roles including transport plane pilots, weapons analysts, mechanics, engineers, and as staff at the Government Code and Cypher School, where both men and women worked to crack the German Enigma and Lorenz codes. The Wrens were one of several branches of women in the British armed forces, along with the Women's Royal Air Force and the British Women's Army Corps. Other nations had similar branches, including the WAVES and the WASPs, the women's branches of the United States Navy and Air Force, respectively. The Wrens remained active until their incorporation into the Royal Navy in 1993. (Inventory #: 17320)