Rules for ATS

What the VADS (Voluntary Aid Detachment) were to World War I, the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) are to this one--tens of thousands of British women, mostly below 40, enlisted to serve with the British Expeditionary Force. Besides driving cars, ATS duties include clerking, signaling, courier service, running canteens. Like the VADS, the gallant ATS come in for a lot of British ragging. Because their daily basic meat ration is 8 oz. (compared to about 3 oz. for civilians), the Daily Express calls them EATS. Because they are invited en masse to Army dances and sociables, their love life is an inexhaustible subject for wisecracks.

Director of the worthy ATS is Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan (TIME, Oct. 9). Overseas ATS commander (called "Top Ats" by the Tommies) is crisp, efficient Mrs. Kathleen Molly Fuller-Maitland, horsey wife of a major heroically wounded in War I. Last fortnight Mrs. Fuller-Maitland arrived in France with six assistants, including a former parlormaid, to make all ready for her main force to join the B. E. F. One of her first acts was to post a list of rules which ATS must obey at the front:

> All are subject to military law, the same as soldiers.

> They will get four-fifths of soldiers' field rations, four-fifths the pay (46 1/2-c- per day).

> They may wear silk stockings but no frills or gimcracks with their regulation khaki uniform.

> They may use powder & lipstick.

> Army barbers will bob their hair, though they may wear it long if they keep it neat.

> ATS officers may go walking with B. E. F. officers, ATS rankers with Tommies, but officers of one service may not keep company with privates of the other, though they may eat together in public restaurants.

> ATS may enter Army canteens and visit soldiers' messes if invited.

> If ATS marry B. E. F. soldiers, they must go home, under an Army rule prohibiting wives in the military areas of France.

To quell the "quite inaccurate" publicity accorded these rules, Dame Gwynne-Vaughan gave a Women Journalists' Jamboree last week at Brighton, but added little to ATS lore beyond stating: "The qualities sought in a young ATS officer include something of the motherliness of the matron in a boys' school. The girls bring their troubles to her."

Trouble indeed ensued at an ATS dance last week in Catterick, Yorkshire. When an outside sentry gave the blackout midnight challenge and received no reply, he fired a shot through the dance-room window. The bullet smashed a bottle on the bar, gravely wounded one Signalman Chapman.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.