RUSSIAN WOMEN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 61, 21 December 1943, Page 4

RUSSIAN WOMEN.

THEIR WORK IN WARTIME.

MEN’S TASKS ACCOMPLISHED. The astonishing capacity of Russian women for hard work was one of the most vivid impressions remaining with Mr R. Watson-Jones, one of a group of British surgeons who recently visited the Soviet Union, accompanied by surgeons from, the United States and Canada. An example of the value of women to Russia was the fact that the Inspector-Gen-eral of Medical Services of the Red Ai’my was a woman.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Mr Watson-Jones describes having seen women doctors, surgeons and nurses working in the front line, many of them wearing the chevrons of multiple wounds. “Men employed in repairing roads and relaying tram-tracks worked with an intensity which reminded us of home,” writes Mr Watson-Jones, “but the women who shared their strenuous task paused less often and were more Girls of 18 and 19 drive teams and scramble on to roofs to repair the trolley-arm. Traffic is controlled by sturdy women police armed with black-and-white striped truncheon and with a pistol at the hip. Hundreds of miles of military roads are guarded by women soldiers with tommy-guns. “Not only do nurses attend the wounded, but in intervals of battle they build the hospitals. One of the front-line hospitals we visited was built in territory which only a few months ago was occupied by the enemy. Within four months a 2000bed hospital had almost been completed by nurses, who are obviously skilled in the use of the saw, the plane and the spirit level. “It was not easy do form* an immediate impression of the people of Moscow because the closing of all shops, except a few supplying food, the lack of colour, lighting, decorating and flowers, the disappearance of dogs, cats and pets, the wearing of shoddy clothes and footwear so that, the Army might be well-clad, and the limitation of amusement to an occasional seat at the ballet are the restrictions of war, and they emphasise unduly the solid, determined, plodding, almost expressionless features of men and women in the streets.

“Life in Russia has been hard and the pleasures few. There is no sign of malnutrition, and the rations of the workers are comparable with those in England. There have been privations, and the faces of the people show it. It was impossible to mistake the spirit of overwhelming hospitality and it, was impossible to misjudge the very cordial friendship which developed.”