The Women's Royal Navy Service (WRNS)

The Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS; popularly and officially known as the Wrens) was and still currently is the women’s branch of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy. Women’s Royal Navy Service was one of the first armed forces groups to recruit women. The Women’s Royal Navy Service had a rather large impact on World War One. The WRNS were women that joined the Navy to help temporarily replace the men and temporarily take over their jobs when they were gone, because the men were fighting on the front lines. When recruiting, the slogan "Join the Wrens—free a man for the fleet" (WRNS) was often used on posters and used when women were trying to recruit the local women into the organization. The organization was founded in 1917, during WWI. Dame Katharine Furse started the program to free the men to let them fight in the war. “This organization potentially freed up 12,000 men for service in the front line” (Sarah Patterson). The group started off with 3,000 women and later doubled when more jobs were introduced to the women to take on and the women's interests were also sparked to help the men.
She was fed up with the Red Cross organization that she was in and wanted to actually help the men. She was interested in women working in the “men’s place”. She helped start other organizations such as Voluntary Aid Detachment and was part founder in The Girl Scouts. She wrote several letters asking to start an organization for women to help in the military and was denied multiple times. She wrote several letters to Neville Chamberlain to express her wanting to help in the military. “A letter to Neville Chamberlain dated January 15th 1917 demonstrates Furse’s frustration” (Royal Museums Greenwich). Neville later helped Katharine start her organization, by talking to the correct people in the