(V345005) Elizabeth Field Lucas née Ratten as a major, Australian Women's Army Service, interviewed by Harry Martin for The Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939-1945

Early life; cousins had served in FWW; saw England as the mother country; studied to be an artist; set up a company designing shop displays including graphic design; approached by Colonel Viney (Intelligence) to set up a Women’s Legion to counter bad propaganda by spreading propaganda rumours themselves; how they recruited women; in training learnt map reading, Morse code; selected as one of the first officers to form the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS); set up of AWAS; role as quartermaster then in charge of Victorian Lines of Communication (L of C) area; visiting a Japanese internment camp in Darwin; prejudice by men who thought women could not carry out roles; impact of women entering previously all-male camps; END OF PART ONE

Opinion of women in the frontline; some of her roles in AWAS; logistics of setting up camps for women; shared recreation with the men, dances etc; sex education; robbery while she was quartermaster; General Blamey; army life; discipline; move to South Australia L of C, then Tasmania as Assistant Controller; censorship role of officers; shortages in shops; END OF PART TWO;

Stockings; American soldiers; tensions between Australian and American men; General MacArthur; role in Tasmania; move to Northern Territory; mood in Darwin after the bombing; getting caught out of bounds; alcohol; uniform changes for the climate; Aboriginal women workers; role in NT; evacuated on the Westralia back to Victoria Barracks; conditions on the ship; VJ day; Controller of AWAS in Victoria to see to disbandment of the service and rehabilitation; longest serving member of AWAS- one of the first to join and the very last to leave; personal impact of war; cases of pregnancy in the AWAS; END OF PART THREE

Fiancée killed at Finschhafen; religion; bad moments in her service. END OF INTERVIEW