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Cataloguing Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service records from the Second World War
Blog posted by: Rosie Boutflower 06 October 2025.
In February 2023, the Ministry of Defence began the monumental task of transferring ten million personal records to The National Archives for permanent preservation. Among them are records on the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). What do they contain?
The ATS was the British army’s branch for women during the Second World War, performing a range of tasks to free up men of fighting age to go to front line units. I have been cataloguing records about the ATS to make them more accessible.
I started cataloguing the Palestine ATS records (WO 447) in October 2024, with over 4,000 individuals’ details captured for our database, Discovery. Once completed, I catalogued the Overseas Clearing Wing (WO 459) and I am now working on the British Auxiliary Territorial Service series (WO 440).
The data includes individuals’ forenames, surname, military number, age, marital status, religion, main military unit, enlistment, and discharge dates. There are no photographs of the individuals serving within the ATS in these record series.
The poster below demonstrates some of the many trades and roles women did once they enlisted and passed their training in the ATS.
National Savings poster: Action Stations, The ATS Go to War, 1939 to1945. Catalogue reference: NSC 5/854
Click here for the full press release
Original article link: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/the-collection-blog/cataloguing-ats-records-from-the-second-world-war/
