Private Mary Spencer-Churchill, Auxiliary Territorial Service, 1941

Photograph, World War Two (1939-1945), 1941.

Mary Spencer-Churchill (later Lady Soames) (1922-2014) was the youngest child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. She was born and raised at Chartwell, the Churchill's country house in Kent, where she enjoyed a happy childhood.

Churchill joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in 1941. She was inspired to do so after overhearing General Pile, commanding officer of Anti-Aircraft Command, complaining to her father, then Prime Minister, of the lack of men for anti-aircraft batteries. On hearing her father, reply 'No, I can't spare the men, you'll have to use women' she and her cousin, Judy Montagu, rushed off to join up, requesting to go into the mixed batteries. At this time, these units were the closest that women could come to engaging in combat with the enemy.

Despite her enthusiasm, Churchill found that her celebrity status could make her life in the Army difficult and she recounted how 'I was received pretty frostily as everyone expected you to be above yourself. But once they discovered you scrubbed as many, if not more, floors as they did, they accepted one. But I hated going to a new unit because there was a wall of suspicion and antipathy both from officers and your own ranks.'

Churchill served with anti-aircraft batteries in Enfield and Hyde Park, London, where she was visited by her father and other dignitaries. She also accompanied her father as his aide-de-camp on important missions to Canada in 1943 and Potsdam in 1945. Following the D-Day invasion of June 1944, her battery was deployed to Belgium and Germany to support the Allied armies as they advanced.

Churchill continued in service with the ATS until 1946, rising to the rank of Junior Commander. After the war she married Christopher Soames and supported him in his political and diplomatic career. This notably included appointments as British Ambassador to France and as the last Governor-General of Rhodesia in 1979-1980. She also gained acclaim as a writer, publishing a successful biography of her mother in 1979. This became the first in a series of works about her family.

One of 102 photographs relating to personalities and individuals serving the Auxiliary Territorial Service, 1939-1949 (c).