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Locals share their Defence Force experiences

 

 

thumbnail 8 MF-Poppyday Ann aged 21-973Kaipara has its share of local woman who have dedicated their time and skills to the armed services, from nurses, midwives and Army personnel, to leaders of the local cadets and serving as Wrens aka Women’s Royal Naval Service.

Mangawhai Heads resident Ann Dowson (pictured aged 21) was a petty officer and communications-signals officer in the Women’s Royal New Zealand Naval Service from 1959-61. Working on teleprinters, Dowson and her colleagues were responsible for the ongoing communication between different bases and ships at sea. Although most of her time in service was spent on land, Dowson says there did come a day when she set sail.

“I went to sea for half a day on a ship and got to fire a Bofors gun, similar to the one at the Hakaru RSA… it was the highlight of my career,” she laughs.

 

Army revolution
An Army officer for three years, local Sheryl Botica was part of a revolution that paved the way for women’s roles now available in today’s corps. Joining the New Zealand Army in 1967, and after completing her basic training in Burnham, Otago, Botica was transferred to Papakura base, where she eventually met her husband Peter, also in the army, between his three tours of duty in Vietnam.

Promoted to lance corporal after a year, ‘though could have been a lot higher than what it was but I had a lot of fun’, Botica worked in the transport company and supply depot as an office clerk.

“However, we kicked up a fuss as none of us joined the army to be office workers, we could do that as civilians, we wanted to do Army stuff, to be military trained. We went on weekend camps, did abseiling, went to rifle ranges, learned how to use machine guns, did fire courses which meant going into burning buildings and finding our way out… we did a lot of things women in the Army never did before,” she says. “We started it off really for all the girls who now can go straight into engineering, artillery and other sections.”

thumbnail Sheryl Botica-207Botica says she and her friends achieved their goal by constantly ‘nagging our commander’ who passed the message up the hierarchy.

“We were just lucky we had someone high up in the Army who thought ‘ok let them have a go’. They probably thought that it might be fun to watch us fail, but we proved them wrong.”

At the time women in the Army had a night-time curfew where their male counterparts had free range, Botica says, and the women found ways around the

restrictions and nightly bed checks, including a well-placed rubbish bin underneath their bedroom window.

“It was just the way it was… we didn’t really think that part was unfair,” she says. “It was like being in a camp with 20 or so girls and 400 brothers, they always looked out for you, made sure you got home okay from parties, that sort of thing. It was a really great atmosphere.”

 

Ann Dowson, pictured aged 21, was involved with communications in the Women’s Royal New Zealand Naval Service. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

By making a fuss, Sheryl Botica says women did a lot of things in the Army they never did before. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

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