Thread by @zwerubae

#OTD in 1944, the Naval wing of the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India) was formed. A year later, in March 1945, the wing was renamed to ‘Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service’ (WRINS). This would be the first time women would serve in the Navy. A long thread (1/20)

(2/20) Ordinance No. XIII of 1942 created the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India) on 9 April 1942. Originally created to release soldiers to field duties, it was expanded to include the RIN and the IAF. The FOCRIN Admiral John Henry Godfrey was instrumental in setting the WRINS up.

(3/20) Modeled after the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS, famous as ‘Wrens’), the WRINS were trained as Cipher operators and coders, tele-printer operators, photographic assistants, confidential book correctors, telephone switchboard operators, shorthand-typists, clerks,

(4/20) accountants, mess caterers, dome teacher operators, close-range recorder analysts, etc. - a whole range of trades.

(5/20) Recruits started at HMIS Talwar, the signals school in Colaba, Bombay. Specialist cipher training was imparted at Talwar while typing was at the Accountant Training Office, Bombay. HMIS Jahanara and HMIS Nalini were established at Ahmednagar and Calcutta respectively.

(6/20) Officers were trained at HMIS Feroze, also in Bombay while Administrative officers were trained at the W.A.C.(I) Officers Cadet Training Unit, Daghshai. WRINS also received naval gunnery training, and carried out ordnance duties, cleaning and maintaining guns, etc.

(7/20) Few WRIN officers were also posted to the RIN tactical unit in Bombay, assisting in the training of RIN Commanding officers.

(8/20) The uniform was similar to that of the Wrens’. The officers wore a tricorn cap topped off a trim blue jacket and skirt, with white shirt and black tie. On the shoulders were the initials WAC(I) in light blue. Pictured is Second Officer Kalyani Sen. More about her follows.

(9/20) A slight difference - the brass buttons bore the crown and Star of India under the anchor. The rank insignia was in blue instead of the gold sported by the men. The Indian ladies wore white jackets & sarees with the same initials and the officers wore a distinction lace.

(10/20) WRINS was under the command of the Director WAC (I) Chief Commander The Countess of Carlisle. The Deputy Director, WRINS was responsible for administration of WRINS at NHQ and all principal ports.

(11/20) Margaret Isabel ‘Peggy’ Cooper, a Regional Commander in WAC(I), was appointed Chief Officer (equivalent to Commander) and Deputy Director WRINS. She had an Assistant Dy. Dir. and three staff officers along with a civilian officer as part of her staff.

(12/20) She also had assistant directors on the staff of Flag Officer Bombay and Commodore Bay of Bengal. The asst directors were responsible to her for all units on the west coast (Bombay, Karachi, Cochin) and east coast (Madras, Vizagapatnam, Chittagong, Calcutta) respectively.

(13/20) In April 1945, three officers of WRINS went on a study tour to England, touring WRNS establishments - Chief Officer Margaret Cooper, Second Officer Phyllis Cunningham of Calcutta and Second Officer Kalyani Sen.

(14/20) Kalyani Sen (née Gupta), then 28, was the first Indian servicewoman to visit the UK. Born to SN Gupta, principal of Mayo College, Lahore, she attended the Kinnard & Government Colleges in Lahore and the Punjab University.

(15/20) In 1939, while pursuing her 2nd masters degree, she married a young captain from the 10th Baluch Regiment - Lionel Protip ‘Bogey’ Sen.

(16/20) When Kalyani was in the UK creating history, ‘Bogey’ would be fighting in Burma. Commanding 16/10 Baluch as part of the all Indian 51 Inf Bde, he would be awarded the Distinguished Service Order the next year.

(17/20) The WRINS started with 41 officers and 204 Wrins in early 1944. By the end of 1945, it had 242 officers and 746 WRINS. 43% of the officers and 77% of the WRINS were Indian! 80% of the junior officers were Indian!

(18/20) After the war, the WRINS was wound-up. The FOCRIN Adm Godfrey was unhappy with the India War committee’s decision. He wrote to C-in-C, India General Auchinleck - “we have some really first class material which will develop into good senior officers if given the chance"

(19/20) "...Is it really necessary to do away with this enthusiastic young service, which… within two years can be completely Indianised?”

(20/20) The WRINS contingent marched smartly at the Victory Week Parade in Delhi in March 1946 and the Navy Day parade in Bombay. That’s the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Admiral Mountbatten taking the salute.

Sources:
*Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War 1939-45
*The Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service: Picturing India’s New Woman - Dr. Valentina Viltali
*Wrins and how they served - M Afzal
*Association of Wrens website
*Civil & Military Gazette, Lahore

Sources contd:
*The Naval Memoirs of Admiral J. H. Godfrey
*New Horizons
*National Museum of the Royal Navy
*Timeless Wake by @JohnsonOdakkal

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