Over the course of World War II, many women stepped out of societal norms to take on roles that were essential to the Allied victory. Many took to the skies while others worked behind the scenes in covert operations behind enemy lines, and some even fought on the front lines. These women were not just part of the war, they were pivotal in shaping its outcome. (These two countries had the most casualties in World War II, and it’s not even close.)

In the United States, one of the main contributions came from the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). These groups of female pilots were responsible for ferrying military aircraft across the country, from factories to bases. These groups marked an important moment in military history, where traditional gender roles were left behind for a greater calling. This would also lay the groundwork for the future integration of women into combat roles.

Over 350,000 American women served in the armed forces, while countless others worked in factories. The women working these jobs became affectionately known as “Rosie the Riveters.” These efforts were incredibly vital to maintaining the home front and supporting the war effort. These times significantly altered gender roles and paved the way for future civil rights advancements in the United States.

Overseas, the British formed the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and recruited women to work as secret agents, conducting espionage, reconnaissance, and even sabotage in occupied Europe.

Even further East, the Soviet Union employed women as pilots, and some served on the front line as soldiers. Some of the most notable Soviet women were snipers like Lyudmila Pavlichenko who is credited with 309 kills, the most recorded by any female sniper in history.

As nurses, pilots, engineers, and soldiers, women proved indispensable to the war effort. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a look at some of the most important women from World War II. (World War II’s fastest American plane flew at a stunning 577 mph.)

To identify the women of the Allies that played pivotal roles in World War II, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed World War II Database, an online archive of World War II data. We ordered these women alphabetically and added some context as to why they played a pivotal role in World War II.

Here is a look at the Allied women that played important roles in World War II:

Why Are We Covering This?

Exploring the history of World War II is important not only to understand one of the most pivotal periods in modern history but also to grasp the profound impact that this global conflict had on the world at large. Ultimately, World War II reshaped boundaries, alliances, and ideologies in ways that still influence global relations and conflicts today. The outcome of World War II effectively made the world order that we know today.

Berthe Albrecht

• Country: France
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1893 – 1943

Berthe Albrecht, originally from Marseille, France, was a committed feminist and resistance fighter during World War II. After founding a journal supporting women’s rights and a refugee safe haven, she engaged in anti-German propaganda activities, was captured and executed by hanging in 1943, and posthumously honored with several prestigious French medals for her bravery.

Gladys Anslow

• Country: United States
• Category: Science-Engineering
• Years: 1892 – 1969

Gladys Anslow was a physicist from Springfield, Massachusetts. She played a significant role in the Manhattan Project during World War II, earning the President’s Certificate of Merit for her contributions.

Mildred Axton

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1919 – 2010

Mildred Axton was a pilot who became the first woman to fly a B-29 Superfortress bomber during her time with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in World War II.

Josephine Baker

• Country: United States
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1906 – 1975

Josephine Baker rose from poverty to become a renowned vaudeville dancer and an iconic figure in Paris, using her celebrity status to spy for the French resistance during World War II.

Mavis Batey

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Science-Engineering
• Years: 1921 – 2013

Mavis Batey was a pivotal codebreaker at Bletchley Park during World War II, notably breaking crucial Italian and German codes, which influenced several key naval battles and intelligence operations.

Ann Baumgartner

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1918 – 2008

Ann Baumgartner joined the WASP, eventually becoming the first American woman to fly a jet aircraft, the YP-59A.

Yolande Beekman

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1911 – 1944

Yolande Beekman used her linguistic skills as a wireless operator for the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force during World War II. After joining and marrying Sergeant Jaap Beekman, she was deployed to France in 1943, where she was captured and ultimately executed at Dachau in 1944.

Yevdokia Bershanskaya

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1913 – 1982

Yevdokia Bershanskaya distinguished herself as the deputy commanding officer of the all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment during World War II, later known as the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.

Denise Bloch

• Country: France
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1916 – 1945

Denise Bloch, a French Jewish agent, evaded Gestapo capture in 1942 and joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) to fight against German occupation. She was captured in 1944 and executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp in early 1945.

Yekaterina Budanova

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1916 – 1943

Yekaterina Budanova was one of the few female fighter aces of World War II, credited with 11 enemy kills. Budanova died in combat in 1943 after successfully engaging German fighters.

Muriel Byck

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1918 – 1944

Muriel Byck joined the Royal Air Force Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in 1942 and was later recruited by the Special Operations Executive in 1943 due to her language skills. After less than two months after parachuting into France for a covert operation in 1944, Byck passed away from meningitis.

Jacqueline Cochran

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1906 – 1980

Jacqueline Cochran was one of the most influential female figures in aviation. During WWII, Cochran headed the WASP program, training over 1,000 women and earning prestigious awards for her contributions.

Annabelle Craft

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1921 – 2015

Annabelle Craft was one of the women that joined the WASP during World War II, after acquiring her pilot’s skills during college.

Hélène Deschamps

• Country: France
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1921 – 2006

Hélène Deschamps played an important role in the French Resistance during World War II under the code name “Anick.” Starting as a courier, she soon escalated to reporting on German positions and aiding Allied airmen, and manipulated records at the Milice headquarters to save many Jews.

Agnes Driscoll

• Country: United States
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1889 – 1971

Agnes Driscoll was an important figure in American cryptology. She joined the US Naval Reserve and later worked on deciphering complex codes, including the Japanese Navy “Red” cipher and the German Enigma code.

Mitsuye Endo

• Country: United States
• Category: Political
• Years: 1920 – 2006

Mitsuye Endo was a key figure in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case during World War II. After being unjustly fired and interned due to her Japanese descent, Endo refused an offer for release in exchange for dropping her legal case, leading to a 1944 Supreme Court decision that declared the government could not detain a loyal American citizen without charges.

Cornelia Fort

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1919 – 1943

Cornelia Clark Fort was an accomplished pilot and was teaching in Hawaii when the Pearl Harbor attack occurred in 1941. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) in 1942, becoming one of the first women to ferry military aircraft during World War II.

Wanda Gertz

• Country: Poland
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1896 – 1958

Wanda Gertz disguised herself as a man to fight in World War I under the alias “Kazimierz ‘Kazik’ Zuchowicz.” She continued her service into the Polish-Soviet War, earning the Virtuti Militari for her leadership of the 2nd Women’s Volunteer Legion. In World War II, she commanded the Women’s Diversion and Sabotage unit in the Polish resistance.

Betty Gillies

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1908 – 1998

Betty Gillies became the first woman to qualify for the WAFS, earning her place among the 28 “Originals.” She was the first woman to fly the P-47 Thunderbolt.

Mary Greyeyes

• Country: Canada
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1920 – 2011

Mary Greyeyes broke barriers as the first Native American woman to enlist in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps in 1942.

Eleanor Hadley

• Country: United States
• Category: Government
• Years: 1916 – 2007

Eleanor Martha Hadley was a prominent economist and academic who made significant contributions to the restructuring of Japan’s post-war economy.

Virginia Hall

• Country: United States
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1906 – 1982

Virginia Hall lost her leg but became one of the most decorated female operatives during World War II. Joining Britain’s SOE and later the American OSS, she conducted espionage and resistance activities in occupied France.

Oveta Hobby

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1905 – 1995

Oveta Hobby was the first Director of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1942, marking the first time women, outside of nurses, served within the US Army.

Grace Hopper

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Sea
• Years: 1906 – 1992

Grace Hopper was a computer scientist and U.S. Navy rear admiral who made significant contributions to early computer programming languages, notably COBOL.

Celia Hunter

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1919 – 2001

Celia Hunter was a conservationist and former WASP member who co-founded Camp Denali in Alaska.

Noor Inayat Khan

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1914 – 1944

Noor Inayat Khan was a SOE agent during World War II. Despite her brief military training, she was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France in 1943, where she played an important role in the resistance.

Amy Johnson

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1903 – 1941

Amy Johnson was a pilot and the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in 1930. She joined the Air Transport Auxiliary during WWII, losing her life in 1941 during a ferry mission.

Andrée de Jongh

• Country: Belgium
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1916 – 2007

Andrée de Jongh founded and led the Comet Line during World War II, helping over 800 Allied soldiers escape occupied Europe to Britain via Spain.

Klavdia Kalugina

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1926 – unavailable

Klavdiia Kalugina joined the Komsomol sniper school in 1943 and became a skilled sniper in the 3rd Belorussian Front during World War II. She was widely regarded for her proficiency with a Mosin-Nagant rifle.

Jean Knox

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1908 – 1993

Jean Know had a distinguished career in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II. She rose to the rank of director with significant oversight responsibilities, she was honored as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her service.

Hedy Lamar

• Country: Austria
• Category: Science-Engineering
• Years: 1914 – 2000

Hedy Lamarr rose to fame as a Hollywood actress and later became a pioneering inventor. She fled to the U.S., where she developed a frequency-hopping communication system intended to combat Nazi jamming during WWII. Although it was initially overlooked, her invention later became the base for modern technologies like Bluetooth and GPS.

Faye Lazebnik

• Country: Poland
• Category: Photography
• Years: 1919 – 2021

Faigel Lazebnik survived the Holocaust due to her skills as a photographer, which the occupying Germans found useful. After her family was killed in 1942, she escaped and joined the Molotava Brigade partisans, serving as a nurse and documenting resistance efforts through photography.

Hazel Lee

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1912 – 1944

Hazel Lee was a pilot who became the first Chinese-American woman to fly for the U.S. Army under the WASP program during World War II.

Lydia Litvyak

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1921 – 1943

Lydia Litvyak, known as the “White Rose of Stalingrad,” was a formidable fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War II. Litvyak made her mark by achieving 11 solo kills and 3 shared kills against German pilots, becoming the first female pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft and the first female pilot to earn the title of fighter ace.

Nina Lobkovskaya

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1925 – unavailable

Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya became a distinguished sniper in the Red Army during World War II. By the war’s end, she had achieved the rank of lieutenant and was credited with 89 confirmed kills.

Nancy Harkness Love

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1914 – 1976

Nancy Harkness Love founded the WAFS during World War II. Love successfully led the integration of WAFS into the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), where she oversaw the training and operations of hundreds of women pilots flying military aircraft.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

• Country: Ukraine
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1916 – 1974

Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a Ukrainian sniper in the Soviet Army during World War II, credited with 309 kills, making her one of the top military snipers of all time.

Margaret Ray

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1921 – 2008

Margaret Ray was part of the WASP during World War II, ferrying aircraft across the United States.

Eleanor Roosevelt

• Country: United States
• Category: Government
• Years: 1884 – 1962

Eleanor Roosevelt was a pivotal figure in American politics, championing civil rights and women’s equality.

Vera Rosenberg

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1908 – 2000

Vera Rosenberg was a British intelligence officer who played a pivotal role in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. She was deeply involved in intelligence activities, including assisting Polish cryptographers in escaping to the West with their Enigma machine replicas.

Simone Segouin

• Country: France
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1925 – 2023

Simone Segouin, also known as “Nicole Minet,” was a French resistance fighter where she notably captured 25 German soldiers and killed several others near Chartres on August 23, 1944.

Roza Shanina

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1924 – 1945

Roza Shanina joined the military, excelling at sniper school. As a sniper in the Soviet 184th Rifle Division, she defied orders to withdraw female snipers, instead joining infantry assaults where she confirmed 59 kills.

Evelyn Sharp

• Country: United States
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1919 – 1944

Evelyn Sharp taught 350 men before joining the WAFS. Sharp died in 1944 while ferrying a P-38 Lightning.

Christine Skarbek

• Country: Poland
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1908 – 1952

Christine Granville was a highly successful agent for Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Despite her aristocratic Polish upbringing, she embraced espionage, skiing over mountains for the Polish resistance and later parachuting into France.

Maria Smirnova

• Country: Russia
• Category: Military-Air
• Years: 1920 – 2002

Maria Vasilyevna Smirnova distinguished herself in World War II by flying 950 combat missions as part of the Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment, earning the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Violette Szabo

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1921 – 1945

Violette Szabo was part of the Special Operations Executive. Her actions in occupied France led to her capture and eventual execution at Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1945.

Betty Thorpe

• Country: United States
• Category: Intelligence
• Years: 1910 – 1963

Betty Thorpe was a key figure in intelligence operations during WWII under the code name “Cynthia.” Recruited by the British Security Coordination, she extracted important intelligence through liaisons with key figures, including extracting Italian naval codes and the French Navy’s code books.

Iva Toguri

• Country: United States
• Category: Journalism
• Years: 1916 – 2006

Iva Ikuko Toguri was stranded in Japan during WWII and became associated with Radio Tokyo as “Orphan Anne,” one of the voices dubbed “Tokyo Rose.”

Susan Travers

• Country: United Kingdom
• Category: Military-Ground
• Years: 1909 – 2003

Susan Travers served as a driver during the siege of Bir Hakeim and later as an ambulance driver with the U.S. 5th Army in WWII. The only woman to be formally enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, she earned the Military Medal and the Legion d’Honneur.

Gunsyn Tsydenova

• Country: Russia
• Category: Government
• Years: 1909 – 1994

Gunsyn Tsydenova was a significant political leader in the Soviet Union. Serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during WWII, she contributed to Ulan-Ude’s industrial growth and the war effort.

Andrée Virot

• Country: France
• Category: Resistance
• Years: 1905 – 2010

Andrée Virot was a prominent figure in the French Resistance during WWII, known by her codenames “Agent X” and “Agent Rose.” Narrowly escaping execution at Buchenwald concentration camp thanks to the arrival of American troops.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.