Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Bomb Girls

(Canada, 2012)

Canada, being a part of the British Commonwealth, entered WWII a full two years before America did. Since it was too distant to be bombed by either the Nazis or the Nips, it was a great place to build war material for embattled and bombed England. This excellent series follows a group of women who, like their American counterparts later, “manned” the factories while their men were overseas. These ladies are making bombs and ack-ack shells. It is dangerous work, and the measures to protect them from the dangerous chemicals in the air are inadequate, but they don’t complain. Their chief enemy, of course, is the patronizing and demeaning attitudes of the men around them. Almost all of them are pigs, which I thought was a little extreme, but not much. It was just the way things were back then. The women were glad to have the jobs, both so they could contribute to the war effort and because they needed the money. We enjoyed the first season, and have begun the second.