Sex capers fuel doubts among brass on women in British army

The army's aim to ensure equal opportunity for men and women, which was accompanied by a major PR blitz, has suffered a severe setback after women soldiers and sailors had illicit affairs and one bared her breasts for the mass-circulation Sun. The furore reignited a debate over the effects of women's presence on military morale and came amid government moves to deploy women ever closer to the front line. Fitness instructor Lance Corporal Roberta Winterton, 20, laid claim to being the army's first "page three model", when her half-naked form graced the Sun's pages on Feburary 9.

While the top brass fumed, and took away her lance corporal's stripe, Winterton revelled in the publicity, saying she was in any case sick of the army after more than three years and wanted to be a model. In the same issue the tabloid newspaper highlighted the problems aboard HMS Sheffield. Four of its 25 women sailors had been taken off the frigate for being pregnant, and all the pregnancies had resulted from affairs with sailors aboard, it reported. The affair was compounded by an investigation into drug abuse aboard the vessel, which promptly left for the Caribbean, where a major part of its duties is hunting down drug runners in the region. Lance Bombardier Heidi Cochrane, 24, tossed in a promising military career to run off to live in a tiny tent in the Netherlands with Jason Archer, a married sergeant in the same artillery regiment as her husband. The illicit affair became public knowledge after the army blundered ahead with a PR campaign using photographs showing the photogenic Cochrane, her blonde locks peeping out from under a steel helmet while she peered down the telescopic sights of her rifle. Pressed by journalists hungry for more of the attractive soldier, red-faced officers were forced this month to admit their model recruit had gone AWOL last year. A flood of reports followed detailing affairs between women and their male superior officers. Ranks were lost, careers destroyed and marriages broken, but the damage to the military's image stood out above the personal tragedies. The revelations could not have come at a worse time for those trying to promote the role of the 15,000 women in the British military. Enhancing the role of women in all aspects of society is an integral part of the ruling Labour Party's ethos, and the military is in any case struggling to find suitable male recruits to fill its ranks. But the generals are at best sceptical of women in the military at all and dead against deploying women in the front line.

In a speech given as he retired in the middle of this month, Chief of Staff General Charles Guthrie, made clear his position. Guthrie, whose words are normally guarded when speaking on topics with a political aspect, said he doubted the British public was ready for the sight of women being shot in action and indicated other top generals were behind him. "The chiefs of staff are not in the business of designing armed forces for the good times. We have to advise what will work when the conditions are tough, dangerous and frightening. When the time comes, if the chiefs' of staff advice upsets those who seek equality as an end in itself, then so be it," he said. Citing the example of an elite soldier killed in Sierra Leone last year, he asked: "He was a brilliant young man and he died in terrible circumstances. What would it be like if that had been a girl. I do not think we are ready for that yet." Harrassed officers dealing with lovers going AWOL and reading lurid reports of women sailors bedding the officers aboard their warships in rotation murmured their agreement.

(dpa)