Actor Edward Fox explores the World War II experiences of women on the home front - like his aunt Mary, who helped feed the nation by volunteering for jobs on farms - and sees for himself the vital non-combat roles performed by women during times of conflict. He meets an ex-land girl who laboured on farms in North Yorkshire, climbs aboard the plane that many claimed won the war - the Lancaster bomber - and meets one of the female factory workers who helped build them. He also joins current army medics on a field hospital as they undertake an emergency exercise to treat the kind of injury his own father sustained in wartime.