NATIONAL history will be made when two women participate in the Anzac Day traditional torch  handover ceremony in Cairns tomorrow.

World War II veteran Pat Jones will hand the torch to Pte Tessa Elwin, an army reserve soldier with the 51st Battalion.

The torch of freedom is handed down from an older generation to a serving soldier and is usually between two men.

But for the first time tomorrow two women will be involved.

Cairns RSL sub-branch president Peter Turner and master of ceremonies Roy Hartman believe it is a
national first.

"As far as we know it has never been done before. Cairns is making history," Mr Turner said.

Mr Hartman said it was suggested during a meeting that a woman be chosen and Mrs Jones was selected.

The 51st Battalion also decided it would be appropriate for one of its youngest female soldiers to receive the torch.

Mrs Jones, 87, said it was "a great honour".

"My immediate reaction was that I didn’t feel I could because I served in the British forces not the Australian forces," she said.

"But the navy representative at the meeting said that at the time everyone served under the one flag."

British-born, she enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in January, 1941 and served at Salisbury Plain during which it was bombed several times and many were killed.

After the war, she worked for army occupation forces in Germany for two years and the Ministry of Food before migrating to New Zealand. She spent three years in the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

After a brief stint working in the Kenyan prison service during the Mau Mau emergency, she married and had three children.

With husband Emrys (Taffy) and the children they spent 15 years in Kenya, returned to the UK and finally settled in Cairns in 1965.

Mrs Jones has been involved with the RSL for 28 years, is secretary of War Haven’s home management committee, is a life member of the national RSL and holds senior positions on the Cairns Ex-Servicewomen’s RSL sub-branch and the Far Northern district RSL branch.

Pte Elwin, 28, has been a reservist for two years and is a clerk at the 51st Battalion headquarters at Edmonton. She has worked at the Reef Hotel Casino as an electronic gaming attendant for nearly 10 years.

Pte Elwin said she was delighted with the honour of receiving the torch.

"I’m very honoured and I am surprised I am making history," she said. "The RSM (regimental sergeant-major) did not tell me that."

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