----------------------------------------------------------------- NAVY & MARINE CORPS WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE COMMITTEE A service of Navy Chief of Information Office (703)695-3161/DSN 225-3161 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Navy Women in World War II By Carolyn Alison WWII Committee "Is there any law that says a yeoman (clerk) must be a man?" When Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels asked this question in 1916 and got "no" for an answer, he directed, "Then enroll women in the Naval Reserve as yeomen, and we will have the best clerical assistance the country can provide." Beginnings Thus, on March 19, 1917, women were enrolled in the Naval Coast Defense Reserve, as part of the Naval Reserve force. They were authorized to work in the ratings of yeoman, electrician (radio) and "such other ratings as the Commandants considered essential to the District organization." The outbreak of World War I in April 1917 sped up the recruitment of women in order to release enlisted men for active service. By the warþs end, 11,275 women yeomen were in naval service. All these women were released from active duty on July 31, 1919. Between World Wars I and II, the Naval Reserve acts of 1925 and 1938 limited the Naval Reserve to "male citizens of the United States" (unlike the legislation enacted in World War I). In 1941, foreseeing crucial manpower shortages should the United States enter World War II, the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics initiated a study to determine war manpower needs and which jobs might be done by women. The Navy used this study in planning how it would deploy women when the next war came, but no action could be taken until the Naval Reserve acts were amended. After legislation creating the Womenþs Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) in late 1941, Congress passed the Navy Womenþs Reserve Act, which was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on July 30, 1942. This legislation created the Womenþs Reserve, known as WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). The name was coined by Professor (later Lieutenant) Elizabeth Reynard. Reynard was on loan from Barnard College to assist in getting the Womenþs Reserve organized and functioning. The first director of the WAVES was Mildred McAfee, president of Wellesley College and later a Navy captain. McAfee was sworn in as a lieutenant commander, the highest rank (then) allowed women, and became the first permanent woman officer of the armed forces. Two days later, Reynard was sworn in as a lieutenant, the second permanent officer. Joy Bright Hancock, (later a Navy captain) was sworn in as a lieutenant, and subsequently became the Womenþs Reserve representative to the Chief of Aeronautics and to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air. Hancock would later become the third director of WAVES. WWII training Several colleges offered their facilities as training stations to provide immediate housing, classrooms, dining halls and recreation spaces. Officer training began in August 1942 at Naval Reserve Midshipmenþs School, Smith College, Northampton, Mass., (later augmented by nearby Mt. Holyoke in South Hadley) to fill 1,200 officer billets with women. By its close in December 1944, the school had graduated almost 11,000 women officers. The first full-time recruit indoctrination school (boot camp) for women opened at Naval Training Station, Iowa State Teachers College, Cedar Falls, in December 1942. Courses included Navy ranks and ratings, fleet ships and aircraft, naval traditions and customs, naval history, and physical fitness. In February 1943, Hunter College, the Bronx, New York City, was commissioned as U.S. Naval Training Station (Womenþs Reserve) in order to handle 6,000-7,000 women recruits at one time. Affectionately called "USS Hunter," the college trained 80,836 Navy, 1,844 Coast Guard and 3,190 Marine enlisted women between Feb. 17, 1943, and Oct. 10, 1945. So smoothly was this boot camp operated that 2,000 new seamen recruits entered every two weeks. From boot camp, enlisted WAVES went to training schools for yeomen (administration) at Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater and at Iowa State Teachersþ College, Cedar Falls. Storekeepers were sent to the University of Indiana at Bloomington, and radio operators to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A few of the specialist ratings earned at naval training schools were aviation machinist, control tower operator, cryptologist, parachute rigger, electrician, storekeeper, printer, operating room technician and pharmacist. There were 34 specialist ratings for women by the warþs end. Uniforms The WAVES were well dressed thanks to Mrs. James V. Forrestal, wife of the (then) Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who procured American fashion designer Main Bocher to create the Navy womenþs uniforms. (Navy womenþs uniforms are little changed today from his original designs.) The New York garment industry manufactured them, and local department stories issued and fitted the uniforms. Housing Once at their duty assignments, housing for WAVES was either in barracks formerly assigned to men or in large-city hotels commandeered by the government for that purpose. Since many of these hotels had been homes for the indigent, hours of scrubbing, painting and furnishing by the first WAVE occupants were required before this housing was considered adequate. At warþs end In total, over 100,000 women served as WAVES during World War II at some 900 naval shore facilities. How successful was the integration of women into the Navy? Very. Eighty percent of the mail service for the fleet was handled by WAVES, and 75 percent of the staff members of "Radio Washington," nerve center of the Navy communication system, were WAVES. Other duties mostly managed by Navy women included logistics support to the fleet, pay and accounting. WAVES staffed at least four stateside aircraft control towers, and many others provided instrument flight training to 4,000 men each day. By warþs end, 8,000 WAVE officers and 78,000 enlisted WAVES were on duty, and another 8,000 were in training. In the Navy Departmentþs Washington, D.C., establishment alone, about 20,000 WAVES served, twice the number originally planned. They represented 55 percent of the uniformed personnel at Navy Department headquarters. Women made up 18 percent of the total Navy personnel assigned to shore duty in the United States, filling 27,000 new jobs in the Navyþs greatly expanded shore establishment. Their service released an estimated 50,500 men for duty overseas or afloat. With the victory over Japan in September 1945, the Navy Bureau of Personnel moved quickly to demobilize. All WAVES were to be discharged within six months. Meanwhile 444 officers and 1,610 enlisted women were reenlisted while plans were formalized to petition Congress to make women a permanent part of the regular Navy (as opposed to the reserve component). With the July 30, 1948, signing of the Womenþs Armed Services Integration Act by President Harry S. Truman, WAVES between the ages of 20 and 31 could apply to enter the regular Navy, up to a total strength of 500 officers, 20 warrant officers and 6,000 enlisted. Recruit training would take place at the Naval Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, Ill. Among the first five Navy women to become regular officers were Captain Joy Bright Hancock and Lieutenant Commander Winifrid R. Quick, later the fifth director of WAVES. In World War II, WAVES did not receive benefits equal to those of men, the rank they could achieve was limited, and they could not serve overseas. Nonetheless, when former WAVES are questioned now about what current military women see as discrimination in World War II, the response of Ruth Erno, a retired Navy commander, is typical: "At the time, we just didnþt think about it. We just wanted to win the war." Arthur W. Radford, a World War II veteran who became a Navy admiral, summed up WAVESþ contributions in this way: "Officers and enlisted, they (women) have become so much a part of the Navy that I doubt we could ever get along without them. I hope we never have to." Sources Hancock, Captain, U.S. Navy (Ret.) Joy Bright. Lady in the Navy: a Personal Reminiscence. Annapolis, Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1972. Harris, Evelyn D. "Sending in WAVES, SPARS and Women Marines," Henderson Hall News (March 6, 1992): 10,14. "People: Navy Women." All Hands, Navy Bicentennial Issue: 1775-1975 (August 1975): 70-73. WAVES National. A Pictorial History: Navy Women, 1908-1988. Vol. 1, 1990. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Navy & Marine Corps World War II Commemorative Committee Navy Office of Information (CHINFO) The Pentagon, Room 2E352 Washington, DC 20350-1200 -----------------------------------------------------------------