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Photo # NH 49392-KN:  Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN.  Portrait by David Komuro.

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- PEOPLE -- UNITED STATES --

Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN (1898-1986).
Later, Mrs. Ralph A. Ofstie

Joy Bright was born in Wildwood, New Jersey, on 4 May 1898. During World War I, after attending business school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she enlisted in the Navy as a Yeoman (F), serving at Camden, New Jersey and at the Naval Air Station, Cape May. Following the war, she married Lieutenant Charles Gray Little, who was killed in the crash of the airship ZR-2 in 1921. A year later, she obtained employment with the Bureau of Aeronautics, where her duties including editing the Bureau's "News Letter", which later evolved into the magazine "Naval Aviation News". In 1924, she left the Bureau to marry Lieutenant Commander Lewis Hancock, Jr., who lost his life when USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) crashed in September 1925.

Joy Bright Hancock returned to the Bureau after attending Foreign Service School and obtaining a private pilot's license. For more than a decade before World War II and into the first year of that conflict, she was responsible for the Bureau's public affairs activities. In October 1942, she was commissioned a Lieutenant in the new Women's Reserve (WAVES). She initially served as WAVES representative in the Bureau of Aeronautics and later in a similar position for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), rising to the rank of Commander by the end of the War.

In February 1946, Commander Hancock became the Assistant Director (Plans) of the Women's Reserve and was promoted to WAVES' Director, with the rank of Captain, in July of that year. She guided the WAVES through the difficult years of Naval contraction in the later 1940s and the expansion of the early 1950s, a period that also saw the Navy's women achieve status as part of the Regular Navy. Captain Hancock retired from active duty in June 1953. The next year, she married Vice Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie and accompanied him on his 1955-56 tour as Commander, Sixth Fleet. Following her husband's death in late 1956, she lived in the Washington, D.C., area and in the Virgin Islands. She died on 20 August 1986.

This page features portrait views of Captain Joy Bright Hancock and provides links to informal images of her.

For other pictures of Joy Bright Hancock, see: Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN -- Informal Views


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the "Online Library's" digital images, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 94945-A

Yeoman First Class (F) Joy Bright, USNRF


Photographed in February 1918, while serving tn the Office of the Naval Superintendent of Construction, New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey.

Courtesy of Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN (Retired).

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 79KB; 480 x 765 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-40428

Lieutenant Commander Joy Bright Hancock, USNR


Photographed circa 1943.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 64KB; 595 x 765 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: 80-G-435203

Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN
,
Assistant Chief of Naval Personnel for Women

Photographed circa 1951.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 63KB; 590 x 765 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 49392-KN (Color)

Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN

Portrait by David Komuro, Washington, D.C., circa 1953

Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Washington, DC.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 96KB; 515 x 765 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 93599-KN (Color)

Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN

Portrait in evening dress uniform, by David Komuro, 1955.

Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Washington, DC. Donation of Captain Joy Bright Hancock.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 74KB; 430 x 765 pixels

 

For other pictures of Joy Bright Hancock, see: Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN -- Informal Views


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the "Online Library's" digital images, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

27 February 2000
Link added 28 February 2005