Approved by the Secretary of War and sent to Congress 3 weeks after Pearl Harbor, passed by the House 249-83 in March, 1942, passed by a closer vote in the Senate and signed by the President in May, 1942, a bill introduced by Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers (originally submitted in May of 1942) created the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) with an authorized enrollment of 150,000. Due to bureaucratic confusion resulting from the "auxiliary" status of women, the corps was changed to the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in July, 1943. Women's training was much like men's and included parade drill, the discipline of barracks life, and classes in military methods. Among the hundreds of occupations filled by women were cartography, computing, motor mechanics, weather forecasting, parachute packing, mail sorting, photography, air traffic control, and dog and pigeon training. A few women served as cooks and bakers, but they served only other WACs. WAC's sent overseas and working as radio/telephone operators and translators, received the enthusiastic support of General Eisenhower who saw them as a key to successful communications requiring the knowledge of many languages. Women also performed nursing and clerical functions.

      The first US women military pilots were members of the short-lived WAFS (Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron) which performed contract work for the Army Air Corps and were not officially military personnel. These women ferried aircraft from factory to air base or anywhere else that they were required. Since 120,000 aircraft were manufactured in 1944 alone, these women made a significant contribution to the war effort. Formed by Nancy Harkness Love in the summer of 1942, these 40 women pilots (with at least 500 hours of flying time each) and 10 administrators required a minimum of training- only a short course on military paperwork.

      About the same time, the Women's Air Service Pilots (WASPs) whose less experienced women pilots were required to have only 200 hours of flying experience (acquired at their own expense at a time when civilian aviation was banned) was created. Also civilian contract employees of the Army Air Corps, they lived in military housing, followed military orders, received no rank, no benefits (particularly insurance which was denied them by private insurers due to the hazardous nature of their work), and no uniforms. (Women were expected to ferry aircraft wearing dresses, hose, and high heels.) These women received so little publicity that the existence of WASPs was disputed. These 2000 women flew 72 types of aircraft and did a multiplicity of tasks: breaking in new aircraft, test flying repaired aircraft to verify that the aircraft were air worthy (talk about dangerous), towing targets used for gunnery practice, and training inexperienced male pilots. As the capabilities of the WAFS and WASPs became indistinguishable, they were combined on Aug. 5, 1943 under the command of Jackie Cochran of the WASPS. By the spring of 1944, women had flown 30 million miles in WW II, and 38 women had lost their lives. When Cochran and General Hap Arnold requested full militariztion for women in the fall of 1944, under the pressure of male pilots contemplating the outbreak of peace, Congress disbanded the WASPs. These veterans were home for Christmas, 1944. In 1979 under the leadership of Rep. Barry Goldwater, who had flown with WASPs in WW II, living WASPs were granted some veterans benefits.

      SPARS, the women's auxiliary unit of the Coast Guard in WW II, enlisted less than 10,000 women. SPARS stood for the Coast Guard motto: "Semper Paratus - Always Ready." Women officers set a military precedent when they trained along side men (at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut). Enlisted women still trained separately from men. All SPARS received specialty school training where they learned non-traditional skills.

      The 20,000 women who enlisted in the marines despite the "tougher training course" than in other branches of the service were given no catchy name. They were just women marines. During training, they were introduced to all aspects of marine combat including firing antiaircraft guns and dropping from parachute towers. Women worked in 225, mostly clerical, military specialties.

      Membership in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), a unit of the US Naval Reserve, reached a peak of 86,000 in August, 1945. The navy attempted to lure the brightest women and, like the Army, utilized them in all lines of work.

      As the war progressed, a shortage of trained nurses to fill all of the available military and civilian positions developed. In the state-of-the-union address on January 6, 1945, Roosevelt called for an amendment to the Selective Services Act to "provide for the induction of nurses into the Armed Forces." A Gallup poll showed that 78% of Americans agreed that there was a shortage of nurses in the military and 72% agreed that women should be drafted. Rep. Andrew May of Kentucky introduced HR 2277 on March 5, 1945 calling for the draft of nurses. The bill received prompt attention, 2 weeks of committee hearings, and 3 days of debate. Debate centered on technicalities: method of implementation of the bill, beginning date, geographical quotas, appeal procedures, and commissions: little attention was paid to the tremendous change in status that would result from passage of the bill. No significant mention was made of home and family problems which would result from the draft of women. Opposition centered around Republican claims of a Roosevelt power grab, of attacks on the War Department for mismanaging recruitment of nurses and underutilization of male and black nurses, and of fears that the act would discourage women from becoming nurses. The American Nurse Association and the National Nursing Council supported the bill and also supported passage of a National Service Act which would draft all women. The bill, passed the House by 347-42 in early March, was reported favorably out of the Senate Military Affairs Committee where the provision exempting married women was struck out. With the surrender of Germany in May the bill died out. An important precedent was set: both Congress and the President felt that they had the constitutional authority to draft women, as well as men, and they both had the will to do so.

      All assumed that women would be demobilized at the end of the war. As units were being demobilized after the war, many individual field commanders asked for exemptions for the female personnel in his headquarters because they were uniquely qualified to fill their tasks. Eventually, this phenomena became so widespread that the military petitioned Congress to make women a permanent part of the peacetime armed forces. Lead by Margaret Chase Smith, military women, feminists, and business and professional women's clubs lobbied Congress for the bill. Without the intervention of many generals and admirals, including Eisenhower, radley, and Nimitz, the bill probably would not have passed. The law restricted women to occupations traditionally assigned to women, to ranks not higher than lieutenant colonel, and to duties not likely to find women in combat. Women's compensation excluded benefits for their families. Yet, it was viewed as a victory for women.

      Through the courage, dedication, and hard work of 1/4 million American women soldiers of World War II, women made significant contributions to the war effort in spite of being treated like second class citizens and given second-class opportunities and benefits. Without these women to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude, there would be no Sally Ride and no Tailhook because women would not be a part of the today's military. So while these courageous women are still with us, give thanks to the unsung heroines of World War II: our mothers, our grandmothers, our aunts, and our friends; the women veterans of World War II.

_Encyclopedia Americana 1994_, vol 29, Women in the Military _American Women's History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events_, Doris Weatherford, Prentice Hall, 1994
Encarta computerized encyclopedia, Social Sciences, WAC and WAVES and World War II

Everything, everything in war is barbaric. ... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
            Ellen Key, _War, Peace, and the Future_ (1916)

Quotable Quotes taken from _The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women_, compiled by Rosalie Maggio, Beacon Press, 1974

      Grace Murray Hopper received a B.A. from Vassar College in 1928, an M. A. (1930) and a Ph. D. (1934) from Yale University in mathematics. After working in an academic setting as instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and researcher, she joined the WAVES as a Lieutenant in 1943 to help out the war effort. Assigned to work at Harvard University on the computation of ballistic trajectories, she used the Mark I, the first electronic (as opposed to mechanical) digital computing device - a forerunner of the modern computer. After the war, while remaining in the Naval Reserves, she joined Sperry Rand, then Remington Rand, where she did her most recognized work: she developed the concept of an automatic programming language by creating the first English-language compiler, COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language). She continued her pioneer work on machine computation throughout her life, publishing more than 50 papers and receiving honorary degrees from 10 American and foreign universities. She retired from the Naval Reserve in 1966, but was recalled to active duty in 1967 to direct the Training and Technology in the Naval Data Automation Command. She was promoted to captain in 1973 while on the retired list, a precedent in the Naval Reserve. At her second and final retirement in 1986, at the age of 80 and after serving the Navy for 43 years, she received the Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Department's highest honor.

_American Women's History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events_, Doris Weatherford, Prentice Hall, 1994
_The Continuum Dictionary of Women's Biography_, Jenifer Uglow, Continuum NY, 1982

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