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HomeMy WebLinkAboutIntro to my Book ~ 1~ - A- 00\'-- "A\)7. tA.'o \'C'~ -\0 ~ \\\~..------- 0'" yre'" ~6-(\ ,\j1 /' (1.0 -e ' \\0. \\ Q~ \Y? pJ.sffle'1e[ \eBenrtett p.\4d ",,,e ,02 "nren;){ 718;3 Bfe{lha(1\, THE PAST IS ONLY THE BEGINNING. . . A PERSONAL PROLOGUE Military women today might take for granted the privilege of serving their country on equal basis with their male peers but it wasn't always so at the beginning of World War II. The process of the Navy accepting women to new situations in what was already firmly male, changed as they came face-to-face with new technologies and strategies of warfare. The world was in disarray. Their life was uncertain and volunteering into the military provided a purpose as well as adventure. One young woman from law school at Smith College, started and ended her Naval career in the Bureau of Ships in Washington D.C. -- the city where she was born! She received no promotions because Naval officials insisted she was only doing civilian duty in a Navy uniform! WW II WAC and W AVES had reason to celebrate their fiftieth anniversaries in 1992. Without question, uniformed women have served -- and are serving -- their country well in all branches of the military. To hear their stories of courage and bravery has left the future generation with enormous shoes to fill. Today's military forces have come to depend on women in every rank as essential in it's standard operations. Desert Storm led Congress to lift the laws which banned women from serving aboard military aircraft and vessels engaged in combat missions. And because of that law, women have died during during the United States large-scale ground war in Iraq. 2 This study of WW II women in the military adds a new chapter in Naval history and opens the way for later generations. The army accepted the WAC without question, but there was great tension among the conservative officers and men in the Navy who might not have wanted women, but they definitely needed them. W AVES officers were determined to survive even though soon after the war, there were some men in the Regular Navy who would like to see all military women return to civilian life. Few people today understand ~w the lives of women in uniform changed, even as the nation changed. Looking back~JfJ'fiNES can now laugh at their naivete, remembering with pride a camaraderie firmly planted ,ring the early days that continues to pump through to 1t\asr> (l(WY..> their bodies like Navy blue blood. Mos,)women are now in their eighties and quickly put their unpleasant stories aside, while recalling the comical events -- like hours of drill either FRi:GL~ "" gluing them to sticky hot asphalt in the summer or t . J ~zenQnto tne ice during the winter. One WAC remembers her surprising encounter in London with General Patton -- something about trying to explain to him that she could not wear her helmet during an air raid -- because it was full of cookies! Studies that give testimony into a military world which until WW II had predominantly been composed of men is a bit like putting a missing fragment of mosaic into the whole picture. What seemed trivial during WW II has now opened up an entirely new field for historians. We no longer have to wonder at the long silence during which women veterans were invisible and forgotten. Rigid gender distractions have faded and women are now "showing their colors" in combat missions and aboard ships. After facing triumphs and failures, joys and frustrations, service and sacrifice, they have definitely left their mark, yet as recently thirty years ago, many who served in uniform were still reluctant to identify themselves publicly as veterans. The movement to recover the history of WW II Navy women did not begin seriously until 1972 when the Naval Institute Press published Captain Joy Bright Hancock's classic Lady in the Navy: A Personal Reminiscence. Thirty years later, the Institute Press published Dr. Susan Godson's scholarly history covering the full spectrum of women in the Navy, Serving Proudly: A History of women in the U.S. Navy. Old letters, diaries and notes on deposit at the Naval Historical Center (Operational Archives Branch), ~ ) t/ ~, $(t..;e 3 Washington Navy Yard open poignant windows on how Americans faced the war and make it easier to look back to see how we dealt with it. A few years ago during a reception at the Navy Yard, I saw a large WAVES recruiting poster showing a proud father bidding his daughter farewell as she leaves for boot camp. Looking closer, I was surprised to see the poster also had one of my own letters on gold letterhead boot camp stationery that I had written in 1943 to my parents back home in Texas! The letter had been taken from an assortment of papers I had sent to the Naval Historical Center years before. I don't remember what I had written but will never forget the post script -- Mom, Please send another garter belt. History in the making? Maybe not, but more and more of those who are writing today's history are appalled by how naive we were back then. This study is an attempt to bring together materials reflecting as accurately as possible why young women freely volunteered aj N.fr~ sixty years ago. They can take full credit for what they have accomplished, although by today's standards the younger generation might consider them a bit obsolete. W"" .