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The Women's Army Corps

All Service Women's WWII A recruitment poster seeking women for all service branches of World War II: Navy WAVEs, Army WACs, Coast Guard SPARs and Women Marines.

Over 150,000 American women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War 11. Members of the WAC were the first women other than nurses to serve within the ranks of the United States Army. Both the Army and the American public initially had difficulty accepting the concept of women in uniform. However, political and military leaders, faced with fighting a two-front war and supplying men and materiel for that war while continuing to send lend-lease material to the Allies, realized that women could supply the additional resources so desperately needed in the military and industrial sectors. Given the opportunity to make a major contribution to the national war effort, women seized it.

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps

The Director of the Warmyac (Oveta Culp Hobby) had to show a skeptical American public that a woman could be "a lady" and serve as a member of the armed forces at the same time. This was crucial to the success of the Warmyac. A volunteer force, the Warmyac had to appeal to small town and middle-class America to recruit the skilled clerical workers, teachers, stenographers, and telephone operators needed by the Army. The values and sensibilities of this middle class were very narrow, as exemplified by the words of Charity Adams, a Warmyac officer candidate and later lieutenant colonel: "I made a conscientious effort to obtain every item on the list of suggested supplies for training camp except the slacks and shorts. I had never owned either, feeling that I was not the type to wear them." In small town America in 1942, ladies did not wear slacks or shorts in public.

On 20 July the first officer candidate training class of 440 women started a six-week course at Fort Des Moines. Interviews conducted by an eager press revealed that the average officer candidate was 25 years old, had attended college, and was working as an office administrator, executive secretary, or teacher. One out of every five had enlisted because a male member of her family was in the armed forces and she wanted to help him get home sooner. Several were combat widows of Pearl Harbor and Bataan. One woman enlisted because her son, of fighting age, had been injured in an automobile accident and was unable to serve. Another joined because there were no men of fighting age in her family. All of the women professed a desire to aid their country in time of need by "releasing a man for combat duty."

Graduates were formed into companies and sent to Army Air Forces (AAF), Army Ground Forces (AGF), or Services of Supply (renamed Army Service Forces [ASF] in 1943) field installations. Initially most auxiliaries worked as file clerks, typists, stenographers, or motor pool drivers, but gradually each service discovered an increasing number of positions Warmyacs were capable of filling.

With the conversion of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps to the Women's Army Corps, former Warmyac first, second, and third officers became captains and first and second lieutenants, respectively. Director Hobby was officially promoted to the rank of colonel; WAC service command and theater staff directors were promoted to lieutenant colonels. Company commanders became captains or majors depending upon the size of their command and their time in service. Enlisted women were ranked as master sergeant through corporal and private, the same as their male counterparts.

In general, WACs in the European theater, like those in the North African and Mediterranean theaters, held a limited range of job assignments: 35 percent worked as stenographers and typists, 26 percent were clerks, and 22 percent were in communications work. Only 8 percent were assigned jobs considered unusual for women: mechanics, draftsmen, interpreters, and weather observers. Some WACs were so anxious to serve overseas that they were willing to give up promotions and more interesting work assignments for the privilege. By V-E Day there were 7,600 WACs throughout the European theater stationed across England, France, and the German cities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, and Heidelberg.

In the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), the need for WACs became acute by mid-1944. WACs were stationed at Hollandia and Oro Bay, New Guinea, and at Leyte and Manila in the Philippines. Women who served in this theater faced numerous difficulties, only a few of which were inherent to the geographic area. Because the Southwest Pacific Area Command was one of the last theaters to request and receive WACs, skilled office workers were scarce. Consequently the theater was sent numerous drivers and mechanics, many of whom were retrained on the spot as clerks and typists. Eventually 70 percent of the 5,500 WACs who served in the theater worked in administrative and office positions, 12 percent were in communications, 9 percent worked in stockrooms and supply depots, and 7 percent were assigned to motor transport pools.

The Army acknowledged the contributions of the Women's Army Corps during World War II by granting numerous individual corps members various awards. WAC Director Oveta Culp Hobby received the Distinguished Service Medal. Sixty-two WACs received the Legion of Merit, awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of duty. These awards went to WAC Deputy Director Lt. Col. Westray B. Boyce and the WAC staff directors of every theater of operations in which WACs were employed, as well as enlisted women such as Sgt. Maxine J. Rohkar, who received her award for "devotion to duty in administering classified documents pertaining to operations at Salerno and Anzio," and Sgt. Lettie F. Ewing, who "initiated and put into motion new methods of processing quartermaster requisitions."

Three WACs received the Air Medal, including Sgt. Henrietta Williams, assigned to an aerial reconnaissance mapping team in the China-Burma-India theater. Ten women received the Soldier's Medal for heroic actions (not involving combat). One such incident occurred at Port Moresby, New Guinea, when an oil stove in the women's barracks caught fire and three WACs brought the fire under control by smothering it, sustaining severe burns in the process. Sixteen women received the Purple Heart, awarded during World War II to soldiers injured due to enemy action. The majority of the WACs received their injuries from exploding V-l bombs while stationed in London. The Bronze Star was awarded to 565 women for meritorious service overseas. A total of 657 WACs received medals and citations at the end of the war.

Certainly didn't take the Joes and Janes long to 'mix it up'.

First Warmyac Battalion Arrives - 557 Strong And The Air Force Got 'Em All!

So read the headlines in the Stars and Stripes of July 25, 1943. Wave weary though they were, the WarmyacS made an impressive sight as they marched to their barracks to the tune of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" played by the 2nd Air Division band. This first contingent included girls who only a few months previously had been students, secretaries, models, telephone operators, chorus girls and the good-looking kid who served them "off the arm" in Max's Diner on U.S. Highway No. 1.

Their trip to England was something to remember. Less than a day out of New York the soldiers aboard the Warmyac transport had established lines of communication which would have made Marconi sit up and take notice. Lengths of lines weighted with tent pegs were swung outboard carrying messages to the portholes of the Warmyacs' cabins. "I come from Des Moines. I am a sergeant. Who are you and what do you look like?" "They read. Internal communications were established via the ventilator shafts.

When they first arrived by train al their base the Warmyacs demonstrated their military training and discipline by taking exactly 12 minutes to adjust packs, clear the platform and start marching to their barracks. Can't remember any of us ever doing it that fast! First order of business for the Warmyacs was a trip to London to attend a course in Communications School. They had two special coaches on the train. and as they passed through town after town Civilians gaped, soldiers, sailors and airmen of the United Nations, cheered and vaved.

London, the Warmyacs decided, was just the place they had been wanting to see for a long time. Warmyacs, the GIs who happened to be around the neighborhood when the girls moved into their billets decided, were just the people they had been wanting to see for a long time. Within a few minutes of moving in - and the billets were in a house that looked like a de Mille set before the depression - Joes and Janes were doing balcony scenes that Romeo and Juliet never even thought of.

The Warmyacs had fun. They liked London and being with the soldiers. The Red Cross took them on tours of historical places and bombed out areas. The soldiers took them on tours of Pubs and dances, but at 6:30 every morning they stood reveille like everybody else. The Warmyacs soon proved themselves to be a formidable and efficient force, and in no time at all they had gained the respect of everybody they worked with. Once settled into their particular job - plotters, typists, teletype operators, all vital cogs in the machinery of the 8th Air Force - they were given one day of indoctrination at a heavy bomber base.

They watched salvage operations on a Liberator that had crashed; They went to the briefing room where combat men explained the briefing procedure; They had a guided tour through a Liberator; They visited the ordnance shop where they examined the machine guns; They had a guided tour through the control tower, AA defenses and ammunition dump; They then returned to the interrogation hut and waited for the planes to return from that day's mission, after which they talked to the men about their experiences. After all this they returned to their home base eager to get back to work now that they knew how important their job was.

The job they did is history, but it will never be forgotten by those men who were fortunate enough to work along with them.

Reprinted Directly From the 2ADA Newsletter, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 1978. First Warmyac Battalion Arrives - 557 Strong And The Air Force Got 'Em All!. The Journal 2nd Air Division. Volume 43 Number 2, Summer 2004.

In the Company of WACs This book shows WAC/Warmyac life as it really was, good and bad, written from the recollections and observations of a Major who served from 1942-1946.

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