WAVES
This authorized the U.S. Navy to accept women into the Naval Reserve as commissioned officers and at the enlisted level, effective for the duration of the war plus six months.
In May 1941, Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress to establish a Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC).
[3] On December 9, 1941, Representative Rogers telephoned Nimitz and asked him whether the Navy was interested in some sort of women's auxiliary corps.
In her book Lady in the Navy, Joy Bright Hancock quotes his reply: "I advised Mrs. Rogers that at the present time I saw no great need for such a bill".
[5] On January 2, 1942, the Bureau of Naval Personnel, in an about-face, recommended to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox that Congress be asked to authorize a women's organization.
The director of the Bureau of the Budget opposed his idea, but would agree to legislation similar to the WAAC bill – where women were with, but not in, the Navy.
The Bureau of Aeronautics continued to believe there was a place for women in the Navy, and appealed to an influential friend of naval aviation named Margaret Chung.
In Crossed Currents, the authors describe how Chung used her influence: Having learned of the stalemate, she asked one of these [sons], Representative Melvin Maas of Minnesota, who had served in the aviation branch of the U.S. Marine Corps in World War I, to introduce legislation independently of the Navy.
[8]The Maas House bill was identical to the Knox proposal, which would make a women's branch part of the Naval Reserve.
She suggested that Barnard professor Elizabeth Reynard become a special assistant to Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, Chief of Naval Personnel.
McAfee was an experienced and respected academician, whose background would provide a measure of credibility to the idea of women serving in the Navy.
[12] The task of convincing McAfee to accept and persuading the Wellesley Board of Trustees to release her was difficult, but eventually she was freed.
Advisory Council members Gildersleeve and Elliott each took it on themselves to write to the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, explaining their objections to the WAAC legislation.
[16] Less than a year later, on July 1, 1943, Congress refashioned the WAAC into the Women's Army Corps (WAC), which provided its members with similar military status as the WAVES.
[2] The law was enacted to free up officers and men for duty at sea and to replace them with WAVES at shore stations on the home front.
[18] In More Than a Uniform, Winifred Quick Collins (a former WAVE officer) described Director McAfee as a born diplomat, handling difficult matters with finesse.
[19] She added that McAfee played an important role in the development of policies such as how the women would be treated compared to the men with respect to assignments they would take, as well as their housing conditions, supervision, and discipline standards.
Hancock was asked to examine the procedures employed by the Women's Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which had a complement of 6,000 members.
The new officers began their work routine with no grasp of Navy traditions, or training in the service's operating methods, which resulted in some difficulties.
[26] After Knox's death in April 1944, his successor Forrestal moved to reform the Navy's racial policies, and on July 28 he submitted to the president a proposal to accept WAVES on an integrated basis.
[27] The first African-American WAVES officers were Lieutenant Harriet Ida Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills, who were commissioned on December 21, 1944.
[34] Smith was nicknamed USS Northampton,[35] although the official name of the training station was the United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School.
A manual specifically for WAVES and their Coast Guard counterparts written by Lieutenant Commander Mary Virginia Harris detailed the military etiquette and naval knowledge that recruits were required to know.
As a result, the Navy decided to establish one recruit training center on the campus of the Iowa State Teachers College.
In other cases, due to the contradictory attitudes of their male superiors, the women were underutilized in relation to their training, and often were only tasked out of dire need.
Most women spent two or three days at the separation centers before being discharged to get physical exams, orientation on rights as veterans, final settlement of pay, and then the price of a ticket home.
[56] Although a small contingent of WAVES was retained to help with the Navy's over-all demobilization plan, many of these women had volunteered to remain on active duty.
At that point, Vice Admiral Louis Denfeld, chief of the Bureau of Personnel, announced, "Our plan is to keep a WAVE component in the Naval Reserve.
Further, if Congress approves, we will seek to retain on active duty a reasonable number of WAVES who wish to do so and who may be needed in certain specialties ..."[57] On July 30, 1948, the Women's Armed Services Integration Act (Public Law 625) was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman, allowing the women to serve in the regular Army or Navy on a permanent basis.
Secretary of the Navy Forrestal wrote, "Your conduct, discharge of military responsibilities, and skillful work are in the highest tradition of the naval service."
