Town Crier Articles

At our April Noon Time talk, resident Liz Fones-Wolf, a retired West Virginia University Professor of History, explored the experiences of American women in the armed services during World War II. 

 

She pointed out that during the war 16 million men entered the military. This created a huge demand for labor and encouraged by the government, 4 million women flooded into the new defense industries and other traditionally male jobs. Indeed, the most common image today of women contributing to war effort is Rosie the Riveter. Rosie challenged gender norms, but her work was seen as necessary and generally applauded.

 

At the same time, powerful military leaders like General George Marshall urged women to join the armed forces to free up men for combat. Due to the military's bureaucratic structure, almost one-third of Army personnel were assigned to clerical work. Marshall wanted to get soldiers out from behind desk and into field. Despite strong resistance, Congress established the WACS, (Army), the WAVES (Navy), the SPARS (Coast Guard) and even female marines, who had no special name because the Marines believed a marine was a marine.   

 

During the war 350,000 women joined the military, far fewer that Marshall wanted because except for the 76,000 nurses, many Americans were alarmed by women in uniform, seeing them as a serious threat to traditional sex roles.

 

Liz then discussed the experience of nurses, which was much less controversial because nursing was a feminized profession and there was already an established military nursing corps. Of all the women in uniform, nurses had the least sheltered experience of war and often the most brutal. Nurses served in every theater of operation around the world, wading ashore during the invasions of North Africa and Italy and were in France four days after D-Day. Nurses served close to the front lines, risking their lives alongside male doctors and medics - 230 were killed in action and many others wounded. Military nurses were celebrated by the public for their dedication and bravery.

 

Liz noted that the recruitment of women did not mean that the United States underwent a social or sexual revolution because the military retained traditional views of gender. Indeed women were treated with little respect and often described as ditsy. Only 33,000 WACs served overseas, mostly in England, but also in North Africa, the Pacific and Burma theaters. Both General Douglas McArthur and General Dwight Eisenhower sang their praises.

 

At home and overseas, most women were restricted to typical female work. A wider variety opened up as the war progressed and women demonstrated their abilities. Women became mechanics, truck drivers, parachute riggers, and sheet metal workers and more. Skilled women even trained male soldiers. General Marshall was so pleased with their performance; he wanted to increase the number of WACs to 600,000.

 

But in 1943 recruitment stalled due to an orchestrated slander campaign in which female members of the military were accused of being sexually promiscuous. Although it was first suspected the rumors were planted by Nazi agents, the military discovered that the source from its own male ranks, with soldiers writing home that 90 percent of WACS were prostitutes and demanding that their sisters, wives and girlfriends refuse military service.

 

Members of the audience were fascinated when New Towner Mike Sachse shared that both his parents were in the Navy and that his mother was so adept at gunnery she taught men in the Army Air Corps how to operate their machine guns. When she discussed joining the military, her father threatened to disown her, saying only whores joined the military. She still joined.