Women were vital to military success in war

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Thursday, September 24, 1998

Women were vital to military success in war

By CAROL SMITH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Witness to War
A small loophole in Navy regulations changed the course of history for American women.

"Is there any regulation which specifies that a Navy yeoman be a man?" Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels asked in 1917.

With that question, he solved an emerging manpower crisis as America readied itself for war, and he also made military history, said Lettie Gavin, Seattle author of "American Women in World War I: They Also Served," (University Press of Colorado, 295 pages, $29.95).

Gavin, a retired former editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, spent several years racing to track down stories of WWI women before they all passed away. Many of those stories are captured in her book, which is going into its third printing.

The women were critical to the success of the military's operation in Europe.

"Without any doubt, they were exceptionally important," said Judy Bellafaire, historian at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Arlington, Va. "If they had not been desperately needed, it wouldn't have happened."

Within months of Daniels' question, the Navy began enlisting women as clerks, radio electricians, chemists, accountants, telephone operators and nurses.

The Army took a more conservative approach, allowing only nurses and a limited number of occupational therapists and dietitians as well as a few French-speaking telephone operators.

By August 1918, the Marine Corps officially enrolled women as clerks. Many thousands more went over with the YMCA, the YWCA, the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

About 90,000 women eventually found their way overseas to help the soldiers, according to the Women's Overseas Service League, an organization founded in 1921 to help the women who served. Only about 33,000 were officially enrolled in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps.

Despite that show of support, women weren't accorded the same status as men in the military until President Truman signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act in 1948.

The women who served in the Army Signal Corps -- also known as Hello Girls -- weren't recognized as veterans until 1978, nearly 60 years after their service ended.

WWI opened the way for military careers for women, said retired Brig. Gen. Wilma Vaught, president of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation and one of the highest-ranking women in the military when she retired in 1985.

More than 400,000 women served in WWII, and women now make up about 11 percent of the military, serving in every capacity except ground combat.

"If (the women of WWI) had not succeeded, I wouldn't have had the career I had in the military," said Vaught, who was instrumental in building the Women's Memorial.

Many people still don't recognize the role that women played in WWI, Gavin said.

The Great War was so long ago that many people confuse it with WWII. "People will say to me, `Oh, I remember the Normandy invasion,' " she said.

Gavin said she's especially pleased when she hears from school and college libraries, many of which have bought her book for their collections.

"The fact that kids are going to know about it -- that's why I wrote it," she said. "We're a product of our history."

The Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Arlington, Va., will be selling notecards of Laura Smith's watercolors as part of its fund-raising efforts. For more information, call 800-222-2294.

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