Women’s Army Corps

The Women's Army Corps (WAC; ) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), on 15 May 1942, and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States as the WAC on 1 July 1943. Its first director was Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby. The WAC was disbanded on 20 October 1978, and all WAC units were integrated with male units.

History

The WAAC's organization was designed by numerous Army bureaus coordinated by Lt. Col. Gillman C. Mudgett, the first WAAC Pre-Planner; however, nearly all of his plans were discarded or greatly modified before going into operation because he had expected a corps of only 11,000 women. Without the support of the War Department, Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill on 28 May 1941, providing for a Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The bill was held up for months by the Bureau of the Budget but was resurrected after the United States entered the war. The senate approved the bill on 14 May 1942 and became law on 15 May 1942. The day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill he set a recruitment goal of 25,000 women for the first year. That goal was unexpectedly exceeded, so the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson decided to increase the limit by authorizing the enlistment of 150,000 volunteers.

The WAAC was modeled after comparable British units, especially the ATS, which caught the attention of Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. In 1942, the first contingent of 800 members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps began basic training at Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School, Iowa. The women were fitted for uniforms, interviewed, assigned to companies and barracks and inoculated against disease during the first day.

The WAAC were first trained in three major specialties. The brightest and nimblest were trained as switchboard operators. Next came the mechanics, who had to have a high degree of mechanical aptitude and problem solving ability. The bakers were usually the lowest scoring recruits. This was later expanded to dozens of specialties like Postal Clerk, Driver, Stenographer, and Clerk-Typist. WAC armorers maintained and repaired small arms and heavy weapons that they were not allowed to use.

A physical training manual titled "You Must Be Fit" was published by the War Department in July 1943, aimed at bringing the women recruits to top physical standards. The manual begins by naming the responsibility of the women: "Your Job: To Replace Men. Be Ready To Take Over."''W. A. C. Field Manual Physical Training'' (FM 35-20). War Department, 15 July 1943. United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. It cited women's commitment to the war effort in England, Russia, Germany and Japan, and emphasized that the WAC recruits must be physically able to take on any job. The fitness manual was state-of-the-art for its day, with sections on warming up and progressive body-weight strength-building exercises for the arms, legs, stomach, neck and back. It included a section on designing a personal fitness routine after basic training and concluded with "The Army Way to Health and Added Attractiveness" with advice on skincare, make-up, and hairstyles.

Inept publicity and the poor appearance of the WAAC/WAC uniform, especially in comparison to that of the other services, handicapped recruiting efforts. A resistance by senior Army commanders was overcome by the efficient service of WAACs in the field, but the attitude of men in the rank and file remained generally negative and hopes that up to a million men could be replaced by women never materialized. The United States Army Air Forces became an early and staunch supporter of regular military status for women in the army.

About 150,000 American women eventually served in the WAAC and WAC during World War II. While the conservative opinion in the leadership of the Army was initially opposed to women serving in uniform, as was public opinion, the shortage of men necessitated a new policy.

While most women served stateside, some went to various places worldwide, including Europe, North Africa, and New Guinea. For example, WACs landed on Normandy Beach just a few weeks after the initial invasion.

Slander campaign

In 1943 the recruiting momentum stopped and went into reverse as a massive slander campaign on the home front challenged the WACs as sexually immoral. Many soldiers ferociously opposed allowing women in uniform, warning their sisters and friends they would be seen as lesbians or prostitutes. Surveys found that the majority of Army enlisted soldiers thought that women of poor quality became WACs, and would tell sisters or girlfriends to not join; only 17% or less would tell them to become WACs. Seventy-two percent of civilian women in a 1944 Gallup Poll said that Army men had influenced them to not enlist. Criticism of WACs also came from other women: Servicemen and officer's wives' idle gossip, local women who disliked the newcomers taking over "their town", female civilian employees resenting the competition (for both jobs and men), charity and volunteer organizations who resented the extra attention the WAACs received, and complaints and slander spread by disgruntled or discharged WAACs. One WAC recruiting officer said that at her post, many believed that Army women had deserted husbands and children to consort with male soldiers. Many civilians described WACs at local bases as heavy drinkers who frequently slept with men. Alternately, wanting to become a WAC might be proof of lesbianism, or WAC might convert a woman into such; one woman reporter wrote of her surprise that Hobby was feminine, and not "an unmarried woman with ... a Gertrude Stein haircut".

All investigations showed the rumors were false, but the belief that the Army wanted WACs as "morale boosters"—organized prostitutes—was widespread among soldiers and civilians. Some Army officers explicitly stated that WACs improving soldiers' morale was more important than their official duties. While most WACs denied such rumors, some were also uncertain of their purpose. One woman soldier wrote that since "you can't change human nature", WACs could act as "a healthy source of entertainment for our gallant men, and win the war". The Army sometimes used WAC units to control male sexuality, such as black units usually being assigned near black male soldiers. British general Bernard Montgomery in December 1944 suggested assigning WAC and ATS units to the occupation of Germany to avoid Allied soldiers' fraternization with German women. Although WAC headquarters and European Theater of Operations WACs criticized the suggestion, one Army officer noted in a letter to a friend that the same colonel that had ordered officers to avoid prostitutes had, the next day, told them that they could date WACs.

Although many sources spawned and fed bad jokes and ugly rumors about military women, contemporaneous and historical accounts have focused on the work of syndicated columnist John O'Donnell. According to an Army history, even with its hasty retraction, O'Donnell's 8 June 1943 "Capitol Stuff" column did "incalculable damage." That column began, "Contraceptives and prophylactic equipment will be furnished to members of the WAACS, according to a super secret agreement reached by the high ranking officers of the War Department and the WAAC chieftain, Mrs. William Pettus Hobby…." This followed O'Donnell's 7 June column discussing efforts of women journalists and congresswomen to dispel "the gaudy stories of the gay and careless way in which the young ladies in uniform … disport themselves…."

The allegations were refuted, but the "fat was in the fire. The morals of the WAACs became a topic of general discussion…." Denials of O'Donnell's fabrications and others like them were ineffectual. According to Mattie Treadwell's Army history, as long as three years after O'Donnell's column, "religious publications were still to be found reprinting the story, and actually attributing the columnist's lines to Director Hobby. Director Hobby's picture was labeled 'Astounding Degeneracy' …."

Women of color

Black women served in the Army's WAAC and WAC, but very few served in the Navy. African American women serving in the WAC experienced segregation in much the same fashion as in U.S. civilian life. Some billets accepted WACs of any race, while others did not. Black women were taught the same specialties as white women, and the races were not segregated at specialty training schools. The US Army goal was to have 10 percent of the force be African-American, to reflect the larger U.S. population, but a shortage of recruits brought only 5.1 percent black women to the WAC. The first African-American commissioned officer in the WAC was Charity Adams Earley.

Evaluations

General Douglas MacArthur called the WACs "my best soldiers", adding that they worked harder, complained less and were better disciplined than men. Many generals wanted more of them and proposed to draft women but it was realized that this "would provoke considerable public outcry and Congressional opposition", and so the War Department declined to take such a drastic step. Those 150,000 women who did serve released the equivalent of 7 divisions of men for combat. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said that "their contributions in efficiency, skill, spirit and determination are immeasurable". Nevertheless, the slander campaigns hurt the reputation of not only the WAC but other all female Corps like the Navy's WAVES; many women did not even want it known they were veterans.

During the same time period, other branches of the U.S. military had similar women's units including: the Navy's WAVES, the SPARS of the Coast Guard, United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve, and the (civil) Women Airforce Service Pilots. The British Armed Forces also had similar units including: the Women's Royal Naval Service ("WRENS"), the Auxiliary Territorial Service. and the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

According to historian D'Ann Campbell, American society was not ready for women in military roles:
:The WAC and WAVES had been given an impossible mission: they not only had to raise a force immediately and voluntarily from a group that had no military traditions, but also had to overcome intense hostility from their male comrades. The situation was highly unfavorable: the women had no clear purpose except to send men to the battlefront; duties overlapped with civilian employees and enlisted male coworkers, causing confusion and tension; and the leadership cadre was unprestigious, inexperienced and had little control over women and none over men. Although the military high command strongly endorsed their work, there were no centers of influence in the civilian world, either male nor female, that were committed to the success of the women's services, and no civilian institutions that provided preliminary training for recruits or suitable positions for veterans. WACs, WAVES, SPARS and women Marines were war orphans whom no one loved.

Manhattan Project

Since early 1943, 422 WACs were assigned to the Corps of Engineers to work on the Manhattan Project, the secret US effort to build an atomic bomb. Major General Leslie R. Groves, director of the project, wrote: "Little is known of the significance of the contribution to the Manhattan Project by hundreds of members of the Women's Army Corps ... Since you received no headline acclaim, no one outside the project will ever know how much depended upon you."

Any women interested in positions on the project were told the following: they would be doing a hard job, would never be allowed to go overseas, attend Officer Candidate School, would never receive publicity, and would live at isolated stations with few recreational facilities. A surprising number of highly qualified women responded. It later proved possible to send WACs assigned the Manhattan Project to OCS without compromising security.

WAC Units involved in the effort were awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation; twenty women received the Army Commendation Ribbon and one, Captain Arlene G. Scheidenhelm, received the Legion of Merit. In addition, all members of the WAAC and the WAC who served in World War II received the Women's Army Corps Service Medal.

Vietnam War

In 1964, the personnel officer at Headquarters, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), in Saigon wrote to the director, then Colonel Gorman, that South Vietnam was organizing a Women's Armed Forces Corps (WAFC) and wanted U.S. WACs to assist them in planning and developing it. The MACV commander, then General William Westmoreland, authorized spaces for two WAC advisors. Before the requisitions arrived at the Pentagon, the MACV personnel officer, Brigadier General Ben Sternberg, wrote to Gorman, offering the advice that "The WAC officer should be a captain or major, fully knowledgeable in all matters pertaining to the operation of a WAC school and the training conducted therein. She should be extremely intelligent, an extrovert and beautiful. The WAC sergeant should have somewhat the same qualities... and should be able to type as well" Gorman replied that the WAC would "certainly try" to send women with "the qualifications you outline." Then, she added, "The combination of brains and beauty is, of course, common in the WAC."

By the time the requisitions arrived at the Pentagon in November 1964, the director had selected Major Kathleen I. Wilkes and Sergeant 1st class. Betty L. Adams to fill the positions. Both had extensive experience in WAC training, recruiting, administration, and command. On 15 January 1965, they arrived in Saigon and were met by Maj. Tran Cam Huong, director of the WAFC and commandant of the WAFC training center and her assistant, Major Ho Thi Ve.

The first WAC advisors advised the WAFC director and her staff on methods of organization, inspection, and management in recruiting, training, administering and assigning enlisted women and officer candidates. Time did not permit the first two WAC advisors to attend language school before they went to Saigon, but those who followed attended a twelve-week Vietnamese language course at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California. In 1968, an additional WAC officer advisor was assigned to the WAFC training center located on the outskirts of Saigon. The senior WAC advisor, then a lieutenant colonel and the NCO advisor, then a master sergeant, remained at WAFC headquarters in the city and continued to help the director of the WAFC to develop Corps-wide plans and policies. For additional training, members of the WAFC traveled to the United States. Between 1964 and 1971, 51 Vietnamese women officer candidates completed the WAC Officer Basic Course at the WAC School; one officer completed the WAC Officer Advanced Course.

Another group of WACs was assigned to Saigon beginning in 1965. That year Westmoreland requisitioned 15 WAC stenographers for MACV headquarters. Six arrived by December; the balance reported in over the next few months. Women in grades E-5 and higher with excellent stenographic skills, maturity and faultless records of deportment filled these positions for the next seven years. Peak strength reached 23 on 30 June 1970. The senior among them acted as NCO-in-charge and the senior WAC advisor to the WAFC was their officer-in-charge. Initially. the women were billeted in the Embassy Hotel, but they later moved to other hotels in Saigon. The WAC stenographers served at MACV headquarters and in support commands throughout the metropolitan area. Like everyone else, they worked six-and-a-half to seven days a week, ten to fifteen hours a day, and had little time for recreation or socializing. Nonetheless, several extended their tours in Vietnam and a few returned for second and third tours of duty.

Early in 1965, Westmoreland had also requisitioned a dozen WAC officers. They filled administrative positions at MACV headquarters, in the support commands and in the headquarters of a new command United States Army Vietnam (USARV). Major Audrey A. Fisher, the first to arrive, was assigned to the adjutant general's office. Like the enlisted women, the WAC officers lived in hotels in Saigon. They worked in personnel, administration, public information, intelligence, logistics, plans and training, and military justice. A few WAC officers served with the U.S. Army Central Support Command at Qui Nhon and Cam Ranh Bay.

In April 1966, the USARV deputy commanding general, Lieutenant General Jean E. Engler, requested that a WAC detachment be assigned to his headquarters. He asked for 50 (later 100) clerk-typists and other administrative workers, plus a cadre section of an officer and five enlisted women to administer the unit. Some officers in USARV opposed the idea. They believed that the additional security required for women would outweigh the advantages of having the WACs serve in South Vietnam. However Engler won over the critics when he decided to house the WACs inside the U.S. military cantonment area at Tan Son Nhut International Airport rather than in the city, eliminating the need for additional guards. Engler realized that the WACs would be exposed to risk, but he did not consider it great enough to exclude WACs, and he did not request that women being assigned to USARV learn to fire weapons. However, he privately decided that if they were ever assigned to field installations there, he would recommend that they receive small weapons training. Engler's request for a WAC unit was approved by command channels in the Pacific area and at the Pentagon, including the director of the WAC, and, finally, by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 25 July 1966. The WAC cadre arrived in late 1966. First to arrive were 1st Sergeant Marion C. Crawford and the administrative NCO, Sgt. 1st Class Betty J. Benson. The commander, Capt. Peggy E. Ready, the supply sergeant, SSgt. Edith L. Efferson and unit clerks PFC Rhynell M. Stoabs and PFC Patricia C. Pewitt followed. They participated in a ground-breaking ceremony on 2 November for construction of the WAC barracks. Two months later, Army engineers completed eleven quonset huts, called hootches, for living quarters and unit offices. On 12 January 1967, 82 enlisted women who were to serve that first year at Headquarters, USARV, arrived. They were welcomed by the USARV band, the press, photographers, officers and enlisted men from the command. In July 1967 USARV and its component commands, including the assigned WACs, moved to Long Binh Post northeast of Saigon.

In January 1970, the WAC reached its peak strength in South Vietnam with 20 officers and 139 enlisted women. With the progress of Vietnamization and the withdrawal of U.S. forces, by the end of December 1970 the WAC detachment numbered 72; by 31 December 1971 it numbered 46 and by early 1972 it numbered only 35 enlisted women. On 21 September 1972 the Long Binh WAC detachment numbering 13 enlisted women had a standdown ceremony. At the end of December 1972 only two officers and 17 enlisted women remained at MACV headquarters or its subordinate commands and all were withdrawn by March 1973.

Approximately 700 WACs served in South Vietnam with no casualties. The Long Binh detachment received two campaign stars for the Vietnam Counter-Offensive Phase II (1 July 1966 – 31 May 1967) and the Tet Offensive Campaign (30 January 1968 – 1 April 1968).

Disbanded

In 1976, the Women's Officer Candidate School program at Fort McClellan was merged with the Officer Candidate (Branch Immaterial) program at Fort Benning. In the fall of that year the first female cadets started at West Point. The OCS program graduated the first female Army officers before the first West Point cadets graduated in 1980.

The WAC as a branch was disbanded on 20 October 1978 and all female units were integrated with male units. Women serving as WACs at that time converted in branch to whichever Military Occupational Specialty they worked in. Since then, women in the US Army have served in the same units as men, though they have only been allowed in or near combat situations since 1994 when Defense Secretary Les Aspin ordered the removal of "substantial risk of capture" from the list of grounds for excluding women from certain military units. In 2015 Jeanne Pace, at the time the longest-tenured female warrant officer and the last former member of the WAC on active duty, retired. She had joined the WAC in 1972.

Ranks

WAAC

Originally there were only four enlisted (or "enrolled") WAAC ranks (auxiliary, junior leader, leader, and senior leader) and three WAAC officer ranks (first, second and third officer). The Director was initially considered as equivalent to a major, then later made the equivalent of a colonel. The enlisted ranks expanded as the organization grew in size. Promotion was initially rapid and based on ability and skill. As members of a volunteer auxiliary group, the WAACs got paid less than their equivalent male counterparts in the US Army and did not receive any benefits or privileges.

WAAC organizational insignia was a Rising Eagle (nicknamed the "Waddling Duck" or "Walking Buzzard" by WAACs). It was worn in gold metal as cap badges and uniform buttons. Enlisted and NCO personnel wore it as an embossed circular cap badge on their Hobby Hats, while officers wore a "free" version (open work without a backing) on their hats to distinguish them. Their auxiliary insignia was the dark blue letters "WAAC" on an Olive Drab rectangle worn on the upper sleeve (below the stripes for enlisted ranks). WAAC personnel were not allowed to wear the same rank insignia as Army personnel. They were usually authorized to do so by post or unit commanders to help in indicating their seniority within the WAAC, although they had no authority over Army personnel.

WAC

The organization was renamed the Women's Army Corps in July 1943 when it was authorized as a branch of the US Army rather than an auxiliary group. The US Army's "GI Eagle" now replaced the WAAC's Rising Eagle as the WAC's cap badge. The WAC received the same rank insignia and pay as men later that September and received the same pay allowances and deductions as men in late October. They were also the first women officers in the army allowed to wear officer's insignia; the Army Nursing Corps did not receive permission to do so until 1944.

The WAC had its own branch insignia (the Bust of Pallas Athena), worn by "Branch Immaterial" personnel (those unassigned to a Branch of Service). US Army policy decreed that technical and professional WAC personnel should wear their assigned Branch of Service insignia to reduce confusion. During the existence of the WAC (1943 to 1978) women were prohibited from being assigned to the combat arms branches of the Army – such as the Infantry, Cavalry, Armor, Tank Destroyers, or Artillery and could not serve in a combat area. However, they did serve as valuable staff in their headquarters and staff units stateside or in England.

The army's technician grades were technical and professional specialists similar to the later specialist grade. Technicians had the same insignia as NCOs of the same grade but had a "T" insignia (for "technician") beneath the chevrons. They were considered the same grade for pay but were considered a half-step between the equivalent pay grade and the next lower regular pay grade in seniority, rather than sandwiched between the junior enlisted (i.e., private – private first class) and the lowest NCO grade of rank (viz., corporal), as the modern-day specialist (E-4) is today. Technician grades were usually mistaken for their superior NCO counterparts due to the similarity of their insignia, creating confusion.

There were originally no warrant officers in the WAC in July, 1943. Warrant officer appointments for army servicewomen were authorized in January 1944. In March 1944 six WACs were made the first WAC Warrant Officers – as administrative specialists or band leaders. The number grew to 10 by June, 1944 and to 44 by June, 1945. By the time the war officially ended in September 1945, there were 42 WAC warrant officers still in Army service. There was only a trickle of appointments in the late 1940s after the war.

Most WAC officers were company-grade officers (lieutenants and captains), as the WAC were deployed as separate or attached detachments and companies. The field grade officers (majors and lieutenant-colonels) were on the staff under the director of the WAC, its solitary colonel. Officers were paid by pay band rather than by grade or rank and did not receive a pay grade until 1955.

List of directors

Women's Army Corps Veterans' Association

The Women's Army Corps Veterans' Association—Army Women's United (WACVA) was organized in August 1947. Women who have served honorably in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) or the Women's Army Corps (WAC) and those who have served or are serving honorably in the United States Army, the United States Army Reserve, or the Army National Guard of the United States, are eligible to be members.

Notable WACs

Colonel Geraldine Pratt May (1895–1997 erved 1942–19??). In March, 1943 May became one of the first female officers assigned to the Army Air Forces, serving as WAC Staff Director to the Air Transport Command. In 1948 she was promoted to Colonel (the first woman to hold that rank in the Air Force) and became Director of the WAF in the Women's Air Force">WAF in the Lt. Col. Charity Adams Earley">Charity Adams was the first commissioned African-American WAC and the second to be promoted to the rank of major. Promoted to major in 1945, she commanded the segregated all-female 6888th Central Postal Battalion in Birmingham, England">6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion">6888th Central Postal Battalion in Rouen and then Paris