WAVES was established on
July 30, 1942, as the U.S. Navy’s corps of female members. During World
War II some 100,000 WAVES served in a wide variety of capacities
ranging from performing essential clerical duties to serving as
instructors for male pilots-in-training. Initially, they did not serve
overseas. Several thousand WAVES also participated in the Korean War.
The corps continued its separate existence until 1978.
The
navy’s policies toward women were in some ways quite progressive.
Unlike the U.S. Army’s female branch, the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), the
WAVES were not an auxiliary and were accorded a status comparable to
that of male members of the reserve. However, the navy did come under
fire for excluding African-American women from the ranks until the
final months of the war, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered
racial integration. (Source: Britannica.com) |
WAVES Allowed More Leeway In Their Costumes
By Waldo Wiese
Cedar Falls – The WAACs and the WAVES are sisters under the skin, but the WAVES have more to say about what goes next to it.
The
WAACs get their lingerie as government issue,but the WAVES buy their
own, decide what to wear and when, within the limitations of ordinary
feminine custom. Even the problem child of women’s apparel – the girdle
– is optional with the 1,050 naval auxiliary women who began training
here this week. The WAACs are issued two apiece when they enter
training.
There are no regulations requiring the women to wear
girdles and they are not on the list of things WAVES are required to
buy, but an official said Wednesday that WAVE could be required to put
on a girdle if her superiors felt she “would look better in her
uniform” wearing one. The official said the women would be “encouraged”
to wear them. Most of them are expected to bring such items when they
report, she added. Whereas all WAAC clothing is government issue, the
WAVES buy all their own, but most of the outer garments are prescribed.
The WAVES get $200 clothing allowance when they enter training and when that is gone, must provide their own.
They
can have as many clothes as they wish, but are required to have certain
minima of specific items. The navy estimated around $160 is required
for the specified items, and the remainder is for the optional pieces.
Required
items are: two two-piece blue suits, $25 each; one combination
overcoat-raincoat with detachable lining, $33.65; two hats (different
kinds), $3 each; six blouses, $3.80 to $4.80 apiece; three neckties, 45
cents each; four pairs of lisle hose, 80 cents a pair; two pairs of
shoes, one pair of galoshes or rubbers, three pairs of gloves (one
black, two white); one oil silk transparent hat cover, $.70. They must
buy prescribed types of suits, hats, blouses, neckties,
overcoat-raincoat, hose and hat cover. They may buy any type gloves,
shoes, galoshes or rubbers they desire, provided the articles meet
certain standards, chief of which are that they be simple, neat and
practical.
Shoes must be black, calf oxford type and the heels
must not be more than one and one-half inches high – about half the
height of the ordinary high-heeled shoe. Hose are beige colored. They
are not required to have handbags, but if they have any, they must be
of a type that has a long strap for hanging from the shoulder. The only
kinds they can buy cost $6.95 and $10.95, depending on quality.
All the clothes are navy blue in color or of a color complimentary to that scheme.
Two
stores, one in Waterloo and and the other in Cedar Falls, have been
designated by the navy to handle WAVES items and the women are required
to buy their clothes at those places. (Source: Cherokee Daily Times, Sat., Dec. 19, 1942, pg. 6) | |
Cedar Falls – More than a thousand women and not a “yes ma’am” in the crowd. That
was the situation at Iowa State Teachers college Tuesday as 1,050 WAVES
moved onto the campus for the opening of the first general training
school for the feminine naval auxiliaries. While
in the service, the WAVES must forget the word “ma’am” as far as their
work is concerned. It is barred by Navy regulations. Officers must be
addressed by rank, or as Miss, Mrs., Mr., or Sir. Enlisted personnel is
referred to be last name only. The WAVES who
arrived on the campus Monday and Tuesday will go through five weeks of
intensive indoctrination and placement routine before being assigned to
navy specialist schools for instruction in the type of work they will
do to release regular naval personnel for combat duty. It
is the first school designed especially to get the early part of WAVES
training out of the way before she is sent to a specialist center.
Previously they received indoctrination and specialist training
simultaneously, but hereafter all WAVES exept some officer candidates
will come here first and then move on to other schools. The rules about “yes ma’am” isn’t the only one the women will have to remember. (Source: Cherokee Daily Times, Dec 19, 1942, pg. 6)
| NINE PATRIOTIC CHEROKEE COUNTY WOMEN SERVING IN WAVES AND SPARS
Each
Wednesday, NAVY recruiters set up at the post office in Cherokee. Men
or women having any questions about NAVY service were able to find
service in Cherokee rather than traveling to Sioux City or other
locations.
W. W. Huff, the recruiter in charge of that naval
district said the one question most commonly asked by the women about
WAVES were concerning the pay WAVES received. A complete explanation of
the pay received by a WAVE could be quite lengthy but Huff said that
the woman who has finished her training receives from $78 up per month
as base pay plus allowance of $2.75 a day for maintenance and quarters
if required to live off the station. Women received the equivalent of
$160 per month and up as soon as they graduated from their four month
college training. While in training women received regular navy pay of
$54 per month. There were no deductions from those amounts except such
allotments as the women cared to make.
Recruiter Huff declared
that Cherokee county ranked among the leaders of the state on a per
capita enlistment basis. By July 1, 1943, nine Cherokee
girls had joined the WAVES-SPARS. Eight were in the WAVES. Some of them
were already in training and others were still awaiting call. The
women were Dorothy, Maxine and Elizabeth Staber, Helen Kluge, Gertrude
Graves, Ruby Nelson, Ruth J. Glidewell, and Buelah Osborne.
Bernice Wray was in the SPARS. Several more girls from Cherokee
and the surrounding territory were in the process of making
application. (Source:Excerpts from Cherokee Daily Times article published on Thursday, July 1, 1943, pg. 1)
| Cherokee County WAVES
(Please notify me if I missed anyone. Thank you, Cindy Booth Maher) | Dorothy Staber
Maxine Staber
Elizabeth Staber
Alice Katherine Morrison
Janice Knipe
Esther Nelson | Helen Harriet Kluge
Gertrude Graves
Ruby Nelson
Margaret Ann Muraine
Mary Rogge
Mildred Nelson | Ruth J. Glidewell
Buelah Osborne
Charlotte Reilly
Winifred Belfrage
LaVonne Rowlet
Esther Lucille Vangor |
| | SPARS
- Was a Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, U.S. military service group
founded in 1942 for the purpose of making more men available to serve
at sea by assigning women to onshore duties during World War II.
During
World War I, the U.S. Coast Guard enlisted a small number of women to
serve as volunteers primarily in clerical roles, During World War II,
on November 23, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a law that
established the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve. The women reservists
served under the leadership of Lieutenant Commander Dorothy Stratton.
They were not permitted to serve beyond the boundaries of the
continental United States or to give orders to any male serviceman,
although both these rules were relaxed over time as women began to take
on roles of greater responsibility. The Women’s Reserve came to be
referred to as the SPARS, an acronym representing the Coast Guard
motto, “Semper Paratus-Always Ready.”
After the end of World War II, the SPARS were demobilized. (Source: Britannica.com) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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