Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: July 1987 Volume 25 Number 3, Pages 92–96

World War II Revisited

Claire Etherton ; Charlotte Goodman

• 1. My WAAC/WAC Days by Claire Etherton
• 2. I Was a WAVE by Charlotte Goodman

Page 92

1. My WAAC/WAC Days by Claire Etherton

I heard the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 while listening to a glee club concert at the State Museum in Trenton, New Jersey. Following that "day of infamy" everyone wanted to do something to help their country, and I, too, was very patriotic, anxious to do my part.

My first thought was to drive an ambulance for the Red Cross. Having taken care of the bloody knees and skinned elbows of my students in Bristol, Pennsylvania, I thought I could handle anything. What I couldn't handle was the price of the Red Cross uniform!

Then there was a call for librarians to serve in the libraries at the Army bases. But although I had a teacher's degree, I did not have the required library science degree. They turned me down.

Finally there was a call for women over 21 years of age for the newly formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, or WAAC. First, officers were to be selected. Because of chronic sinusitus, I failed the physical exam. The next year I filed another application for admission. After I lost ten pounds they accepted me. They never noticed my sinusitus!

Page 93

After being sworn in, I left my school and home to board a train in Trenton, bound for Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. You can't believe the condition of the trains in those days -- the old green plush seats (very dusty), gas lamps hanging from the ceiling, swaying with the motion of the train, very few lavatories to accommodate hundreds of women. We sat up all night!

At the Cincinnati railroad station we had a free lunch. We felt like boarding school girls, walking to the lunch room from the train in single file.

How dirty your clothes became! That same dress I wore for a week, until I was presented with an ill-fitting skirt, shirt, jacket, &c. -- even 0..D. colored underwear! I can't remember the pay of a private, but it was spent on a decent shirt and on having all the rest of the uniform fitted by a tailor.

I had been a teacher for twelve years so I was no youngster, and not used to much exercise -- so you can imagine my difficulties climbing up to my top bunk each night. Several times the mattress and I landed on the floor before I devised an easier and better way to climb up into it.

Then there was the marching to and from classes, singing all the while (which I loved, especially the Air Force song). The classes were many - some five hours a week, some only two hours -- but with tests on all the courses every Saturday morning. I never studied so hard!

I met a girl from Trenton, a public school teacher almost my age. We went together on a Sunday trip to Chattanooga to Lookout Mountain. What a great feeling it was to sit in a restaurant with a table cloth and linen napkins in front of us, after so many meals on plain boards!

The highlight of the entire thirteen weeks of basic training was the day we were told a "notable" was coming to see us in formation, someone so secret we couldn't be told who it was. We formed at the entrance to the fort and practised many times how to separate and march forward in a certain way, over and over again. The Army is like a parochial school -- practise, practise, practise! Then the day arrived. We stood in close order at the gate of Fort Oglethorpe, waiting silently, when we heard the cannon boom. We all counted, and when it reached 19 and continued we knew the 21-gun salute was for the president! As the last boom sounded, a big black linousine drove slowly by, open top, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his long cigarette holder in his smiling mouth, on the right, his dog Fala in the middle, and Col. Oveta Culp Hobby (the first colonel of the WAACs) on the other side. If we didn't cry we did have lumps in our throats as we saluted sharply. And then it was over. He didn't stop and it was over in three minutes. Hearts still beating, faces still smiling, we marched back in formation to our barracks.

At the end of our thirteen weeks of basic training we were informed of our next assignment. Some of us went to the Signal Corps, some to cook and baker school, one to air photography (which I wanted), and others to airplane mechanics school, administrative clerks training, &c.

Page 94

Those of us who were selected for the latter set out for Nagadoches in Texas. It was an eight-week course -- in hot, buggy, July Texas weather. The Jello salad melted before you could eat it. Black bugs were in the sinks and showers day and night. There were two double bunks in each room -- and of course I had a top bunk again!

We learned about all kinds of Army forms and the many rules and regulations. Again there were many courses and many tests. And once again I never studied so hard on Friday nights, sitting out on the floor in the hall or on steps after "lights out" in the rooms at 10 p.m.

To say that I learned typing would be a gross exaggeration. To pass the test you had to type 21 words a minute. (And if you didn't pass the test you'd wash out and be sent to cook and baker school!) At night you'd find me in the classroom, practising away on the covered keys. I'm glad to say I passed the typing test -- but only once! I've never typed 21 words a minute before or since!

At the end of the course a number of us traveled by train from Texas to California -- our destination was Hamilton Air Force Base, outside San Francisco and north of San Rafael. We were told it was called "the Country Club of the Air Force" in peacetime. We were very fortunate to arrive at this beautiful place -- grass, trees, roses and geraniums blooming all year long, the Spanish architecture of the permanent buildings and the officers' and N.C.O.s' homes -- and then our temporary barracks.

For months the work in the personnel office was very boring; on hot Sundays you almost fell asleep checking the various little items in Service Records. I was entrusted with the service records for three different squadrons -- two men's groups and the WAACs. This meant organizing financial records, "shot" records, furloughs, transfers, and so on. And so it went, until I was discharged after three years and three months.

During these three-plus years I learned many things about myself -- that I could withstand such physical work that I had never done before, scrub mashed-potato pots that were so deep they reached from my finger-tips up to my shoulders, clean garbage containers while gagging at the sight of maggots that developed in the California sun, and all the dirty jobs in the kitchen that seemed to come around sooner than every two and a half weeks; and also to teach physical training and instruct the company on orientation even though I was not (to them) qualified officer material.

Then there were the many advantages of serving in the Armed Services -- the travel, seeing new sights and scenery (such as the desert all in bloom as we crossed it by train from Texas to California), the cardinals as they flew out of the woods in front of us as we marched to class in Texas, and the many beautiful, interesting, historical sights of San Francisco.

Page 95

The U.S.O. was a wonderful organization -- the free cakes and doughnuts they served; the rooms in a huge building in San Francisco where you could wash your hair, refurbish your nails or make-up, and even press your uniform; the free tickets to theatres, concerts, the opera, and ballet.

You form many friendships when you're in tightly-knit groups in barracks and classrooms. Some you lose touch with when you move on to a new location, but after almost fifty years now I still maintain two of these friendships, and have visited one of these friends in San Rafael who entertained five of us from our barracks. After going over the scrapbooks of our hostess and exchanging reminiscences, we all agreed our WAC experience was not a wasted time in our lives.

The Armed Forces learned something too. First we were called the "Auxiliary" Corps, but when we showed the generals and brass our worth, the one "A" was dropped from the WAAC and we became the WAC, the Women's Army Corps. Now women are a part of each branch of the service, with the same training, pay, jobs, and opportunities to further themselves as the men have.

So I feel I lived and participated in a part of our American history. I feel very proud that I had an opportunity to do this -- in my WAAC/WAC days.

2. I Was a WAVE by Charlotte Goodman

I have always felt that serving in Washington, D. C. as a U. S. Navy WAVE during World War II gave me an enhanced sense of history and an exhilerating belief that I was at the vortex of unfolding events.

Stationed in the Navy Department, I admit to an irrational romance with the blue and gold braid, the formality of the salute, and, yes, even the monotonous hours on watch in the radio shack. For life was throbbing for me in that glittering city in the midst of the dark hours of 1943 and 1944, the time of tension and relief, tension and relief.

I could not escape the events occuring in the European theatre; we all watched and waited with trepidation as the U-boats sank our merchant ships and their crews. The sense of urgency to pull together was especially apparent when leaving the capital on the railroad, for New York and beyond. Uniforms sprinkled the club car; soldiers actually slept in the luggage rack. Civilians were uniformly polite, but somehow distant.

As a servicewoman I found myself cacooned by others in uniform. We spoke a common language. We were not subject to rationing; we ate well. We didn't long for silk stockings; ersatz would do. Long tresses were not for us; the Navy told us what length hair-do, what length skirt, what style of shoes. It was a relief from having to choose.

Page 96

A few memorable moments stand out sharply on the landscape of my mind: having dinner with a former commanding officer after his ship had been sunk. He spoke, eyes glazed, of hours at sea on a raft, with sick or dying men. He warmed to the notion of eating in a French restaurant with a sympathetic, almost reverential, listener.

V-E Day was pandemonium. A magnet drew all service persons towards the White House gates. We climbed on top of cars, taxis and buses. We sang, shouted, and hugged one another. I suppose others had this same emotion, but being in Washington sharpened our awareness of it.

I was on mid-watch when the announcement, in plain English, came in about President Roosevelt's death. A hush, unspeakably loud, descended upon us all. FDR was a surrogate father. Those under 25 had not known any other president. The solemn march down Constitution Avenue following the hearse was an act of piety, and of quiet determination. I spent the rest of the day on the golf course, trying to hit that ball down the enemy's throat.

Life in the District of Columbia also had its lighter moments: concerts at the Watergate marina under the stars, visits to the Capitol to hear Senators debate, reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library, bicycling in "civies" to Annapolis, Bethesda, and points south. Dancing at the all-servicemen's U. S. 0. was a form of relaxation.

Yet there were frustrations as well. Waiting in line was the most pernicious -- and stays with me today; waiting for late trains, for meals, for buses; waiting.

Funny things happened. We threw paper planes into the steamy fans in mid-summer. I found myself acting on radio with Gene Kelly, Henry Fonda and Robert Taylor! I met heroes with chests full of ribbons, and listened as they recounted non-heroic acts which were, ironically, rewarded. I fraternized with Russian officers, and learned to say more than "da" or "nyet". Going home on a 48-hour pass had a sense of abnormality. Everything civilian was not normal; things were twisted around.

V-J Day was anti-climactic. What was this horrible weapon called the A-bomb?

There were lots of things we did not know. No one mentioned Japanese-Americans behind barbed wire fences, or German spies in New York apartments or on Long Island beaches. Only time has revealed these things. There was no TV instant analysis. We sat around for hours over coffee, questioning and analysing for ourselves.

To this day I have a fond memory of my 21/2-year stint in the Navy during World War II. The experience made me a more sensitive person.