Capturing the Women's Army Corps: The World War II Photographs of Captain Charlotte T. McGraw

Introduction

1 The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), created in 1942 and subsequently replaced the following year with the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), was to last for the duration of World War II “plus six months.” Very few women could have imagined at the time the profound impact their military service would have on generations of women to come. Much of the success of the Women’s Army Corps in its ability to recruit young, skilled women into its ranks can be attributed to Capt. Charlotte T. McGraw, whose work is the focus of this book. Captain McGraw was the only official war photographer of the WAAC and WAC, and her images would be seen in publications all over the globe. Many of her photos would also be used as “hometown ” releases to local newspapers, which would give the community an update on one of their own in uniform. As the official WAAC and WAC photographer, she had specific assignments—where she was to go and what she was to accomplish. Despite the strict orders, Captain McGraw was given the creative license to accomplish the mission as she saw fit. As a result of this, her body of work now provides us with the single most comprehensive visual record of the approximately 140,000 women who served in the U.S. Army in World War II. The selection of the photos for this publication was very difficult. Captain McGraw produced over 70,000 images, approximately 5,000 of which are located in the archives of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia. The locations of the rest are not completely known: some are in the U.S. Army Signal Corps’ archives, and others are perhaps in private hands. Nonetheless, the process of selecting the photographs was challenging. How does one select a mere hundred or so photos out of thousands? We began this arduous task by determining the categories of photos we thought most interesting: architectural and street scenes, varying geographical locations , women’s occupations in the army, and the effects of war on cities and soldiers. The majority of the photographs include the verbatim quotes from McGraw herself. On the back of the photographs she would type out specific information about the Introduction 2 • Introduction individuals and the places where the photographs were taken. We have included the caption whenever there was one, and these original captions are styled in italic text; for those photos without them, we have indicated the location and sometimes additional notes. In captions we have provided, the text is styled in roman font. We removed the full names of the photos’ subjects and have used initials instead to preserve the privacy of the subjects’ family members. Captain McGraw’s captions abbreviated Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps as “Waac” and Women’s Army Corps as “Wac.” However, in the text we used the proper abbreviation—either WAAC or WAC. Captain McGraw often indicated the next of kin of the WAC(s) in the photos , such as “Sergeant T. is the daughter of. . . . ” It is interesting to note that the men in the photos are largely unidentified, but if their names are given, there is no mention of their family; it was the women who were the focus of Captain McGraw’s assignments. Additionally, many of the military ranks are not spelled out in the captions, and several ranks, such as “Tech 5,” are no longer used by the U.S. Army. We have included an appendix that explains the abbreviated ranks. The reader might wonder why there are no photographs of African American WACs in this collection. This is because the places where Captain McGraw was sent to take pictures were not locations where black WACs were stationed. As a final note, all of the photographs and images, except where noted, are from the archives and artifacts collection of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum. ...