Small Town America in World War II: War Stories from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania

PART V: STATESIDE MILITARY SERVICE

PART V STATESIDE MILITARY SERVICE STATESIDE MILITARY SERVICE During World War II, thousands of military men and women saw duty in the United States. Although they never served in combat zones, their contributions to the war effort cannot be overlooked. Stateside soldiers served as coast artillerymen, drill instructors, flight instructors, aircraft mechanics, drivers, ferry pilots, weather forecasters, mapmakers, supply clerks, corpsmen, medical doctors, psychologists, chaplains, and finance officers. In some cases, men being trained for overseas duty never left the States because the war was over before they could be sent to combat zones. More than 400,000 American military women served at home and overseas, almost always in noncombatant roles. More than 60,000 Army nurses and 14,000 Navy nurses served stateside and overseas during the war. In 1942 the Navy established the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service [WAVES], and a year later the Army organized the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps [WAC]. In 1943 the Marine Corps created the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, and the Coast Guard soon followed with the formation of the SPARs [after the motto Semper Paratus]. Women in the various military branches filled jobs in communications, intelligence, supply, medicine, and administra- 354 SMALL TOWN AMERICA IN WORLD WAR II tion. Others served as storekeepers, clerks, photographers, drivers, and records keepers. The Women Airforce Service Pilots [WASPs] flew stateside missions as aircraft ferriers, test pilots, and antiaircraft artillery trainers. In 1943 the Cadet Nurse Corps was formed, and by the end of the war it had trained 125,000 women for possible military service.1 STATESIDE MILITARY SERVICE 355 Notes 1. Note: See Sally Van Wagenen Keil, Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines: The Unknown Heroines of World War II (New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, 1979); Bettie J. Morden, The Women’s Army Corps, 1945-1978 (Washington, DC: Government Publication Office, 1992; Paula Nassen Poulous, ed., A Woman’s War, Too: Women in the Military in World War II (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1966); June A. Willenz, Women Veterans: America’s Forgotten Heroines (New York: Continuum,1983); and Allan M. Winkler, Home Front USA: America during World War II (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1986). 356 SMALL TOWN AMERICA IN WORLD WAR II Figure 19. CPO Elmira “Jane” Bock ...