WAVES learn to repair and maintain engines on a Navy flight plane during training in Norman, Oklahoma.
The photograph by Lt. JG Wayne Miller comes from the National Archives.
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Frank Sinatra
The singing star spent some time harmonizing with the WAVE singing platoon during World War II.
The photograph appeared in the newsletter for the WAVE training school in the Bronx, Conning Tower.
Elizabeth Reynard
Elizabeth Reynard was one of the women who helped to organize basic training for the WAVES and came up with their name. I’m not sure of the date of this newspaper feature on her, but it offers an interesting insight into one of the earliest World War II-era WAVES.
“Where Did You Get That Hat?”
This is one of our favorite color photographs of the WAVES, showing women trying on the new overseas hat at Naval Air Station New Orleans. The hat would be a uniform addition (the “bucket” style hat would also remain an option during World War II), bu the overseas hat would eventually become the sole uniform standard for Navy women in the post-war years.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Federal Building, San Francisco
The Navy took a series of aerial photographs of Navy places during the war years. This shot is of the Federal Office Building in San Francisco, California, where Margaret Anderson Thorngate worked as a WAVE Yeoman.
It comes from the National Archives.
Daily Exercise
From the Navy caption of this February, 1943 photograph by Lt. Wayne Miller:
Daily gym instruction keeps WAVES ship shape at Boot Camp, Cedar Falls, Iowa.
February 1943 would be the last month the Cedar Falls facility at Iowa State Teacher’s College would be used as a boot camp. The Hunter College training center in the Bronx, New York, opened that same month.
The photo comes from the National Archives.
Supply Duty
WAVE Mary Lee Price is on duty in the supply department at Naval Air Station Seattle. Price enlisted on the first anniversary of the WAVES’ founding, July 31, 1943.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Women in Tech from ENIAC to MOM
Fascinating piece on the crucial role women played in developing the first computers as programmers.
The Locker
Things are very neat and tidy in this view of a WAVES locker shown in the barracks at Camp Endicott, Davisville, Rhode Island, 1944.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Cellestial Navigation
WAVES undergoing a 10-week course at Navy Link Celestial Navigation, Trainer Operators and Maintenance Schools at NAS, Seattle, WA. WAVES study the earth’s relation to the celestial sphere in order to train pilots in navigation.
Here, Lt. (jg) M.L. Lansing, USN, Officer-in-charge of the Link Celestial Navigation Trainer School, briefs the WAVE students.
The 1944 photograph comes from the National Archives.
Hinges of History 