A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
Code class is in session at the radio school for WAVES, located on the University of Wisconsin, Madison, campus. The instructor (in the background) carefully times his messages for the WAVES, each in her own headsets and equipment.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Radio coding class is in session, in this photograph from the National Archives. The University of Wisconsin Madison was one of the first training centers for WAVES to open, beginning in October of 1942.
In this photo, the instructor (in the foreground) carefully times his rate of sending coded messages with his timer, which is in his left hand.
WAVES at the University of Madison in Madison, Wisconsin, learned how to code and decode radio messages – both friend and foe. Here, a WAVE is practicing with the equipment.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
A sea of young women in headsets – that was typical of how WAVES learned the skill of radio coding at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, one of the first training schools that opened for WAVES in fall of 1942.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
WAVES sit at attention during a lecture at the WAVES’ boot camp in Cedar Falls, Iowa. WAVES trained at the Iowa State Teacher’s College (now Northern Iowa University).
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
WAVES took their assignments seriously. Here, they’re looking quite studious as they work in the classroom during Boot Camp at Iowa State Teacher’s College (now Northern Iowa University) in Cedar Falls.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Here, WAVES are in the classroom during one of the first boot camps at the Iowa State Teacher’s College (now Northern Iowa University) in Cedar Falls. The facility would become a yeoman training center after the opening of the Hunter College boot camp in February 1943.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Shortly after the “combined” training facilities opened in Stillwater, Madison and Bloomington, the Navy decided a separate boot camp to train WAVES recruits would make more sense. The women could learn the Navy basics at boot camp and then move on to the other facilities for their specialized training.
Iowa State Teacher’s College (now Northern Iowa University) in Cedar Falls was selected as the first boot camp and women entered for training in the fall of 1942. The campus, however, did not have the room that the Navy would eventually need, so by February 1943 it was shifted to a yeoman training school alongside Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater. Hunter College in the Bronx, New York, surrendered its campus to the Navy for a WAVES boot camp facility through the end of the war.
This photograph of WAVES marching indoors at Cedar Falls comes from the National Archives
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The dramatic modernistic building in the background of this shot of WAVES marching is the “new” Union Theater located on the University of Wisconsin campus along the shores of Lake Mendota. The theater opened in 1939, and a decade after it’s opening the Madison Capital Times wrote:
The whole panorama of a nation at war and peace had been reviewed there.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
In this photograph from the National Archives, WAVES are marching behind the flag bearer at the Radio School at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Hinges of History 