A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
WAVE Annabell Dean get her first stripe sewn on after she graduates as an ensign from the Northampton Women’s Reserve Officer’s Training School at Smith College. Ensign Mabel Theobald helps her get the placement just right.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Check out the living quarters for WAVES at NATTC in Norman, Oklahoma. The WAVE shows that folding was an art form – and a necessity.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
This February 1943 photograph shows a WAVE writing a letter aboard a train while en route from the Cedar Falls boot camp to the Madison, Wisconsin advanced training facility for radio coding/decoding.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Piles of luggage, and scores of WAVES, as both await the trains to take them from boot camp at Cedar Falls, Iowa, to new places of instruction.
The photograph by Lt. Wayne Miller comes from the National Archives.
WAVES are “at ease” during the Captain’s Inspection at the Cedar Falls boot camp in February 1943.
The photograph by Lt. Wayne Miller comes from the National Archives.
Welcome, November! We wrap up aviation week with the cover of the November, 1944 WAVES Newsletter. It features a WAVE loading parachute rigging gear in a Naval plane.
Happy Halloween! We continue aviation week with a treat not a trick: WAVES repairing planes during World War II.
The photo comes from the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Moving from training to doing, as we continue aviation week. In this c. 1945 photograph, WAVES talk to pilots from the flight control tower.
The photo was published in the WAVES Newsletter, and it comes from the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Aviation week continues with this c. 1944 photograph of a Navy WAVE working the headsets on the Link flight simulation unit. She’ll use the microphone to help direct the pilot trainee and let him know if he is flying correctly or has “crashed.”
The photo comes from the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Continuing in our “aviation week” theme, this photo shows an unidentified WAVE and Navy pilot trainee working with the Link instructor. The pilot is learning the skills of instrument flight.
The photo comes from the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Hinges of History 