A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
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.
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.
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.
Fascinating piece on the crucial role women played in developing the first computers as programmers.
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.
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.
WAVES marching to inspection by Mildred McAfee and White at Naval Air Station Brooklyn, New York, July 31, 1943. Check out the sign at the bottom of the photo. It looks to be hand painted – certainly wouldn’t see that today!
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
The junior class in anatomy gets facts on figures from instructor Pharmacists Mate First Class Dorothy Payne. The trainees are gathered about the model for a few questions at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, MD.
The 1943 photograph comes from the National Archives.
WAVES check on the pulse and reactions of a group of aviation cadets in the pressure chamber at U.S. Naval Training Center, Pensacola, FL.
The c. 1944 photograph comes from the National Archives.
WAVES at Naval Air Station Seattle, WA find time for recreation in various forms. Here, a party for the WAVES first anniversary in 1943 featured the swearing in of recruits at a downtown Seattle theater.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Hinges of History 