Tag Archives: Coast Guard

SPARs Commander

The SPARS, like the WAVES, turned to higher education for their leader. Dorothy Stratton was the first full time Dean of Women at Purdue University as World War II started. She left higher education to join the service, become a member of the first WAVES’ officer class at Smith College. She was then assigned as Assistant to the Commanding Officer of the WAVES radio training program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

This photograph of Stratton and WAVES commander Mildred McAfee comes from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Happy Anniversary SPARS!

Because of the holiday weekend, we held off on this post until today. But it was 70 years ago, November 23, 1942, that the Coast Guard SPARS was founded. The SPARS were the Coast Guard’s women’s reserve and their name came from the Coast Guard motto Semper Paratus, Always Ready.

This recruitment poster comes from the National Museum of the U.S. Navy at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC.

Special Edition

This is a photo of a commemorative stamp honoring the U.S. Coast Guard. It was released after World War II had ended, on November 10, 1945. The Coast Guard itself was originally founded on August 4th, 1790.

The stamp comes from the Better H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Dorothy Stratton

Dorothy Stratton, who had been dean of women at Purdue University before the war, was a member of the first WAVE officer class in August of 1942. A few months later she was asked to head another new women’s military group: the Coast Guard SPARs (from the Coast Guard Motto Semper Paratus, Always Ready).

She said of her appointment to lead the Coast Guard:

I knew nothing about the Coast Guard, nothing. I had never seen a Coast Guard officer. I didn’t know anything. I think I felt if that was the place where I could work, that was fine with me. In other words, I only cared about being where I could feel I was doing something useful, and I thought this was something useful.

About 12,000 women served in the SPARs during World War II. They were decommissioned at war’s end, and women weren’t allowed to join the Coast Guard again until 1949.

This photograph comes from the National Archives.

“We Had a System”

As World War II was winding down in late 1945, people in the military started thinking about life after the war. Jane Fisher was in the Coast Guard boot camp to serve in the SPARs (from the Coast Guard Motto Semper Paratas, Always Ready) when the word came down that the war had ended. She ended up relieving other women who had been enlisted longer.

Jane was sent to Seattle and assigned to work in the Post Office. For her, military service was about patriotism – and flirting.

I worked in the post office.  Oh that was good deal.  I had a friend who worked in personnel.  If we saw a cute guy, (laughs) just to show you how women worked in that day and age, if we saw a cute guy, she looked up his personnel records.  If it didn’t show that he was married, then I’d check the letters to see if he got a letter from the same person all the time.  (laughs).  Oh, we had a system.

Jane met her husband-to-be while she was heading back to work after leave to visit her family in Nebraska. She noticed him when he got on the train in Idado.

 I remember peeking out.  His voice. It just sounded good.  But I was playing it pretty cool as we were going up the river.  And we had had a wreck in the middle of the night which made our train late.  And we got to the Dalles (in Oregon) and everybody was getting off the train, you know, to go to the ladies who were serving cookies and stuff.  I thought, “Well, I’m not going to get off and have him give me a bad time.”  Because he kept walking back and forth and I knew he was getting up nerve enough. So I waited and I got off.  He had got off to check uniforms.  He waited and he jumped off the train behind me.  And he informed me that SP stood for “SPAR Patrol.”  Or “SPAR Protector.”  And then he sat on down beside me and he asked me if I knew anything about fish ladders.  Now that was the craziest line I had ever heard in my life.  And I didn’t know what a fish ladder one. I had never heard of one.  He said, “Well we’re coming to this Bonneville Dam and they have a fish ladder and I’m going to point it out to you.  Because someday, I’m going to design and build fish ladders.”  He was the only guy I ever met who really knew what he wanted to do with his life.  It really impressed me.

By the time the train reached Portland, Oregon, Jane was smitten. But she was supposed to transfer to a nearby train head back up to base in Seattle.

 He said to me, “If you purposely miss that train I’ll sign your papers that we had a wreck.”  So I did.  And we spent the whole day in Portland. I went on the train that night that he was on Shore Patrol to Seattle. And he took a cab and took me to where we were staying and got it all squared away that I really wasn’t late.  Signed the all papers and stuff. And we were married three months later.

It was a whirlwind courtship – spurred along by an over-anxious mother:

We were going to get married, but we were going to get discharged and go home.  But my mother kept planning my wedding.  And one night we were in a movie and I was so upset with her and I said, “Gee you know for two cents I’d just get married right here in Seattle.”  And he reached over and gave me two pennies.  So we got married in Seattle.  We were married 28 years.

The photograph comes from the Betty Jane Fisher Collection.

“Not Going to Make It”

SPARs, the Coast Guard women, had similar training as WAVES.  SPAR Dorothy Riley Dempsey remembers the physical training as being extremely taxing.

We were not prepared for boot camp. We had to jump through the tires, you know. Then the next thing we had to do was we had to scale a wall.  We couldn’t do it.  I said to the girl in back of me, “Quinn, push, because I’ll never get over that wall.”

There was a big rope and it had a knot on it.  And there was a pit with mud here.  We had to back up and jump and my friend Quinn who was with me, I said, “Quinn, I’m never going to make that pit.”  And she said, “Neither am I.”  So we sneaked over to another line. We never had to go over it.  We didn’t get caught.  I said, “If we’re caught, we’re out. They’ll get rid of us.”

The photo comes from a Navy post card set produced about the Hunter College boot camp. It’s from the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.