A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
From the Navy description of this photograph of WAVES in training at the Aviation Gunnery School in Pensacola, Florida:
This 3A-2 trainer shoots a beam of light at the moving picture of a pane projected on the screen. Movement of the place is controlled by the operator of the projector, a WAVE who completed the course 2 weeks earlier.
The photo comes from the National Archives.
If you’re heading for a trip this summer, you’re likely taking a suitcase or two. Could you find yours in these stacks and stacks of bags? Hope the WAVES didn’t have any lost luggage as they were heading from training to their permanent stations!
The photo comes from the National Archives.
WAVES at the Naval Training Center in Norman, Oklahoma bundle up to do outdoor calisthenics in this photo from February 1943.
The photograph comes from the National Archives and was shot by Wayne Miller.
WAVE recruits Joy Shrader, Winifred Smith and Estelle Slominski (left to right) heading to the showers before bedtime during boot camp at Cedar Falls , Iowa, early 1943. Boot camp would move to Hunter College in the Bronx by February of that year.
The photo comes from the National Archives.
Part of the build up to the WAVES 2nd Anniversary on July 30, 1944? Making sure the WAVES were in the news.
So on July 20th, 1944, the Navy held an exhibition tennis match with two pros: South American Francisco Segura and American William Talbert. They kindly posed with a couple of WAVES-in-training after the match was over.
This photograph was published in the WAVES Newsletter.
Winifred Quick would rise to a position of leadership in the Navy, but as this letter from July 15, 1943 shows, she wasn’t always so certain about putting on a uniform.
The letter is held by the special collections at the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
EXTRA!!! EXTRA!!!! Here are the headlines from July 14, 1944 in the Iowave, the base newsletter of the WAVES Yeoman facility in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
The newspaper comes from the archives and special collections of the University of Northern Iowa.
This photograph from July 12, 1943 is of the last Captain’s inspection of the first graduating class of WAVES at the Naval Air Technical Training Center, Norman, Oklahoma.
Ensign Fitting is doing the inspection, while platoon leader Stroud follows close behind (no first names given).
The photo comes from the National Archives.
From the Navy caption of this 1944 photograph at Celestial Navigation:
Hilda Olson, Sp (T) 2c; Doris Propst, Sp (T) 2c and Joanna Bailey, SP (T) 2c, are given celestial theory instruction with the three-dimensial celestial sphere demonstrator by instructor Robert K. Rice AMM2c.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
During the 10-week Celestial Navigation course at NAS Seattle, WAVE instructors got a chance to practice “flights” in the navigator itself. Left to right are: Irena Aide (navigator), Linnea Peterson (instructor), Jane Hall (radio operator), and Elinor Johnson (pilot). The Navy began using Celestial Navigation in 1944.
The photograph comes from the National Archives.
Hinges of History 