A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
Mary Marovich Ryan, the mother of Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II director Kathleen Ryan, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco with a group of friends. She’s the 2nd from the right.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there – you’re all homefront heroines!
Susan Ahn Cuddy’s two brothers, Phillip and Ralph, also joined the military.
I was Korean blood. We were fighting the Japanese. I was American. I was very American, raised to love and honor America. There was actually no choice. I mean that was it. Why other women didn’t do it, I don’t know.
This is a photograph of Ahn and her brothers in uniform. It comes from the collection of Susan Ahn Cuddy and the Island Mountain Trading Co.
After Susan Ahn Cuddy graduated from Smith College officer training school, she was sent to work in Naval intelligence after Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal saw her at an event. But initially the brass in Naval intelligence weren’t so certain about having an Asian woman in their midst.
The captain of the station was appalled. He couldn’t believe that this Asian was on his station So for six months I didn’t do anything, but file. And then after that, he was still nervous.
Ahn eventually became the Navy liaison with the Library of Congress, and after the war would continue working in the intelligence community, in the National Security Agency.
This photograph of Ahn and an unnamed sailor comes from the collection of Susan Ahn Cuddy and the Island Mountain Trading Co.
Education was important to the Ahn family. Susan Ahn Cuddy attended college in Southern California, and would be both a good student and an active athlete.
But even though she met the qualifications: a college graduate with some work experience, she was turned down by the recruiting officer when she first attempted to enlist as a WAVE officer in 1942.
As she said:
When the Navy program opened up for the women, I was gung-ho. I was in San Diego and I came up to Los Angeles and tried to be part of it, but it was an officer’s training group and I didn’t make it. Well, I mean it was known that it was because I was Asian and not acceptable.
A woman who knew Ahn intervened, and she was later accepted as an enlisted WAVE.
This photograph is of Susan Ahn’s college field hockey team: she is in the front row, fourth from left. It comes from the collection of Susan Ahn Cuddy and the Island Mountain Trading Co.
It’s Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month in the U.S., so we thought it a good time to feature Susan Ahn Cuddy.
The California-native would become the first Korean-American WAVE and later the first Korean-American WAVE officer.
This is the cover of the Susan Ahn Cuddy biography, Willow Tree Shade.
The reality was that Dorothy Turnbull, and most of the WAVES, spent little or no time about ships. The rumor was that it was unlucky for women to be aboard ships, and Navy policy prohibited women other than the Navy Nurse Corps from serving aboard a ship.
However, the women did do goodwill tours to visit various ships in port, as in this photograph from the Dorothy Turnbull Stewart collection.
Dorothy Turnbull used her southern charm to win over even the most recalcitrant Navy man. She knew that the key to her success was making sure that those in command supported her.
Keeping these people on your team was the main reason for success. If the old chiefs were with you, you had your foot in the door and you could get people that would maybe just casually call or see him someplace and ask them a question about Navy women or something. He would then be your salesperson, so to speak, even if he was just an old gruff fellow with no polish. He could still support the Navy and the women.
This photograph of Dorothy with two regional Navy commanders comes from the collection of Dorothy Turnbull Stewart.
When women got to the recruiting events, Dorothy Turnbull used creative methods to get the women excited about their new jobs in the Navy.
In this photograph, women are pulling charms from a Mardi Gras-style “King Cake.” The charms are of the various jobs the women could hold in the Navy, from yeoman to pharmacist’s mate, gunnery instructor to aerographer and everything in between.
It comes from the collection of Dorothy Turnbull Stewart.
Women began submarine training in 2011, after the announcement in the previous year that women would be allowed to serve on Ohio class submarines.
This photograph shows women in training at the U.S. Navy base in Groton, CT. It comes from the U.S. Navy.
Captain Sara Joyner in 2010 became the first woman named to head a Carrier Air Wing. Her appointment was announced at the 23rd annual Women’s Leadership Symposium in Washington.
This photograph comes from the U.S. Navy.
Hinges of History 