A Blog About Women Who Were Homefront Heroines: the WAVES of World War II
As the war was ending, WAVE leader Mildred McAfee offered this missive to WAVES in mid-1945. It was then that she took a leave of absence to get married (and return to her post at Wellesley College; she would officially resign from the WAVES in 1946.
This clipping comes from Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.
While the war wasn’t over by the time the WAVES newsletter was released in August of 1945, the signs were there that peach would soon be at hand. The Allied troops had had a number of stunning victories in Europe throughout the summer, and by July 11th the Postdam Agreement had been signed, outlining terms for peace. Japan would agree to peace until a month later, after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What’s interesting is this cover of the WAVES’ newsletter makes no reference to the peace agreements in Europe – but inside the newsletter demonstrates that the Navy was thinking about the post-war world – and the WAVES’ role in it.
In comes from Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe.
WAVES marching in formation at the 2nd anniversary celebrations at NAS Seattle, 1944. Note the two flags: the U.S. flag and the flag for NAS Seattle at right. The photo comes from the National Archives.
After boot camp, Josette Dermody was tapped to become a Gunner’s Mate. She would be training men to shoot at moving targets.
We went to gunnery school because they said we had to be able to face down the sailors. “We don’t need girls who’ve never even fired a shot.” So they, you know, being in the gunnery thing was hard work. It was hard work because the guns were so big. You had to break them down and put the back together again and all that. They were always laughing. “It takes two of you to carry what one guy can carry!”
This is the cover of her memoir about her experience as a WAVE. You can buy the book here. It’s a great read!
You had to be 20 to go in. Your brothers could go in at 18. And so I had a lot of friends that spent their 19th year trying to persuade the old man to sign for you. “What about Rosie O’Donnell’s father letting her join the Marines and you don’t mean to say the O’DConnells have more moxie than the Demodys!” It was a campaign.
-Josette Dermody, World War II WAVE
This photo from the WAVES Hunter College boot camp shows Josette Dermody at front lower right (with her head turned). It comes from the collection of Josette Dermody Wingo.
This comic (using a modified version of the “little girl” look seen on WAVES’ greeting cards) pokes fun at the disorientation women felt when entering boot camp. It also offered a pretty clever way of getting out of trouble – the “I’m new” approach.
This cartoon comes from the The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
We’re beginning a series on cartoons and other WAVES drawings for the HH blog. This image (from an orientation booklet) is typical of the images made during the time. The WAVE looks young and a little overwhelmed or excited by her new experience at WAVE Quarters D (which was in Washington, DC).
It comes from the Schlesinger Library at the Racliffe Institute for Advanced Studies.
After boot camp, Merrily Kurtz headed to training to become a Storekeeper, the Navy parlance for a bookkeeper. Training took three months, and then Kurtz got her first assignment, in San Francisco. She had a week before her job began, and was traveling with several other WAVES across country by train. The group stopped in Chicago, and Kurtz and three other women spent a day on the town – and ended up getting left behind.
They were all gone. Except for the four of us girls. Nobody’s there. They hadn’t left a note for us or anything. So we went down to the train and finally got connections. One of the girls took over and asked about it. And then, so, our tickets were gone but they put us on a train. I guess they knew we weren’t lying. We were military or something. So they let us on the train and let us pick out the car we wanted to be on. So we went through two or three and said, “Oh, this will do.” And it was the worst one! (laughs) No air conditioning or anything. Oh, golly, and this was summer! So one of the girls, this Margaret Chan who lived here in Portland, she and I got off the train in Cheyenne. Which is definitely not the thing to do in the Navy. And we took the train home. Instead of going on to San Francisco, we took the train from Cheyenne to Portland and came home that way. Which made sense to a normal person (laughs). We paid for it. Oh, gee. I think we got bawled out for it but they didn’t do anything else to us.
This portrait of Kurtz in her Navy summer uniform comes from the collection of Merrily Kurtz Hewett.
After Merrily Kurtz graduated from high school, she began working at a local department store.
Well, every girl in town almost worked in Meyer and Franks. My first job was J.C. Penney’s. I went to a business college for awhile and got some training that way and improved my typing.
Eventually, Kurtz was hired by Meyer and Franks, but by that time the country was at war.
Just outside of the building in the next block they (the military) had their stand where the people came up for the bond drives and you know encouraged people to sign up and they had famous people come and I remember seeing the three sisters… the Andrews Sisters I guess it was, you know, and you would go out and see that stuff and hear that “Rah rah.”
The photo comes from the collection of Merrily Kurtz Hewett.
Merrily Kurtz was one of the WAVES stationed in Hawaii – and so a perfect transition for us from our feature on Hawaii is a feature on Merrily.
This is a photograph of Merrily and some of her WAVE colleagues in Hawaii. She’s in the center. Merrily grew up in Portland, Oregon and was a storekeeper in the WAVES. She served in Florida and Hawaii during her World War II military career.
Hinges of History 