Hell Hath No Fury (29 page)

In 1946 the army asked Congress for the authority to establish the WAC as a permanent corps, and in June 1948 it achieved the status of a separate corps in the regular army. It remained part of the US Army until 1978, when it was assimilated into all but the combat branches of the US Army.

Reference: Mattie E. Treadwell,
The Women's Army Corps,
1954.

WOMEN'S AUXILIARY AIR FORCE

WAAF, United Kingdom and Commonwealth, World War II

The WAAF was formed just before World War II broke out in June 1939, although WAAF personnel had been on duty for nearly a year before in the Royal Air Force (RAF) companies of the
Auxiliary Territorial Service
(see ATS, Chapter 6).

The principal objective of the WAAF was to release men for combat posts. Initially, recruits were accepted between the ages of seventeen and forty-four, joining for the “duration,” and had to be prepared to serve anywhere, at home or abroad. By the outbreak of war, the WAAF numbered nearly eight thousand officers and airwomen.

From July to October 1940, the women of the WAAF were in the front line of the Battle of Britain. Their most important roles were as radar operators in the Chain Home network of radar stations strung around Britain's coastline, and as plotters tracking the course of incoming German air attacks in RAF Fighter Command's sector stations, group headquarters, and general headquarters at Bentley Priory outside London.

In August 1940, Fighter Command's radar and sector stations came under heavy attack by the Luftwaffe. On August 18 the radar station in Poling, Sussex, was hit by bombers, which dropped eighty 500-pound bombs and almost put it out of action. The station's radar operators worked in little more than garden huts protected by piles of sandbags, but Corporal Avis Hearn, at four feet ten inches the smallest woman in the WAAF, remained at her post throughout the raid.

For her devotion to duty, Hearn was decorated with the Military Medal, an award usually reserved for men, by King George VI at Buckingham Palace. The key sector station at Biggin Hill, situated on the southern approaches to London, was also badly hit on August 18, and three more WAAFs—Corporal Elspeth Henderson and Sergeants Helen Turner and Elizabeth Mortimer—all won Military Medals for their bravery on that and subsequent days. In World War II there were only six awards of the Military Medal to members of the WAAF.

WAAF women eventually served in some eighty trades, including the highest trade group in RAF—that of fitter. They also served as flight and instrument mechanics, electricians, and armorers. On RAF Bomber Command stations they maintained and drove the tractors that towed “trains” of bombs to aircraft waiting on the hardstandings for their load.

For Bomber Command they also played a vital intelligence role in the interpretation of photographs of enemy targets and in debriefing the aircrew who attacked them. It was a WAAF section officer, Constance Babington Smith, who was the first to spot evidence of Hitler's V-weapon program when studying reconnaissance photographs of the German research establishment at Peenemünde on the Baltic island of Usedom.

One of the most physically demanding wartime tasks undertaken by women was the operation of balloon sites, an important element in Britain's air defenses, which deterred low-flying bombers from attacking important targets and kept them at a height where they were more vulnerable to antiaircraft fire. In the spring of 1941, WAAFs began training to take over the flying of balloons. Crews of ten airmen were replaced by sixteen airwomen, and by the end of the year three balloon sites a day were being handed over to the WAAF, which eventually operated 1,029 sites and provided 47 percent of the personnel.

These women often lived in primitive conditions and at regular intervals were exposed to danger from the unforgiving system of ropes, cables, and wires that raised and held the balloon aloft. Because they were not working with aircraft, these WAAFs were regarded as a “Cinderella service.”

By 1944, nearly all the service meteorological officers of the Flying Training Command were women. By March 1945, there were some 180,000 women serving in the WAAF, constituting 22 percent of RAF strength in Great Britain. During the course of the war, 187 lost their lives, 420 were wounded, and 4 went missing. Among the decorations awarded to WAAF members were three George Crosses (the gallantry award second only to the Victoria Cross), six Military Medals, 1,489 Mentions in Dispatches, and two Commendations for Brave Conduct (see also
Air Transport Auxiliary,
Chapter 6).

Reference: Squadron Leader Beryl Estcott,
Women in Air Force Blue,
1989.

WOMEN'S AUXILIARY ARMY CORPS

WAAC, Later Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps, United Kingdom, World War I

On December 8, 1916, the War Office instructed Lieutenant General H. M. Lawson to prepare a report on the numbers and condition of the British troops employed in France. A month later, Lawson's report contained a recommendation that women be employed on the Western Front.

This arrived in the middle of an ongoing debate about the use of women in the British army. In March 1917, the British commander-in-chief in the field, General Sir Douglas Haig, told the War Office that he accepted the proposal in principle, although he had a long list of “objections and difficulties.”

By then, however, the wheels were already in motion and a recruiting program had been launched through the office of the director-general of National Service. On July 7, 1917, the Army Council's Instruction 1069 became the formal basis of the WAAC, which was led by a chief controller, Mrs. Chalmers Watson, a distinguished medical woman from Edinburgh and the sister of the director-general of National Service, Sir Auckland Geddes.

Because a commission from the Crown could be held only by male subjects, the WAAC had no military ranks: “controllers” and “administrators” took the place of officers, NCO equivalents were called “forewomen,” and privates were “workers.” As with the
Voluntary Aid Detachment
(
VAD,
see Chapter 6), the intention was to restrict the WAAC, as far as possible, to middle- and upper-class women, but the majority of the rank and file consisted of women from the working class. They messed separately from the controllers and administrators.

Members of the WAAC who remained in Britain could live at home, provided that this did not interfere with the efficient performance of their duties. Many of the working-class recruits joined the WAAC with no warm underclothing and a surfeit of head lice. As a result, Mrs. Chalmers Watson issued a remarkably optimistic list of recommended items for each recruit before she joined an active unit:

1 pair strong shoes or boots (this of course being in addition to the free issue)

1pr low-heeled shoes for house wear

2prs khaki stockings (this of course being in addition to the free issue)

2prs at least warm combinations

2prs dark coloured Knickers with washable linings

2 warm Vests of loosely woven Shetland wool

1 doz khaki Handkerchiefs

2prs Pyjamas or 2 strong Nightdresses

Burning Sanitary Towels

It is advisable if possible to bring as well, a Jersey or Golf Jacket which should be worn under the frock coat in cold weather

The WAAC claimed that the women in its ranks “do all kinds of work which a woman can do as well as a man, and some of which she can do better.” The aim, however, was for each member to release a man for combat duty, just as it would be for the ATS and other auxiliary services in World War II. Most of the duties undertaken by the WAAC lay in the traditional female domain—cooking and catering, telephony and clerical work—but its members also worked on lines of communication, as printers and as motor mechanics.

In April 1918, the WAAC was renamed Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps, but the new title was not generally adopted and its members remained Wacs. By the following month there were just under seven thousand WAAC officers and other ranks serving in France, some of them with the American Expeditionary Force. They were restricted to the communications zone, which meant that with the exception of air attacks, they were always out of the firing line. To minimize external sex differences, the salute and other forms of military comportment were introduced, along with strict rules of movement, dress, and behavior. The women's uniforms were subtly defeminized by removing the breast pocket, a measure that was thought to deemphasize the bust.

In spite of the application of strict rules of fraternization, the presence of several thousand Wacs in France encouraged rumors of promiscuity. This led in February 1918 to the appointment of an all-woman commission of inquiry, which produced this magisterial conclusion:

We can find no justification of any kind for the vague accusations of immoral conduct on a large-scale which have been circulated about the WAAC. The chief difficulty of our task has lain in the very vague nature of the damaging charges we were requested to negotiate. It is common knowledge that fantastic tales have passed from mouth-to-mouth of the numbers of WAAC women returned to England for misconduct of the gravest character.

In other words, not guilty as charged. This was neither the first time nor the last that accusations of immorality would be made against women acting independently and out of the direct control of men (see
US Women's Army Auxiliary Corps,
Chapter 6).

Reference: Arthur Marwick,
Women of War, 1914–18
, 1977.

WOMEN'S ROYAL NAVAL SERVICE

WRNS, United Kingdom, World War II

The WRNS, universally known as the Wrens, had been formed in World War I and was demobilized in 1919. When it was reformed in April 1939, many of its original members enrolled again. Others often came from the families of naval personnel living in the ports in which Wren units were being formed. Many of these Wrens continued to live at home and were classed as “immobile.” As the war progressed, many volunteered for “mobile” service not only in the naval shore establishment in the United Kingdom but also in the Middle and Far East.

In line with the other British auxiliary services, the WRNS had as its principal aim the replacement of naval personnel in shore establishments, releasing men for front-line service. Although the bulk of Wrens served in shore establishments, they adopted the language of the Royal Navy, always cooking in a “galley” rather than a kitchen and sleeping “below decks” in “cabins” Portsmouth, a great naval city, was “Pompey,” a midmorning snack was a “stand easy bun,” and “Jimmy the One” was a first lieutenant.

For the British, the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest and most crucial campaign of World War II, fought from the very first day to the last. The daily progress of the battle was plotted by Wrens in the operations room of the Western Approaches Command. Many were also employed in top-secret naval communications, decoding encrypted messages of the Kriegsmarine and later the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In general, Wrens were not allowed to go to sea, but a few exceptions were made. Wrens served on troopships in the Atlantic and were tasked with signaling and code-breaking duties. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill sailed to Casablanca for the big Allied conference of January 1943, twelve Wrens accompanied the British contingent.

Away from the spotlight, Wrens manned harbor craft in all weathers; served as signalers, coastal mine spotters, and air and radio mechanics; trained as welders, carpenters, and electricians; handled torpedoes and depth charges; and maintained and repaired ships in naval bases. By March 1945 there were some 73,200 women serving in the WRNS. Following the German surrender, a Wren contingent assisted in the Allies' disbanding of the German women's naval auxiliary, the
Helferinnen
(see Chapter 4). In World War II, 102 Wrens were killed and 22 were wounded.

Reference: Ursula Stuart Mason,
The Wrens, 1917–1977, A History of the Women's Royal Naval Service,
1977.

7

AT THE SHARP END

Modern Women Soldiers, Sailors, and Airwomen

We are the pointing end of the spear. I understand the marching orders, and we will be prepared to deploy…with an aggressive attitude that we will win. I hope I am a role model to both men and women, because we are a fighting force and should not be concerned with the differences between us.

—Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally, taking command of the US Air Force 354th Fighter Squadron, based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, 2004

I
N
W
ORLD
W
AR
II, the physical demands made on those delivering combat aircraft, or flying them in action, were considerable. The stamina, strength, and determination required of a Red Air Force fighter pilot such as
Lily Litvak
(see Chapter 7) demand respect. But in the postwar world, as women's emancipation gathered speed in the West, twentieth-century technology kept pace with twentieth-century freedoms to offset the difference between the sexes.

As a result, the introduction of women to combat in the armed forces of the late twentieth century has been accomplished with the least difficulty in navies and air forces, where technology has removed a number of the demands previously made on muscle power and upper-body strength (see also
US Army,
Chapter 6). Litvak was a slight figure, like the German aviator
Hanna Reitsch
(see Chapter 7) and the modern US combat pilot
Martha McSally
(see Chapter 7), for whom the USAF had to modify its height requirements to enable her to serve. Nevertheless, aloft in her A-10, McSally could pull g-forces with the best of them.

In the 1930s, governments of all political persuasions had encouraged their populations to become more “air-minded,” and female flyers came to the fore as pioneering figures of long-distance aviation. Some, like the Soviet
Marina Raskova
(see Chapter 7), the American
Jacqueline Cochran
(see Chapter 7), and Reitsch herself became national heroines, carving out careers in a previously male-dominated environment. Photographs of the diminutive Reitsch, surrounded by burly Luftwaffe officers in creaking leathers, are both touching and, in view of Reitsch's subsequent career in World War II, slightly sinister.

The trajectory of Raskova's, Reitsch's, and Cochran's careers in the war years provides an insight into the contrasting Soviet, German, and American approaches to the employment of women in the front line of the national struggle. The Soviets proved the least squeamish when it came to training and deploying women at the sharp end (see
Night Witches,
Chapter 7). The Americans and their British allies shrank from following suit but nonetheless channeled the enthusiasm and courage of many women aviators into two organizations, the
WASP
(see Chapter 7) and the
ATA
(see Chapter 6), which played a vital role in the ferrying of warplanes to the airfields where they were needed.

Reitsch, however, plowed a lonely furrow in Nazi Germany, where ideological reluctance to commit women fully to the war effort was addressed only when the tide of war was flowing inexorably against Germany. It was typical, perhaps, of Reitsch's misplaced fervor for the Nazi regime that she was, quite literally, in at the death of the Third Reich, piloting a light aircraft into a blazing Berlin in April 1945, to deliver a high-ranking comrade to a futile conference in Hitler's bunker.

Unlike Reitsch, most of these modern women warriors had no military background or previous training. But under pressure of events, they rapidly became proficient and like many women in other areas of war often discovered talents they did not know they had. New forms of transport offered a new dimension of war, with opportunities few women had dreamed of. For Cochran, McSally, and others, the challenge of flight and the chance to gain equal footing with men was a major part of the appeal. One of the pioneers of women's aviation, Amelia Earhart, observed: “I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things that men have tried. If they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”

These new fields of endeavor offered unprecedented opportunities to exceptional women such as the US Navy's
“Amazing” Grace Hopper
(see Chapter 7), a prime mover in the invention of the computer language COBOL, who helped to shape one aspect of the technology that had itself shaped the entry of women into the “senior service” of the sea. As navies became more technologized, numbers of women began to sign up along with men, striking out for new freedoms and, in doing so, reclaiming the old. In 1998, US Navy captain
Kathleen McGrath,
the first woman to command a US warship (see Chapter 7), was hailed as breaking fresh ground. In reality, she was following in the footsteps of other female sea captains like the redoubtable Artemisia of ancient Greece, renewing a tradition dating back thousands of years.

There is nonetheless a groundswell of continuing dissent arising from those who are profoundly dismayed by what they see as the feminization of the modern military. In the spring of 2000, US Navy lieutenant John Gadzinski observed of the aircraft carrier USS
Eisenhower,
“This is a boat where our job is to put bombs on target, missiles on target.” He then went on to complain that
Eisenhower
's maiden cruise with a crew that was 10 percent female was a PR exercise aimed at spinning the success of a gender-integrated navy. Gadzinski claimed that female sailors who worked in data processing were placed on the flight deck and the control tower “to make a pretty picture for the VIPs on their walk through.”

Despite such skepticism, nations with entrenched traditions of female subjection have also taken small but significant steps toward the training of female combat aircrew. Few countries could be less friendly to the integration of women into the armed forces than those of the Indian subcontinent, but the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) inducted four women as fighter pilots in March 2006.

At the passing-out parade at the PAF academy at Risalpur, one of the women, Nadia Gul, received the trophy for the best academic achievement along with two of her male colleagues. Despite Gul's success, the PAF remains male-dominated, and only time will determine the impact of the presence of a small number of women on the academy's male commanders and cadets.

As all modern air forces were modeled on established military organizations, women worldwide are still a minority of pilots and aircrew and have by no means conquered all the resistance of tradition and good old-fashioned misogyny. Nevertheless, women of every country start off in their air force in conditions of greater parity with men than they can ever hope to achieve as latecomers to the far older services of the army and the navy, whose history reaches back hundreds if not thousands of years. For this reason and with America once again leading the way, the United States Air Force achieved a significant international first when
Jeanne Holm
(see Chapter 7) was promoted to two-star general, making her the highest-ranking airwoman in the world.

COCHRAN, JACQUELINE

US Aviator and Head of World War II Women's Airforce Service Pilots, WASPs, 1910–80

Born an orphan in Florida, Jacqueline Cochran was raised in poverty by foster parents. Nothing in her background indicated the talent that would make her a pioneering aviator and leader in World War II. She was eight years old before she was given her first pair of shoes and two years later was working in a cotton mill. She had virtually no formal education and in later years would take an oral examination for her pilot's license.

She worked in a beauty parlor in Montgomery, Alabama, before moving to New York in 1929 and becoming a hairdresser at Saks Fifth Avenue. In 1932, while in Miami, she met the wealthy entrepreneur and aviator Floyd Odlum, whom she later married. Odlum encouraged Cochran to fly, and in the summer of 1932 she obtained a pilot's license in just three weeks.

In 1934 Cochran set the first of many records when she flew and tested the first supercharger installed on an aircraft engine. In the same year she achieved another first, piloting an unpressurized biplane to 34,000 feet while wearing an oxygen mask. Cochran then became the first woman to fly in the 1935 Bendix transcontinental race, winning the overall title in 1938 in an untried Sever-sky fighter. In 1938 she received the General William E. Mitchell memorial award for making that year's greatest contribution to aviation.

In June 1941 Cochran became the first woman to pilot a US Army Air Force Lend-Lease bomber across the Atlantic. On her arrival in Britain, she liaised closely with Pauline Gower, the head of the women's division of the ATA (
Air Transport Auxiliary,
Chapter 6). In 1943 Cochran was the driving force behind the formation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), the US equivalent of Britain's Air Transport Auxiliary, and was appointed its director. More than 25,000 women applied for training with the WASP, and eventually 1,074 graduated from its rigorous training program. They were to fly some sixty million miles for USAAF, suffering thirty-eight fatalities, approximately one for every sixteen thousand hours flown. For her services to her country in World War II, Cochran received the Distinguished Service Medal. More than thirty years later, in 1977, she was among those who successfully lobbied the US Congress for veteran benefits for the WASP. From 1948 to 1970 she served in the Air Force Reserve with the rank of colonel.

With the war over, she returned to record breaking, forming a close alliance with Colonel Fred. J. Ascani and Captain Chuck Yeager of the air force. In May 1953, flying a North America F-86 Sabre jet and with Yaeger flying on her wing, Cochran set a new world speed record of 652.3 miles per hour, and broke the sound barrier, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Early in 1954 she was awarded the Harmon trophy as the outstanding female pilot of the year.

In 1961 she set a succession of speed records flying a Northrop T-38 Talon trainer and, flying the notoriously unforgiving Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, recorded a speed of 1,429.3 miles per hour, the fastest by a woman. She also claimed a five-hundred-kilometer record with the F-104, recording a speed of 1,127.4 miles per hour. A pilot to rate alongside the finest of the heroic age of jet-powered aviation, Cochran subsequently became active in politics and journalism and headed her own cosmetics company.

Reference: Jacqueline Cochran,
Jackie Cochran: An Autobiography,
1987.

DUCKWORTH, TAMMY

US Army Major, Iraq War Veteran, and Politician, b. 1968

Like the British World War II Hurricane pilot Douglas Bader, Ladda “Tammy” Duckworth lost both her legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq. In recovering to launch a political career as a fierce critic of the war, she displayed a courage comparable to that of Bader himself, the legendary “legless ace” of RAF Fighter Command.

Duckworth was born in Thailand, the daughter of an American father and a Thai mother. Her family later moved to Hawaii, where she graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1989 with a degree in political science, to which she added a master's degree in international affairs from George Washington University. While she was working toward her PhD at George Washington, Duckworth joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) in 1990 and two years later became a commissioned officer in the Army Reserve, attending flight school, where she chose to fly helicopters because it was one of the few combat jobs open to women.

As a member of the Illinois Army National Guard, Duckworth was subsequently deployed to Iraq. On November 12, 2004, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was copiloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fired by Iraqi insurgents. In the explosion and crash, she suffered massive injuries to her legs and severe damage to her right arm. It took eight days for Duckworth to regain consciousness, and when she came around she asked why her feet hurt, unaware that she had lost both her legs.

On December 3, 2004, Duckworth was awarded the Purple Heart, and three weeks later was promoted to the rank of major at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, also receiving the Air Medal and the Army Commendation Medal. She was fitted with artificial legs, which enabled her to regain mobility and play a part in establishing the Intrepid Foundation, dedicated to the care and rehabilitation of injured veterans.

Duckworth quickly became a vocal critic of the Bush administration's policy on the provision of veteran care and the US Army's slowness in addressing the problem. She stated that although she had disagreed with Bush's decision to go to war, she had nevertheless done her duty, adding that the United States would have been better advised to pursue those behind the attacks on Washington and New York on September 11, 2001, particularly Osama bin Laden, rather than invade Iraq.

In March 2006 Duckworth became the Democratic nominee for the US House of Representatives in the Sixth District of Illinois, a Republican stronghold. The following September she was chosen by the Democratic Party to respond to President George W. Bush's weekly radio address. Duckworth went straight on the attack: