The Application

For a woman, enlisting in the WAVES or SPARs wasn’t as simple as signing up with a recruiter.

Women first filled out a single page form, requesting more information and an application from the regional Office of Naval Officer Procurement. The form included questions about the woman’s marital status, education, and if she had previously “communicated in writing with the Navy concerning the WAVES or SPARs.”

Only inquiries deemed acceptable would be sent the complete application form, which asked for detailed information about the woman’s work experience, criminal record, hobbies and community involvement.

Enlistment Standards

The Navy tested applicants to make sure they met certain standards. The test was similar to the present-day SAT, covering mathematical, grammatical and copy editing skills. The Navy also asked that women provide three letters of recommendation with the application.

Only if the application met the qualifications and had positive recommendations would she be invited for an interview. This was the final step to the application. The interview itself was a weeding out process, where candidates would be assessed for mental fitness as well as their physical condition. If a woman didn’t meet the qualifications, she would be turned away.

Those who did make the cut would be sworn in. Then the waiting period begain. It could take from a couple of weeks to a few months for a woman to get her official orders to report to duty. During that time, “normal” life continued. One recruit volunteered at the local recruiting office, signing up other military volunteers while awaiting her orders. Another was working as a teacher and asked if she would be finish out the school year. She signed up in December 1942. She got her notice to report to duty two months later, in February of 1943.

The Troop Train

The new recruits took what was known as a “troop train” – a military-only transport – or used vouchers to travel aboard a commercial carrier. They usually went with a group of other female recruits, taking over several cars as they went from their home towns to boot camp. But women who lived in remote rural areas weren’t necessarily able to make it to the depot on time. Roberta Moore, who lived near the Oregon/Nevada border, got her orders after the official transport had left, so she took a commercial train to boot camp alone.

Fast Track

In August of 1942, the WAVES began setting up recruitment offices for officers and enlisted women. The initial class of officers was hand-picked by McAfee and the Advisory Educational Council; it included future WAVES leader Winnifred Quick Collins as well as future SPARs head Dorothy Stratton. Women involved in the organization of WAVES, such as Mildred McAfee, Elizabeth Reynard, and Joy Hancock avoided training altogether. These hand-selected future leaders were rushed though a pared down version of officer training and graduated in late September 1942.

Requirements

 Mildred McAfee helped the Navy establish high standards in order to attract high quality women. Officers were required to have, at a minimum, two years of college and two years professional work; many women had four-year-degrees and significantly more work experience. Enlisted women needed to have had some college or work experience. Women had to be at least twenty years old to volunteer; enlisted women could be no older than age thirty-six and officers no older than forty-nine at time of entry. The Navy believed “such requirements would insure the Navy of trainees of reasonable intelligence and a reasonably well-developed sense of responsibility.”

Smith College

Because women’s involvement in the Navy was so tightly associated with higher education, through the Advisory Council and eventual WAVES leadership, the women recruits themselves became linked to a different cultural function: college attendance as a rite of passage to adulthood. Many recruits picked up on this, describing the WAVES as like a sorority or similar to going away to school. The fact that the women were initially trained and housed on college campuses only strengthened the impression.

The Navy came to an agreement with Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts to use the facilities to train officers in July of 1942. Training began the next month for the initial “fast track” class. Regular officer training began in October of that year and would continue through December of 1944. Enlisted training schools were set up at several other colleges around the country.

Training Schools

As the WAVES started in late 1942, the Navy thought that women could both be oriented in Naval protocol and receive instruction in their new jobs at the same facility. Women initially would be replacing men in three work areas: yeomen (secretarial), storekeeping (accounting/bookkeeping), and radio coding and transmission.

College campuses were used for the training. Oklahoma A&M College in Stillwater was selected as the training base for yeoman (secretarial and office work), Indiana University in Bloomington for storekeepers (accounting and bookkeeping), and University of Wisconsin Madison for radiomen (sending and receiving coded messages).

The First Boot Camp

The Navy quickly realized that women would need a brief orientation before moving on to speciality training. The Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls became the first boot camp in December, 1942. Women were oriented to the Navy way of doing things before moving on to speciality training.

By this point, other advanced training options were opening up to women. In addition to the three initial job opportunities, women were able to try for positions like Link instructors (simulated instrument flying trainers), machinist’s mates (airplane mechanics), pharmacist’s mates (hospital corps), parachute riggers, or aerographer’s mates (weather forecasters).

As with other campuses, Navy recruits shared space with current students on the Cedar Falls campus, bunking in a dormitory on the grounds.

Cedar Falls

Janette Shaffer was in one of the first training camps at Cedar Falls. One day, while in the university gymnasium, her drill instructor got distracted.  Commands to stop or turn, which the recruits had been trained to listen for, ceased. So the recruits kept marching.  At the edge of the room, rather than turn, they began climbing up the equipment stacked alongside the wall:

If they had it in a movie, I’d love to see Lucille Ball or somebody doing it. It was really funny.

The Hunter Solution

Hunter College in the Bronx, New York, was a women’s campus, catering to commuter students from the nearby burroughs and suburbs. It’s now known as Lehman College and is part of the City University of New York system (CUNY).

After negotiations with the college president and CUNY officials, an agreement was reached to loan the campus to the Navy for the duration of the war. The Navy also commandeered apartment buildings surrounding the campus, which were converted into barracks for the women.

The first class of enlisted recruits entered Hunter College on February 16, 1943. Six thousand WAVE boots would be trained at any given time. Every two weeks, another group of two thousand recruits would arrive at Hunter College for basic training.

Basic Training

From the first boot camp in February of 1943 through the end of the war in August of 1945, 80,836 WAVES were trained at Hunter College. An additional 1,844 SPARs and 3,190 Women Marines also received training there at some point. The primary objective of the school, according to Joy Bright Hancock, was threefold:

1. Adequate medical examinations determined fitness for service.
2. Uniforming, drill, and personnel information requisite to the conduct of a recruit as a useful member of a military organization.
3. The selection of recruits best fitted to fill the special quotas for service training.

Boot camp lasted six weeks.

A Tough Transition

I didn’t do anything very important. About boot camp, the toughest thing about boot camp was that we were given our shots, that time of year, New York is very hot in the summertime. And some of the typhoid shots your arm swells up. Your arm swells up after the typhoid shots. And you can get, you know, have a slight fever or something. And marching, some of the gals fainted along the side while marching. And I remember the officers saying, “Pay no attention, keep right along. Leave her there. Leave her there.” And I thought that was awful cruel. That was my very, one of my first impressions there at boot camp.

– Patricia Farrington Siegner, World War II Navy WAVE

A New Home

Though the SPARs initially trained alongside the WAVES, first at Cedar Falls and later at Hunter College, they relocated their training facility in May of 1943. The SPARs set up shop at the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach, a far different location than the colleges where WAVES trained.

The Biltmore became known as the “pink palace.” Recruiters played up the exotic locale, reminding women they could “train under the Florida sun.”

In 1945, the SPARs would move again, relocating boot camp to a regular Coast Guard facility on Long Island, New York.

Similar Uniforms

The WAVES and SPARs wore uniforms that were identical to the outsider. Small details (different buttons and insignias) differentiated the uniforms.

One possible reason why the SPARs developed their own training facility was to help alleviate the confusion of two groups with same uniform training side by side.

Calisthenics

The first thing they did down in Florida was put us in 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.” 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.”

– Dorothy Riley Dempsey, World War II Coast Guard SPAR

Disorientation

Attending boot camp was disorienting for many of the women.  Any comfort level the women had reached on the train trip across country, traveling with women of a similar geographic background, would quickly be erased.

Especially jarring were the living conditions. Women shared rooms with several others, getting a small “locker” (the Navy term for closet) for their clothes and personal belongings.

At Hunter College, nearby apartment buildings were converted into quarters. Women would live up to six in a room, with up to twelve women sharing a single bathroom. The apartment kitchens were off limits, never used for cooking.

Difficulties

The rigors of boot camp were often difficult for young women. WAVE Patricia Farrington remembered seeing a colleague faint while marching at boot camp, and being told to ignore her.

Other told similar stories. WAVE Virginia Gillmore told of seeing a large number of women fainting while standing at attention during a regimental review. Officers said that the recruit behind should catch the person in front as she fell, lie her on the ground and then stand back at attention.

One WAVE said she understood why the WAVES would force a young recruit to act against her empathetic instincts: it was way to teach the women to follow orders and not think for themselves.

Washing Out

Not every woman was able to make it through boot camp training. Failure was known as “washing out.”

One morning we were called to assemble in a big room, a lot of girls, probably 2,000 girls. We didn’t know why, but we were stood at parade attention as usual. And they brought in this girl between two officers. And in front of us they cut the buttons off her uniform and read her a dishonorable discharge. And when she turned around to go out they played drums and they drummed her out all the way. What a humiliating experience. But you can bet the rest of us shaped up.

– Virginia Gillmore, World War II Navy WAVE

A New Life

You really had nothing personal in your life anymore. Every two girls had a chest of drawers. And the bottom, they were staggered. So when the inspection party would come in to look over and see if everything was just the way it should be. We were even told how to fold our slips and things like that, you know? And I still do it today [laughs]. Everything is in three. You know, you fold a towel in three? We fold our slips in three our underwear in three, and pajamas, everything.

– Dorothy Riley Dempsey, World War II Coast Guard SPAR

A Sub Spotted

SPAR boot camp memories were often lighthearted. One told of being roused in the middle of the night, because a German sub had been spotted off the coast of Florida. But in her story, this enemy threat wasn’t frightening. The boots all trooped out into the hallway in the middle of the night in full uniform, and were forced to wait there for hours until the danger cleared. Most of the women ended up sprawled in the hallway, falling asleep on the floor. When the lights came back on,  Roberta Moore recalled:

It was the funniest thing you could ever see … It was like a bunch of drunks or something.