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The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943. Its first director was Oveta Culp Hobby, the wife of a prominent politician and publisher in Houston, Texas. [Campbell, 1984] About 150,000 American women served in the WAAC and WAC during World War II. They were the first women other than nurses to serve with the Army. While conservative opinion in the leadership of the Army and public opinion generally was initially opposed to women serving in uniform, the shortage of men necessitated a new policy. While most women served stateside, some went to various places around the World, including Europe, North Africa and New Guinea. For an example WACs landed on Normandy Beach just a few days after the intial invasion. Some men feared that if women became soldiers they would no longer serve in a masculine preserve and their masculinity would be devalued. Others feared being sent into combat units if women took over the safe jobs. [Campbell, 1984] However, top military generals like MacArthur called the Wacs "my best soldiers". Many generals wanted more of them and proposed to draft women but Congress was not willing. Those 150,000 women that did serve released 7 divisions of men for combat. Eisenhower said the allies could not have won the war without them. (O'Neill, 1993) During the same time period, other branches of the U.S. military had similar women's units, including the Navy WAVES, the SPARS of the Coast Guard and the (civil) Women Airforce Service Pilots. The British Armed Forces also had similar units, including the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. The WAC was disestablished in 1978. Since then, women in the U.S. Army have served in the same units as men, though they have only been allowed in or near combat situations since 1994 when Defense Secretary Les Aspin ordered the removal of "substantial risk of capture" from the list of grounds for excluding women from certain military units.
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Popular culture
- The movie Francis Joins the WACS was released in 1954. In it, Francis the Talking Mule joins the Women's Army Corps.
- The movie Keep Your Powder Dry (1945) gives us Lana Turner joining the WACs, starring with Agnes Moorehead while sporting uniforms designed by Hollywood designer Irene (1) and hair styled by Sydney Guilaroff.
- The movie I Was a Male War Bride (1949) depicts a French officer who married an American WAC, and their escapades as he attempts to emigrate to the United States under the auspices of the 1945 War Brides Act.
- The song Surrender by Cheap Trick is about a babyboomer child of a former member of the WAC who served in the Philippines and has been covered by no less than 13 bands.
Bibliography
- Judith A. Bellafaire. The Women's Army Corps (1972) short history online
- Campbell, D'Ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era (Harvard University Press, 1986)
- Earley, Charity Adams. One Woman's Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC (1989)
- Jeanne Holm, Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution (1994)
- Morden, Betty. The Women's Army Corps, 1945-1978 (2000) official detailed history, online
- Brenda L. Moore. To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African-American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II (1997)
- Mattie E. Treadwell. The Women s Army Corps (1954), long official history online
- William O'Neill. "A Democracy at War" (Harvard University Press, 1993)
See also
External links
- Women in the U.S. Army
- WAAC/WAC history and WWII women's uniforms in color — WWII US women's service organizations (WAC, WAVES, ANC, NNC, USMCWR, PHS, SPARS, ARC and WASP)
- The Women's Army Corps: A Commemoration of World War II Service
