Women’s history observed

Though in unofficial status and often disguised as men, women have been a part of America’s armed forces as far back as the American Revolution said Capt. Judy L. Smith as she addressed a Joint Warfare Analysis Center audience as part of Naval Support Facility Dahlgren and JWAC’s celebration of Women’s History Month recently.

‘‘We’ve always been here in some capacity,” she pointed out as she presented a pictorial presentation with a focus of women in the U.S. Navy.

The first official recognition of women in the Navy began in 1908 with the Navy Nurse Corps, she said. But it was soon followed nine years later with women ‘‘yoemanettes” as the nation geared for World War I and needed crucial office skills to free men who were previously serving yeoman duties for wartime combat.

‘‘The first yeomanette was Joy Bright ... who later went on to become Capt. Joy Bright Hancock and was one of the first women officers in the Navy” Smith told the crowd.

At the end of the war there were 1,550 nurses in the Navy and many of them had seen sea duty on hospital ships, she said. Between the First and Second World Wars there was a lull in women in the Navy, yet there were a few yeomanettes retained after World War I ended in an Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918 as their clerical skills were much valued by naval leadership.

Then, in 1942, Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES) was enacted by Congress as again the Navy called upon women to free fighting men. This time, other enlisted ratings were offered women and the commissioned officer rank was opened as well. Mildred McAfee was the first woman commissioned officer in the Navy. Also, Smith pointed out, Harriet Ida Pickens and Frances Wills graduated from the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School (Women's Reserve) at Northampton, Mass., in 1944 and commissioned as WAVES officers to become the first female African-American U.S. Navy officers.

‘‘WAVES eventually became yeomen instead of yeomanettes and there were 11,275 of them in the Navy by the end of the war,” Smith said. ‘‘But it wasn’t until the late 1970s that WAVES finally became Sailors.”

Smith, who joined the Navy in 1972 to ‘‘get to San Diego from North Dakota” said that when she enlisted the pastor of her hometown church tried to talk her parents out of letting her go because there were often unfair distinctions tied to women in the military at that time. (Though limited in scope, such distorted views of women in the military prevailed despite the fact that America was engaged in Vietnam and women were routinely exposed to combat stress for the first time in the nation’s history)

‘‘Today we are roughly 10 percent of our Navy’s strength and serving in every capacity with the exception of submarines and special warfare groups,” she said.

Col. Matthew Molloy, commander of JWAC, noted that his command ‘‘could not operate without women.”

‘‘Women make up approximately half of our mission strength,” he told Smith.

Molloy also read from a 1943 guide in pointing out some of the obstacles that women have had to overcome in the workplace.

‘‘Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they’re less likely to be flirtatious and they need work or they wouldn’t be doing it,” he amusingly noted the guide’s advice to employers during the World War II period. ‘‘In reading this, I have to say, you’ve come a long way baby!” he said.

Smith’s presentation was transmitted to the entire JWAC community through desktops.

Dahlgren’s observation of Women’s History Month focused on programs about women in science and engineering.