The Women of World War Two by Linda Harris Sittig

The Women of World War II by Linda Harris Sittig

In 1942, when thousands of American men marched nobly off to war, thousands of American women made an important decision—they gallantly joined the war effort on the home front.

You’ve probably heard of the Rosie Girls, the women who joined the air industry, riveting military airplanes that would go overseas. But other women built ships, worked as cryptologists, journalists, nurses, entertainers, aviators, and spies.

Countless women, both black and white, stepped up to the challenge of protecting freedom.

One of those women was Ruth Erickson.

Born and raised in Virginia, Minnesota, Ruth became a navy corps nurse and counted her good fortune to be stationed near beautiful Pearl Harbor. She arrived in Hawaii shortly before December 1941.

Then, close to 8:00 AM, on December 7th, 353 Japanese airplanes swooped down out of the calm Sunday morning sky, targeting the U.S. ships lying in the blue waters of Pearl Harbor. Before the day was over, 1,143 servicemen would be injured and require medical intervention.

Ruth treated her first patient within twenty minutes of the initial attack and worked with the hospital staff continuously throughout the day and well into the night, stopping before midnight only when complete exhaustion took over.

For the next ten days, the medical team, including Ruth, did all they could to ease the pain and suffering of the wounded.

After Pearl Harbor, Ruth decided to continue her career as a naval nurse. Eventually, she became Captain Ruth Erickson, director of the U.S. Naval Nurse Corps.

Another Minnesota woman, Mary Welsh, parlayed her journalist talents to become a correspondent for the London Daily Times.

Headstrong and with a keen eye for detail, she was dispatched in September 1938 to Munich, Germany, to cover the visit of the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, with Adolf Hitler, the German Führer.

Mary obtained a suite at the Grand Regina Palast Hotel and settled in to cover whatever story unfolded. She soon witnessed the arrival of Benito Mussolini, Edouard Daladier, Neville Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler—the four most potent leaders in Europe.

The historic meeting became known as The Munich Agreement in which Great Britain, France, and Italy permitted Germany to annex the Sudetenland of western Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain held a short press conference announcing the news.

Mary quickly wrote her story, then went to the hotel lobby where she had paid a young boy to read continuously to a London Daily operator, thus ensuring an open telephone line. Mary breathlessly dictated her story via the free phone line and snagged one of the first published accounts of what would become WWII.

Mary continued her stellar journalist career throughout the war, and eventually became the fourth and final wife of Ernest Hemingway.

Charity Adams Early had grown up in Columbia, S.C., and earned a college degree, but wanted to join the military at the outbreak of the war. Since women were not yet allowed to enlist, Charity applied for a position in the newly formed WAAC, the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps.

Thirty thousand women applied for the 440 slots for the first officer training class. Determined, Charity knew she had to be better than best because she was an African-American. The U.S. Army had predetermined that only 10.6% of the WAAC could be black. This was to coincide with the approximate percentage of African-Americans in the U.S. population.

On July 20, 1942, Charity arrived at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, to begin her training. By 1944 she had become Major Adams, the first African-American training supervisor and instrumental in the formation of the first and only Army all-black female band.

Under the guise of ordering recreational equipment, Charity procured the musical instruments. The band had a time order—be prepared within eight weeks for their concert. Most of their members had no formal musical training, and in the act of solidarity, the white female band offered to teach anyone how to read sheet music.

The African-American women’s band performed with rousing success and went on to play together until the end of the war. These were the women to bolster the spirits of the black soldiers far from home and spur the American public to support the war through war bonds.

By the end of WWII, 6,500 African-American women served in the renamed WAC, Women’s Army Corps. After the war, 855 black servicewomen followed now Major Charity Adams overseas to England. Their assignment was to organize the warehouse of stockpiled Army mail. Within months they redirected the stagnant mail to over 7 million soldiers.

Charity had been the first black woman to become an officer in the WAC and ended her career as a Lieutenant Colonel. After the war, she devoted the rest of her life to community service and civil rights awareness.

How about Betty Crocker?

While Betty was fictional, the real woman behind the brand was yet another Minnesota woman, Marjorie Child Husted.

Born in Minneapolis, she earned a degree from the University of Minnesota in home economics. When WWII broke out, she took a job with the Red Cross. Next, she became a home economist for the Washburn-Crosby Company, the producers of Gold Medal Flour.

Marjorie created the Betty Crocker’s Cooking School, a radio program where she broadcast cooking tips, kitchen-tested recipes, and advice to American women faced with food rationing and victory gardens.

So astute was Marjorie’s marketing expertise that she propelled the Betty Crocker brand to ensure that Gold Medal Flour would be a staple in American kitchens for generations yet to come.

Thank you to Virginia M. Wright-Peterson, whose book, A Woman’s War, Too, inspired this month’s blog. Another thanks to Carrie Hagen, a Philadelphia writer, whose research on Charity Adams Earley, allowed me to learn about the African-American women who served in WWII.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

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~ Linda EVERY WOMAN DESERVES TO HAVE HER STORY TOLD