WAVES
WAVES.President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Public Law 625 establishing a program for women in the U.S. Navy, as an integral part of the naval reserve, on 30 July 1942. The navy's newest members served for the duration of the war plus six months. On 2 August, Mildred McAfee, president of Wellesley College, became the director of the navy's female reserve and the first female naval officer with the rank of lieutenant commander. To avoid nicknames such as “sailorette,” Elizabeth Raynard, a member of the Naval Advisory Council that developed the women's program, recommended the official nickname WAVES, an acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.
Women were recruited from nearly every state. Officers were trained at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The navy organized training schools for yeomen, radiomen, and storekeepers, located respectively at Oklahoma A&M College, the...
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