ABSTRACT
When the U.S. Navy experienced a manpower shortage during World War I, it became the fi rst service in the U.S. Armed Forces to enlist non-nursing women for administrative and desk duties, with the idea of releasing men for shipboard service. The Navy enlisted 12,000 Yeoman (F) on a temporary basis for the duration of the war only and gave them the same pay as male sailors of comparable rank. The Marine Corps followed suit, enlisting only 300 of the fastest and most accurate typists available to serve at Marine Headquarters. Thousands of Army and Navy nurses served overseas and on U.S. military bases without any kind of rank during World War I. Offi cial Army Nurse Corps historian Colonel Mary Sarnecky has pointed out that two U.S. Army nurses were the fi rst American military personnel killed in the war. It happened aboard one of the fi rst troop ships to sail for France, the USS Mongolia. As the ship left New York’s harbor on May 20, 1917, three Army nurses of Base Hospital # 12 stood on deck watching the ship’s crew practice fi ring the deck guns, which would be used if the ship encountered enemy submarines. One of the guns misfi red and spewed shrapnel across the deck, killing Edith Ayres and Helen Wood. The ship returned to dock so the third nurse, who was badly injured, could be taken to a hospital. Once they arrived in France, a different type of danger faced the nurses. Some nurses were assigned to casualty clearing stations very near the front lines. Sarnecky tells the story of Army Nurse Helen McClelland, serving in France with U.S. Base Hospital # 10. McClelland was part of a surgical team assigned to Casualty Clearing Station # 61 near the Convent of St. Sixte. Although in theory each team was supposed to be at the front a total of 48 hours, McClelland’s group ended up staying 11 weeks. One night, enemy planes bombed the camp, and McClelland’s tent-mate, nurse Beatrice MacDonald, was wounded. McClelland later wrote that when the bombing occurred the women were asleep in their tent. The sound of enemy planes overhead woke both women and they reached for their “tin hats.” McClelland rolled up into a ball on her cot and placed her hat so
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that it covered her head and the side of her face. MacDonald was slightly raised on one elbow when two bombs hit nearby, and pieces of shrapnel ripped through the tent. One piece hit her in the eye and the other piece hit the side of her face. McClelland said “Our tent was 25-30 feet from where the bombs hit. Even with my eyes closed I saw the fl ashes from the explosion. My uniform hanging on the bedpost was full of holes. My mattress was full of shrapnel.” Before the bombing stopped, McClellan got off her bed and ran across the tent to stop MacDonald’s hemorrhage. This action earned her the Distinguished Service Cross. Miss MacDonald lost her sight in one eye, but returned to duty with her unit. Navy Nurse Corps historian Doris Sterner tell the story of several dozen Navy nurses who served in Brest, France, where the U.S. Navy established a hospital to care for soldiers and sailors who had been gassed. Sterner quotes Navy Nurse Esther Hunter, who wrote “Gassed patients cannot stand any light, cough a great deal and their hearing is poor. Many may lose their voices entirely. Some have been burnt around their abdomen and the inside of their hands. Luckier the man who loses his leg or arm than those who are gassed.” Towards the end of the war, the Spanish Infl uenza swept across Europe and the United States, killing over 400 military nurses. After the war, in acknowledgement of the dedication and sacrifi ce demonstrated by these exemplary women, Congress granted Army Nurses (but not Navy Nurses) “relative rank,” ranks that paid less and conveyed less authority than those of male commissioned offi - cers but which allowed nurses some authority over enlisted men. Navy nurses continued to serve in limbo, neither offi cer nor enlisted until after the start of World War II. Much to its surprise, the U.S. Army realized in the middle of the war that it needed women who could operate telephone switchboards and typewriters. It took too long to train male soldiers to operate these essential machines, and the young men resented it, calling it “women’s work.” In a watershed moment, the Army Commander in Europe, General John Pershing, frustrated by the diffi culties his soldiers encountered while attempting to send orders over French telephone lines, requested that the War Department send to him 200 women to work with the Signal Corps as telephone operators. Back in the United States, the Army attempted to fi ll Pershing’s request. Women telephone operators were recruited, brought to New York City, given uniforms, and sent overseas to AEF headquarters. The “Hello Girls,” as they were called, saw to it that messages from headquarters reached the troops in the fi eld and vice versa. This was extremely important and sensitive work, involving orders to attack, move, and aim guns at specifi c locations. Several of the switchboards were located close to the front lines, where the women worked behind sandbags under blackout conditions. When the Quartermaster Corps and the Ordnance Corps commanders saw the Signal Corps women, they decided that they should requisition American women as secretaries, dictation takers and fi le clerks. The French women they were trying to use could not speak English well enough to work as quickly as necessary. The Army recruited about 20 women for each Corps. These women were civilians working as contract employees for the Army. They were not given uniforms and were never “sworn in,” as many of the Hello Girls had been. This was an important distinction, because 50 years later, the Hello Girls were given veteran’s status, while the secretaries were not.
