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Posted on 03/27/2004 10:51:48 PM PST by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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 The 1940s bring memories of tearful train-station good-byes, war bond drives, ration cards and much-feared telegrams. To the soldiers, sailors and airmen of that era, World War II was not just a far-off conflict, it was a reality. These young men were in the forefront in war-torn Europe and the battle grounds of the Pacific. But for the women left behind, the reality of war was also close to home. These mothers, daughters, sisters, wives and fiancées of the brave young men wanted to do their part too and became soldiers, sailors and airmen - and even Coast Guardsmen in the global war. On Nov. 23, 1942, legislation was approved creating yet another arm of the U.S. Coast Guard, one that would pave the way for Coast Guard women of today - The U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve, also known as the SPARs. Although the Coast Guard had done many jobs since 1790 without taking women into its enlisted or officer ranks, the onset of a world war changed the course of history for women in all the armed services. When World War II came, the Coast Guard and the other services found themselves in great need of more men at sea and more troops on foreign soil. They acknowledged that filling U.S. shore jobs with women would allow more men to serve elsewhere and hasten the war effort.  SPARs provide the answer The SPARs were the answer to the Coast Guard's problem. These women were under military direction, and they were subject to assignment according to the needs of the service. This was one of the key factors in using women as part of the military force. The jobs they were filling could not have been done by civilians working for the armed forces because they were not as mobile and did not fall under military law and discipline. The establishment of the SPARs also showed legislative recognition of a democratic woman's right to directly participate as members of the armed services in the joint war effort. Even their male counterparts thought highly of the SPARs. "Uncle Sam needs the SPARs or he'd never have them in uniform," said Coxswain Frank Bartlett. "They are a saving to the government. If they were civilian employees in civil service, they would be drawing high wages." "As it is, they are drawing the same as we are for the same job we once had," he said. "We welcome them. They gave us our one and only chance for the job we want, - the sea."  This new influx of personnel on the horizon raised some questions for the previously all-male service. Separate housing and messing facilities and personnel policies were among the issues under consideration with this revolutionary concept. The service dealt with the berthing and messing problem by providing separate housing - often dormitory style - for the newest Coast Guard personnel. When it came to personnel policies, the Coast Guard reflected on the issue as a whole. Since fairness and individual consideration of personnel had long been standard, if not a tradition for the Coast Guard, the service welcomed the newest ranks - women reservists - in the same manner as those before them. The Coast Guard's policy did not change with the onset of women. It remained to make use of its personnel to carry out the varied duties and responsibilities and to equally reward those who gave faithful service. 10,000 women volunteer The Coast Guard and the nation were in need, and America's young women responded. More than 10,000 women volunteered for service between 1942 and 1946. This reserve corps also had its own commanding officer, Dorothy C. Stratton.  Stratton was the dean of women on leave from Purdue University and a lieutenant in the Navy Women's Reserve, also known as WAVEs. She was promoted to lieutenant commander when she became the director of the SPARs and was later promoted to captain. In fact, it is believed that she was the originator of the nickname SPARs. Their original name, WORCOGS, gave way to the nautical term and the contraction of the Coast Guard's motto - Semper Paratus, Always Ready. Patriotism is key There were many reasons why these young women joined the SPARs. One of the main reasons enlisted SPARs joined was patriotism. They expressed a desire to be of more direct help in the war effort. Other reasons included a wish to relieve a man for active combat elsewhere, a chance for self improvement or advancement, an opportunity for travel, and a desire for excitement and adventure. Soon after the legislation was passed in November 1942, a recruiting drive began to build the SPAR corps. Although military services had been recruiting their members for many years, SPAR recruiters faced two challenges - recruiting women and recruiting them for one of the least-known services.  In fact, in early 1944, Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, issued a guidance memorandum for SPAR recruiting officers. The recruiters were told not to sit in an office and wait for the women to walk in; they should go to the field and talk to prospective applicants and their families. They did just that, according to LT Kay Arthur, a former SPAR and co-author of Three Years Behind the Mast: The Story of the Coast Guard SPARs. "When the memo arrived at a southern recruiting office, the staff had just returned from a trek through a cotton field to secure enlistment permission from a girl's irate parents who were at work there," Arthur said. Another aspect of SPAR recruiting was the much-debated Tars and Spars music and dance show. The show was on the road in East Coast cities during the summer of 1944. It is not known how much the show drew the attention of applicants, but SPAR officers did agree that the show raised the level of Coast Guard-consciousness as a whole. Coast Guard begins recruiting black women While the recruiting drive was moving forward, it wasn't until October 1944 that the Coast Guard authorized its recruiting officers to accept black women for enlistment, provided they were fully qualified. This initiative came after a Department of the Navy directive. Because the officer training program for recruited civilians had come to a close, no civilian black women were accepted as officer candidates. However, some black women were interested and applied for enlistment. Within the first six months after the new initiative, four black women had made application and were accepted into the SPARs.  SPAR recruits Julie Moselsy Pole, on the left; Winifred Byrd, on the right. Even though the officer corps was closed to civilian black women, it was possible for prior-enlisted black SPARs to attend officer training."There were six nurses of my heritage who were ensigns," said Yeoman Second Class Olivia J. Hooker, the first black woman to enlist in the SPARs. All SPAR applicants went through a relatively similar experience called processing. Similar to the enlistment process of today, the young women waded through a mountain of forms, interviews, physical exams and a mental aptitude test. The average woman applying for enlistment was a single, 22-year-old high school graduate. She had worked for more than three years in a clerical or sales job, earning $26.94 per week before joining. The chances were good that she came from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio or California, according to a May 1943 survey. In a similar survey done in July 1943, it was discovered that the average SPAR officer applicant was a single, 29-year-old college graduate. She worked for seven years in either a professional or managerial position, in the field of education or government, earning $50 per week before joining the SPARs. In most cases, her service in the Coast Guard used the tools of her profession or civilian experience. After the rounds of paperwork and exams, the eager applicants were finally on their way. "The Women's Reserve of the United States Coast Guard was officially established by act of Congress on 23 November 1942, but for each of us it really got underway on the date when, as a shakingly triumphant civilian, we raised our right hands and repeated the oath that made us a SPAR," Arthur said. Enlisted training begins Like their male counterparts, SPARs also arrived at an embarkation point on their way to basic training. With tearful goodbyes and well wishes from family and friends, the SPARs departed and the training began. Enlisted SPARs trained at a variety of places, beginning with the first group of WAVEs who transferred to the SPARs and trained at a college campus in the mid-west, to the last few to leave the training station at Manhattan Beach, N.Y. For SPARs, the indoctrination period was a mad rush of classes, physical education, aptitude tests, physical exams, shots, drill, mess and watch. It was the job of the training stations to convert the enlistees as soon as possible. It was the boots' responsibility to hurry up and wait. And wait they did, for graduation day, when they received orders. It was this experience that transformed a young woman of the 1940s from Miss Smith with casual posture, wearing a fashionable bob and the latest women's clothing styles, into Seaman Smith with her shoulders back, sporting neatly trimmed hair and enormous pride in her uniform. Oklahoma's A&M University in Stillwater was the home to the first SPARs who transferred in from the WAVES. This training center also became a specialist school for the yeoman rating. If the SPARs joined the Coast Guard to see the coast, they did not even come close as they were assigned to a training station in the Midwest for their first five weeks in the service. Although Stillwater may have seemed far removed from the Coast Guard by its location, the SPARs who went there came away with basic Coast Guard skills intact and a fondness for a place they entered with anticipation and fear. "We fell into routine easily, working hard, trying to finish each day's homework and keep our rooms ship shape as well," said Yeoman First Class Margaret Gorley Foley, who trained at Stillwater. "The captain's inspection on Saturday was a white-glove inspection, and the wind that blew in the Oklahoma red dust certainly didn't help any." Having once paid heed to rumors of field mice, snakes and wild indians running amuck on this wild frontier that was their training station, Foley said the Stillwater women left with a change of heart. "Our stay at A&M finally came to an end. It wasn't all fun, for we had worked hard, but they were perhaps the three most pleasant weeks I spent in service," she said. "After we were logged out, our train rounded a curve; we may not have said it, but I think we all felt that scuttlebutt had dealt unfairly with Stillwater," Foley said.  Another college campus, Iowa State Teachers College, became the site of the naval training station for the first group of 150 civilian women who enlisted as SPARs. These SPARs were trained, not by Coast Guard instructors, but by naval officers, both men and women. Later, SPAR officers arrived and the course of instruction included Coast Guard history as well as the usual military courses - rates and ranks, insignia, nautical terms and customs and courtesies. Among many similar schools, Cedar Falls was one place where young and confused apprentice seamen arrived, but departed as competent seamen second class. This included Chief Storekeeper Mary Jane Klein. "I began guarding the coast in the corn state of Iowa," Klein said. "Not a drop of salt water, nor a sailor in sight. Yet I was directed to the first ladder, portside, to my billet on the second deck, and ordered to square the corners of my bedding and learn to tell time Navy fashion." Much like their counterparts of today, the SPAR boots entered the training facility running and did not stop until graduation day. "The first day at boot camp was chiefly one of relaxation and getting acquainted with my bunkmates," Klein said. "At 0530 the next morning, however, I heard a shrill whistle and a booming voice give forth with 'hit the deck.'" Like her fellow SPARs at Cedar Falls, Klein said there was never a dull moment in those weeks of training. "Frozen in my mind are the chilling memories of the fire drills at 0200 or any hour before dawn, as I picture the long line of pajamas and robes planted in two feet of snow like stalks of corn, while the officers pretended that the dormitory was afire," she said. "I often wondered if I didn't prefer burning to death to the slow tortures of exposure." Klein, her bunkmates, and all the SPARs that followed her, left the four weeks of intense drill, training and homework, looking forward to the day they would report to their new units as seamen second class. SPAR boots move on to a training station in the Bronx Even though two of the early training bases were in the Midwest, more than 1,900 SPARs survived the harsh Bronx winter climate along with WAVEs at Hunter College, N.Y. Like the indoctrination classes at Stillwater and Cedar Falls, the boots learned the basics of the Coast Guard. Hunter's SPARs lived in a five-story converted apartment house that served as their barracks. The billets consisted of two rooms and a bath shared by 10 women.  "It was hit the sack at 2130 and hit the deck at 0530," said Storekeeper First Class Toni Bassett, a former Hunter College SPAR boot. "I soon learned to slide in and out of the sack without disturbing the covers too much. The most difficult problem was the 10 of us trying to make the head in that half hour (before morning chow)." Once again, these SPAR boots eagerly awaited the day when they passed their final exams and were on their way to serve at their stations. "Somehow out of the darkness of confusion, I managed to grasp enough Coast Guard history, organization and important facts to pass the final examinations," Bassett said. "At least they didn't send me back home. They sent me, as a reward, to Storekeeper School in Milledgeville, Ga." Even though the first enlisted SPARs were trained at Navy schools, the needs of the Coast Guard soon mandated the establishment of separate Coast Guard indoctrination and training that was overseen by SPAR officers. SPARs take over the Pink Palace Just six months after the SPAR recruiting drive began, the service established a training center for SPARs. One month before it opened, the news had hit the streets about the opening of the SPARs new indoctrination facility - the Palm Beach Biltmore Hotel in Florida.  Although it sounded glamorous and sophisticated, the 430 rooms given up by the Biltmore were a far cry from their original pageantry when SPAR training began in June 1943. Walls were knocked out, partitions were built, rich decorations were removed and the first 900 women reported aboard. The former Pink Palace had changed to Coast Guard blue. Over the next 18 months, more than 7,000 women were indoctrinated at Palm Beach. During that time the training course was expanded from four to six weeks to allow extra time for classes and uniform issue. The Biltmore also became home to the yeoman, storekeeper, and cooks and bakers schools. The Palm Beach SPAR boots learned the ropes much like their shipmates at the three campus-setting indoctrination facilities. Photographers Mate Second Class Dorothy Wilkes, who went through boot camp at the Biltmore, said, "They fed us, issued linen, and took us to our deck where the mate taught us how to make up our bunks according to regulations. This was not new to me, but you should have seen some of those beds."  Along with basic Coast Guard skills, recruits at all the training centers, including Palm Beach, were also drilled in the art of deck swabbing. "Did you know there is a very definite art to swabbing a deck or mopping a floor as it used to be known?" Wilkes said. "Well there is, and I learned the hard way. I still have the impression, though, that the corridors had a faculty for elongating themselves each time I was on the end of a swab." (Right: SPAR recruits at the training center in Palm Beach during morning calisthenics.) Whether it was basic training or a specialty school, one thing bonded these SPARs together - they were training for service in the Coast Guard. Even with something as small as a song, these women felt the significance in training at their own station and serving their country. "To hear Taps from the patio of the training station, I tried to stay awake even if sleep was engulfing me," Wilkes said. "I felt closer to those fellows who were sacking in on rolling, tossing ships in enemy-infested waters somewhere over there." Boots head to chilly N.Y. After a year and a half, the SPARs left their warm Florida breezes for the chilly northeastern weather of New York once again. By December 1944, recruiting for SPARS ended except for replacements and special needs. Because they no longer had the need for an extensive training station, all future SPARs were trained at Manhattan Beach, N.Y. The SPARS arrived in Manhattan in true boot style - in the rain, said Seaman Second Class Patricia M. Raddock. "We weren't equipped, having come from California in high heels, no hats and summer clothes," she said. "We got up with the bugle and started right out in a military way, high heels and all, marching to chow." SPAR training at Manhattan Beach differed from the other training stations in one dramatic way - their competition at this regular training station included men. The men and women of Manhattan Beach lounged, drilled, ate and slept separately, but they all belonged to the same service. These women and men did, however, compete for station honors. "Right across the way, there were boy boot companies to compete against," Raddock said. "We were spared very few of the details of training that were given to the men, right down to the mess duty." For the 1,900 SPARs who went through Training Station Manhattan, their indoctrination also included the Never Sail, a dry-land training ship where they learned the difference between a garboard strake and a mizzenmast.  This training center also housed the yeoman, storekeeper, cooks and bakers and general office schools. Like the others before them, all of the trainees at Manhattan Beach looked beyond the mess duty, inspections, classes and competition to graduation day. "We were full-fledged and we were salty," Raddock said. "By gosh, we were Coast Guard." No matter where they received their initial boot training, when the women completed the basic indoctrination period, they were either assigned to a specialized school or directly to a job in the field. Assignments were determined by the person's aptitude, previous training, work experience, personal preferences and the needs of the Coast Guard.      |
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