Women’s medical issues did not exist in the view of the Navy. The women were told not to complain of menstrual cramps. The need for Kotex boxes was acknowledged, and they got a demerit if their box was not square in the drawer. They had to do the same calisthenics men did. If a woman couldn’t shinny up a rope, others helped. One unit included a woman named Lib who was working on a top secret joint project between the Navy and private industry. Lib couldn’t shinny to save her life, and all the women, knowing how important Lib’s brain was to the Allied war effort, tried their best to hoist her upward.
They no longer existed as individuals. Everyone’s hair had to be above her collar. If your hair was too long, your roommate cut it. The women bunked four to a room. They had to identify themselves as “seamen” when addressing an officer leading a class. They learned how to salute—not as easy as it looked. The first WAVES officers at Smith were reviewed by Eleanor Roosevelt. Ordered to salute the first lady, they put their hands up but permitted their thumbs to drift and ended up thumbing their noses at Mrs. Roosevelt. Subsequent classes were warned not to make the same mistake. They were told, when saluting, to tuck their thumbs firmly against their forefingers.
The women were warned that everything they did would reflect on the WAVES, for good or for ill. “As you no doubt have discovered, where a WAVE goes, all eyes go,” they were instructed in a newsletter, which admonished them that a self-respecting WAVE does not “slouch over desks and counters when she talks to others; she maintains a neat, clean, well-pressed appearance at all times; she wears her hat straight… and does not wear flowers at any time on any part of her uniform.”
And they marched. Everywhere. Erma Hughes, the bricklayer’s daughter, came to Smith in the cold of February 1943. When marching, the women were arranged by height. Being short, Erma was in the last row and always having to adjust to the gait of the women in front of her, sometimes doing a little gallop or shuffle to get back in step. The women would go out in the gray dawn and make formation. At Smith, some were assigned to dorms, while others bunked in town at the Hotel Northampton. All took meals at Wiggins Tavern, which meant the women living on campus would march right into town three times a day. Sometimes Army men stationed nearby would come to laugh at them. The women retaliated by singing, with spirit: “Nothing can stop the Army Air Corps… except the Navy!”
They marched on the street, on the campus, on the playing fields. If a woman fell or fainted—woman overboard—they were told to step around her and leave her lying where she fell. While they marched, they sang. They sang sea chants, and they sang songs that had been written or adapted for the WAVES, often based on popular tunes, by some of the more creative and musical new ensigns. The songs included proto-feminist lyrics such as:
I don’t need a man to give me sympathy
Why I needed it before is a mystery
And:
Honor a glorious past
Strive for a future bright
For, like our men at sea
We, too, will fight
And (written by code breaker Louise Allen):
If there e’er was a seaman that was struck by the moon
Oh, it’s Ginny, the Ninny of the First Platoon
Oh, she flaunts femininity with curl and with frills
But her mates want to choke ’er when she drills
“Forward march, forward march,” and she skids to the rear
“Column right, column right” and she stalls changing gear
But she’s deaf to our curses, unaware it’s a crime
That she drills, and always out of time.
The women loved every part of it. They loved eating at Wiggins Tavern, which had delicious breakfasts and legendary blueberry muffins. They loved the marching and parades. They loved having a purpose in the war. The Navy used extra drills as a punishment for infractions, but that didn’t work with the women. They liked the marching too much to feel they were being punished. They sang and sang. They felt abstract love for the men they were replacing. They marched to chapel on Sundays, where they were joined by men doing officer training. The WAVES had a song written as a counterpoint to “Anchors Aweigh”:
WAVES of the Navy,
There’s a ship sailing down the bay.
And she won’t slip into port again
Until that Victory Day.
Carry on for that gallant ship
And for every hero brave
Who will find ashore,
his man-sized chore
Was done by a Navy WAVE.
During services the men would sing the original and the women would sing the descant, and the harmony was so moving and powerful that Frances Lynd, from Bryn Mawr’s class of 1943, always said it made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.
The women weren’t the only ones who appreciated the pomp. People came from everywhere to take pictures of a WAVES officer graduation. In the winter, cameras froze. In the summer, the tar on the roads would melt and the women’s feet would go squish squish squish, and whenever afterward they thought of the Navy songs, they felt their squishing shoes should be part of the music. When the women graduated, they received their uniforms, with bars to show they were ensigns. Their beloved Mildred McAfee might feel she was struggling against the Navy brass—which she was—but the women felt that they belonged to the U.S. Navy.
The women code breakers were not allowed to stay in officer training long. They were missed so badly that most were snatched after only four weeks—thirty-day wonders, they were called—and brought back to Main Navy. At Smith, Mildred McAfee came to watch the graduation of that first group. She recognized some of the Wellesley women—Blanche DePuy, Bea Norton—and hailed them by name, which overwhelmed them with a sense of their importance. The night before departing, they lined up to receive their uniforms. Goucher’s Fran Steen, training at Mount Holyoke, was asked her size and said that she was a four. She was given a fourteen—the only size left—and would have it tailored later. Her skirt hung down to her instep and her new warm thick navy wool coat flapped around her ankles.
On the train ride back, some children thought the women were nuns. In Washington, nobody had seen a woman in military uniform, at least not since the days of the yeomanettes. The women stopped traffic. Cars would have fender benders. “Some of them seem to be nice girls!” one onlooker breathed, in astonishment, to her husband, when she saw her first uniformed woman. It took a while for the women to master the regulations of appearing in public. Edith Reynolds, rushing to catch a train in Grand Central Terminal, crossed in front of a male officer. Remembering she had been taught never to walk in front of a superior officer without saying “by your leave,” she blurted it out and saw from the astonished way that he looked at her that he thought she was trying to pick him up.