Fran Steen, from Goucher, wanted to fly airplanes. She asked the Navy to send her to flight school, but her request was denied. So she took her ground exam at Washington National Airport in Virginia and learned to fly planes on her own.
As the women proved their capabilities, the few remaining male officers at the Annex were obliged to figure out, by improvising, what the women could and could not do. For example: Might women officers be taught to shoot? One male officer asked this at a staff meeting. Many code rooms at the Annex had pistols ready in the event of unwanted visitors, and pistols were worn by officers escorting “burn bags”—sacks in which all discarded papers were put—to the incinerator. When this question was raised, the men running the Annex realized that “there is no well-defined policy on teaching WAVES to shoot.” Someone pointed out that some other bureau was letting its women shoot, so an on-the-spot decision was made: yes. Fran Steen learned to shoot on the pistol range, as did Suzanne Harpole and Ann White. Their commanding officers joked that they needed smaller pistols, since the big ones spoiled the lines of their uniforms. A September 1943 memo noted that “pistol practice was progressing satisfactorily.”
The male officers also confronted the vexing question of how much authority the WAVES officers—many had risen to become watch officers—had over men working for the shifts they supervised. This was a controversial topic. Regulations were reviewed showing that the relationship of WAVES officers to enlisted men was like that of a civilian instructor. The WAVES officer had authority within her unit, as a teacher might, but did not have disciplinary power over the men. The minutes from the meeting did note that WAVES officers were entitled to salutes from enlisted men, “although it seems to be the exception rather than the rule when they are given.”
It was hard, harrowing work—all of it—and the women took it seriously. Many got sick from the crowding and the pace. Jane Case contracted mononucleosis and spent a month at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The doctor treating her ventured that she “came into the service so you could get to a higher social level,” an idea that struck Jane, given the debutante background she had fled, as hilarious.
Local institutions did what they could to honor the Navy women. There were ten thousand WAVES all told working in the Washington area, serving in varied capacities, including at the downtown Navy headquarters. Jelleff’s department store had a fashion show in which WAVES served as models, and Hecht’s had a day to honor them. They enjoyed free entry almost everywhere. Despite wartime rationing, they could buy things like jewelry, cigarettes, and nylons at the ship’s store. In their downtime they could visit the National Zoo and the Washington Monument. The Capitol Theatre had piano playing and singalongs. The National Gallery had musicians playing in its rotunda. Vi Moore heard the Budapest String Quartet perform at the Library of Congress. Tickets were 25 cents and the women would line up at eight a.m. after working the night watch. The Washington Opera—a struggling outfit—gave free performances on a barge near what is now the Watergate. The women sat on the steps or rented canoes and paddled over, resting their oars in the mud while they listened. The Marine Band played behind the U.S. Capitol; the National Symphony played in Constitution Hall. The women visited a roadside joint called River Bend in Virginia, which was a daring place to go. They jitterbugged.
Jaenn Coz, whose mother had been a flapper, would sometimes put on civilian clothes, surreptitiously, and go to the “black part of town,” as she put it, to hear Eartha Kitt. Frank Sinatra would sing at Club 400, where she went on Fridays. You could buy a pitcher of beer for a few cents. You could get good fish down at the wharf. She also learned to play bridge and to gamble.
There were splendid hotels in Washington: the Willard, the Carlton, the Statler, the Mayflower. Most held frequent dances in their ballrooms, often sponsored by individual U.S. states, with big bands and lots of swing dancing. The women would go to American University and watch the Navy men playing baseball. They would sail on Chesapeake Bay. Theaters were open all night. You could go to a movie anytime. You never knew whom you would see. One WAVES member went to dinner with a lieutenant and found herself chatting with the Eisenhowers. Another met President Roosevelt himself at a party for disabled veterans.
Many of the women had never had to fend for themselves, and now the ones living out of barracks had to figure out where to obtain pea coal or cook a big piece of meat that some Marines had brought to a party. A group of WAVES officers lived in a house where there were seven women and six beds. The women hot-bedded it, taking whatever bed was open. They would leave notes for one another on the pillows, sharing tips about hotels and restaurants that were giving away things free or had good discounts.
And they traveled. They could go anywhere on a train for a discounted fare. Trains around the country had romantic names like the Rocky Mountain Rocket and nicknames like the Grunt and Crawl. If they had a thirty-six-hour leave, the women would go to New York City. If they had seventy-two hours, they’d go farther. Ida Mae Olson invited her friend Mary Lou to visit her family in Colorado. Mary Lou had joined the WAVES because her parents had been killed in a car accident and her wealthy uncle had not known what to do with her. Mary Lou was terrified when she saw a group of Native Americans and asked Ida Mae if they would attack. When she saw the dryland farm, she asked if it was okay if she took off her shoes and ran in the soft fresh dirt, something she had not been able to do, growing up in a city.
The women hitched rides on military planes. When Jane Case learned that her father was dying, her commanding officer gave her emergency leave and got her on a plane to New York. Her father was too far gone to recognize her. Jane always thought that if she had just been able to tell him she worked in “communications,” he—having done work for the Navy—would have known what that one word meant. It would have been a chance to make him proud of her, but she never got it.