| allhands.archive.0410 - Message 61 |
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| "Patslist" patslist | WW-2 Vet Project | Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:32:08 -0400 |
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Hi Mary,
I'm very glad that you're excited about your project! Thanks for telling us about it on All Hands.
First, just a word about the vernacular. WAVES were not nurses, and nurses were not WAVES. As a former WAC (not a nurse) I can tell you that we get a little sensitive on both sides at being mistaken for the other. I have great respect for nurses, but I am not one and don't like to be mistaken for one. Better to make that mistake now, than when you talk to your former navy nurse!
The nurses were just that, nurses. All were commissioned officers in the navy, and were graduates of some sort of nursing program before being commissioned in the Navy Nurse Corps (which incidentally goes back to 1908).
WAVES on the other hand were both officers and enlistedwomen who served in a variety of technical and administrative fields. Many were clerks, secretaries, stenos, etc., but many served in other fields as administrators, intelligence officers, cryptographers, supply officers and enlisted personnel, many medical fields (not nurses!), mechanics, weather, scientific areas, communications, transportation, etc, etc. Some were LINK trainers, a few were even members of air crews (very unusual, but there were a few).
In WW-2 all WAVES served in the Continental USA until 1944 when a few were allowed to serve in Hawaii.
Navy nurses served mostly in the USA, so you will have to ask "your" nurse where she served. Navy nurses also served as flight nurses. A terrific book about navy nurses is _In and Out of Harm's Way_ by Doris Sterner. If you can't locate it (it's a little rare, but try inter library loan), then read Jeanne Holm's _Women in the Military_ for some background.
Also try a Google search for navy nurses -- you should find some good information at the navy's historical center, and perhaps other places.
Good luck!
Pat Jernigan
ex-WAC captain
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