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The First, the Few, the Forgotten: Navy and Marine Corps Women in World War I

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Until recently, when thoughts turned to women in the military, the first thought would be that they were nurses. That is not true, as early as World War I, women were serving in the armed forces. Not as civilian employees, but as uniformed members of the military. Very few people are aware of this. Even though I have read hundreds of history books, I had never before encountered this fact.

As has always been the case throughout history, women filled the roles due to the necessity of men being away fighting a war. Even though World War I had been raging for three years before America entered the conflict, the United States was unprepared. The size of the army, navy and marines was so small that every experienced man was needed to fill an active role. This shortage was especially acute in the navy, which had to transport all the men and equipment across the Atlantic and protect the ships against the German submarines. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels recognized the problem and to his credit, was strongly in favor of recruiting women to fill positions formerly held by men. Over the course of the war, 12,000 women served in the navy, and there were few problems. Most of those were privacy issues, such as making sure there were separate dressing and latrine facilities. The numbers in the marines were far smaller, only 305 women served in the Marine Corps.

This book is their story, how they served so well and were almost completely forgotten after the war. Nothing sums this up better than the quote from the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown on page 13. His grandmother served in the Navy in World War I, yet he said, "I always wondered how my grandmother came to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery."

Theirs is a story that should be told, for they established for all time that women could serve in the military. In the era of total war, where every square foot of territory could be part of the front and every resource had to be mobilized it became a necessity.

At this point in time, approximately twenty percent of U. S. military personnel are female. They are fighting and dying in Iraq alongside men. Whatever you may feel about this new era of equality between the sexes, to a large extent it begins with the events documented in this book. It is a story that has languished far too long and the authors are to be commended for their efforts to correct that historical oversight.