WAVES were women who served in the US Navy during WWII, with equal status to male counterparts, primarily to free up men for overseas duty. Eleanor Roosevelt pushed for their establishment, and they paved the way for women to serve as regular members in the military. The British Army had similar opportunities for women, and some women who served provisionally during the war became career members of the military.
WAVES were women who served in the United States Navy during World War II. These women had equal status with their male Navy counterparts, primarily serving in the United States to free up male Navy members for overseas assignment. Late in the war, some of the WAVE were also sent to other posts in places like Hawaii, but were kept out of combat positions. The restriction that prevents women from serving in combat positions persists to this day, although an increasing number of positions in the military are open to women.
WAVES is, of course, an acronym that stands for “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service”. Eleanor Roosevelt was a supporter of WAVES, and it was she who pushed Congress to establish this division of the Navy, allowing women who wanted to enlist to do so and offering them full Navy pay and other benefits. In 1942, Mildred McAfee became the first female officer in Navy history, and WAVES was born.
In contrast to the WAVE, the Army had the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), which was an auxiliary organization, associated with but not fully within the Army. While WAVES and WAAC performed many similar duties, it wasn’t until 1943 that WAAC became the Women’s Army Corps, according to women on an equal footing in the military.
While the WAVES did not perform combat-related duties, they did a number of other things, setting the stage for the Women’s Armed Service Integration Act of 1948, which allowed women to serve as regular members in the United States military. Prior to this act, women could only serve in the military on an interim basis; WAVES, for example, should have been disbanded after WWII.
The British Army also had similar opportunities for women who wished to serve over the course of the war, and many women in the WAVES and their counterparts such as the Women’s Royal Naval Service distinguished themselves over the course of the war. Some women who served provisionally during the war became career members of the military, and the presence of women in the military continued to grow; in 2008 she was named the first female four-star general, a hugely significant event in military history and a sign that the brass ceiling may collapse.
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