World War II Woman

“Fall in,” “Fall out,” “To the right,” “To the left,” “To the rear march!” I was ready to throw in the towel. My feet hurt and my back ached. The days were horrible, the nights worse. My left arm felt paralyzed from a million injections and my right arm moved like a robot’s, continually saluting. I wondered what would happen if I deserted. Would I be shot? At this point I couldn’t have cared less. War or no war, I wanted my mother!

These are the words of Harriet as reported in her book The Gaylord Wacs by H.G. Robinson.

On December 20, 1942, Harriet joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). After completing basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, rumor had it that a number of them were to be sent to cooks’ and bakers’ school since the Army was desperate for cooks. Harriet did not join the WAAC to be a cook, so when she heard that interviews were being conducted for recruiters, she applied. In answer to the interviewer’s question, “Do you like the Army?” Harriet relied on her earlier dramatic training to answer, “I love it!” It worked. She was delivered from cooks’ school and was a one of two hundred and fifty Waacs to be chosen as recruiters. Along with four new friends, she was assigned to the Recruiting and Induction District in San Francisco.

After eight months of being in the auxiliary corps serving as a recruiter, she and her friends learned that by an act of Congress the WAAC was about to become the WAC – Women’s Army Corps, with all the entitlements of the Army. First they were honorably discharged and then sworn into the United States Army. This meant the same pay as the men, along with free medical and dental care, life insurance at Army rates, free mailing privileges, and government prices at the PX. Quite a change!

Harriet continued to serve until the end of the war and was discharged in October of 1945 after having spent some time overseas in Egypt.

More of Harriet’s story appears in my book We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II.

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