Making WAVES: Navy Women of World War II

by Evan Bachner

In the spirit of his successful books At Ease and Men of WWII , Evan Bachner now focuses on the women of WWII. While traditionally female secretarial and clerical jobs took an expectedly large portion of recruits, thousands of WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) performed previously atypical duties in the aviation community—such as Judge Advocate General corps—medical professions, communications, intelligence, science, and technology.

The photography team, headed by legendary photographer Edward Steichen, captured these heroic women at work, rest, and play. All the photos are from the National Archives and most have not been previously published.

Genres: World War II, War, Nonfiction, History, Photography, Womens

160 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2008

Reviews

[Eva Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My grandmother was in the Waves during WWII. After reading this book, I gave it to her to read, hoping that the many photos would spark some memories for her. What happened was even better. She had always been very humble about her service in the WAVES, believing that it was the men who served as soldiers overseas were more important and honorable than her service. Upon reading the introduction to her book, she began to believe what we've been telling her all along-- that she helped play a pivotal role in the Navy and Armed Forces during WWII, and that she should be proud to be honored on the same level as her male comrades-in-arms. She liked the book so much that she wants her own copy so that she can keep it with her uniform and other important memorabilia from her time in the WAVES.

[Kieran]

Bought this on a trip to SF last year. As with Bachner's other books, Making WAVES is refreshingly straightforward. Beautiful photographs presented with their original captions. I don't know about some people but it's good enough for me.

[Rebecca Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m giving this book a five-star review for the research effort alone. The amount of work he put in to sifting through tens (hundreds?) of thousands of images to find these is nothing short of monumental, and without his work, there would not be an easy way to see so many historical images of the WAVES in one title.

However, I will say that’s there is no insight or commentary on the photos themselves - short of a couple-page introduction, which gives us a brief segue into the working lives of these impactful women during WWII. One would need some additional tomes to complement this beautiful coffee-table sized book so as to fully grasp the historical significance of these images.

The time frame and scope of the photo selections is also fairly narrow - it’s mostly just two locations, and a brief spot of time within those locations - but this is to be expected given the goal the author/curator had, which was a certain style of photograph by two well-known photographers of the day.

My wish for a more complete pictorial look into the lives of the WWII WAVES isn’t this author’s responsibility - but this book does leave me wanting for a more exhaustive compilation.

All in all I’m very glad for this collection and the slice of time it shows me.