The WAVES: The Story of the Girls in Blue

by Nancy Wilson Ross

This book is a story and discussion of the WAVES of the US Navy during WWII, the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Unlike the Yeomanettes of WWI, WAVES were taking over jobs previously done by men in the US to free them up to fight overseas, including aerography, instrument flight instruction, radio operation, accounting, and even gunnery. They were paid and given military benefits at the exact rate as the men whose ranks and jobs they held. The book describes their indoctrination, training, work, regimens of living, their attitudes, and the attitudes of those around them, both in the military and in the cities in which they served. The appendices include pay scales, sample application examination questions, a Q&A about the WAVES from the time they existed, and other useful information the WAVES learned.

214 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1943

Reviews

[Zachary]

I was thrilled to read this detailed history of the WAVES. My maternal grandmother served as a flight instructor on the Link Trainer for WAVES, and her Navy pension along with her salary as a secretary in state government enabled her to raise her four children alone after the war. Thanks to this book I know that her job had the highest entrance requirements of all the enlisted women, and I know about the long grueling schedules they kept and the discipline demanded of them. I know that the attitudes towards these women in uniform was severe at first, but thanks to the national emergency of WWII, and the discipline of the US Navy, they were allowed to do their jobs and respected for their service, at least until the war was over.