Today more than 1,000 civilian female pilots or WASPS – Women Airforce Service Pilots – were given the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony on Capitol Hill. These women volunteers, many of whom have since died, paid for their own pilot training and served the military during the early years of World War II in hopes of joining the military. They tested and ferried aircraft, freeing men for combat flying. They were kept top secret though and had to fight to have the records made public… NPR did a great piece on the flying ladies here.
We all know that during World War II women’s service didn’t stop there. We took over jobs typically done by men, jobs in factories and shipyards creating ammunition and manufacturing ships, planes, etc. Rosie the Riveter was a literal story about the jobs women took over, eventually she came to mean so much more.
Women didn’t stop there either. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor the there were fewer than 7,000 Army nurses on active duty. Over the next six months their number grew to more than 12,000. By the end of the war more than 70,000 women served as nurses. The Army nurses’ experience during World War II is dramatic and important. Nurses in World War II often worked 18-hour shifts, 7 days a week, caring for the sick, the wounded and the dying and somehow through all that bring comfort in the most uncomfortable of situations. My grandmother was a nurse in the Army during the war, I don’t know if she was a battlefield nurse or “Bedpan Commando” though, either way I can’t say how proud I am.
Women throughout the world stepped up to help. Russian Field Nurses
When I see an older woman maybe in her late 70’s to late 80’s I don’t think of someone who’ll just slow me down on the road, I always wonder what she was doing from 1940-1945. Was she working hard at a job she never thought she’d have, caring for wounded men in the most unbelievable of conditions (I heard one story of when they enlisted they were given wool socks and men’s XL undergarments and told to do with until their uniforms were ready), spending the days wondering if a telegram would come from the war department telling her she’d never see her husband again. Would you even know if that nice lady having her hair done at the saloon flew thousands of miles in a B-17 or helped assemble an aircraft carrier? Food for thought ladies….
Today more than 1,000 civilian female pilots or WASPS – Women Airforce Service Pilots – were given the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony on Capitol Hill. These women volunteers, many of whom have since died, paid for their own pilot training and served the military during the early years of World War II in hopes of joining the military. They tested and ferried aircraft, freeing men for combat flying. They were kept top secret though and had to fight to have the records made public… NPR did a great piece on the flying ladies here.
We all know that during World War II women’s service didn’t stop there. We took over jobs typically done by men, jobs in factories and shipyards creating ammunition and manufacturing ships, planes, etc. Rosie the Riveter was a literal story about the jobs women took over, eventually she came to mean so much more.
Women didn’t stop there either. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor the there were fewer than 7,000 Army nurses on active duty. Over the next six months their number grew to more than 12,000. By the end of the war more than 70,000 women served as nurses. The Army nurses’ experience during World War II is dramatic and important. Nurses in World War II often worked 18-hour shifts, 7 days a week, caring for the sick, the wounded and the dying and somehow through all that bring comfort in the most uncomfortable of situations. My grandmother was a nurse in the Army during the war, I don’t know if she was a battlefield nurse or “Bedpan Commando” though, either way I can’t say how proud I am.
Women throughout the world stepped up to help. Russian Field Nurses
When I see an older woman maybe in her late 70’s to late 80’s I don’t think of someone who’ll just slow me down on the road, I always wonder what she was doing from 1940-1945. Was she working hard at a job she never thought she’d have, caring for wounded men in the most unbelievable of conditions (I heard one story of when they enlisted they were given wool socks and men’s XL undergarments and told to do with until their uniforms were ready), spending the days wondering if a telegram would come from the war department telling her she’d never see her husband again. Would you even know if that nice lady having her hair done at the saloon flew thousands of miles in a B-17 or helped assemble an aircraft carrier? Food for thought ladies….
