There was a time when women’s career options practically were nonexistent. In the early 20th century, should a woman be so brazen as to shun the rigors of being a housewife, she could choose from secretary, teacher or nurse.
Then World War II came.
In May 1942, Congress approved the creation of a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, which a little more than a year later became the Women’s Army Corps. More than 150,000 women served as WACs during the war – the first, other than nurses, to serve in the United States Army. One of those women was Detroit native Mollie Weinstein Schaffer – mother to Cyndee Schaffer, the McHenry County Historical Society’s fourth and final Sampler Series lecturer. Cyndee Schaffer will speak about her 2010 book, “Mollie’s War” – drawn from letters that Mollie wrote home to her family during WWII along with historical commentary concurrent with the letters.
“Mother always wanted to write a book about the letters,” Cyndee said. “My sister and I used to wear her uniform as a Halloween costume when we were little and sometimes we’d bring a letter to school.”
Cyndee confessed “life got in the way” for a time but when her mom’s close friends began to die, it underscored how little time she had. Mollie Schaffer died in April 2012 but her stories live on. She was 27 when she enlisted.
“What is so surprising about my mother joining the military is that she was quiet and meek,” Cyndee said. “She just felt it was her patriotic duty.”
Equally fascinating are the WACs’ ability to adapt and conform to a set of rules and expectations outside of their comfort zone.
Faced with a two-front war, the government realized that women could fill a vital role in the factories at home and overseas. Women’s Army Corps members served worldwide-in North Africa, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Southwest Pacific, China, India, Burma, and the Middle East. They repaired weapons, served as laboratory technicians and teletype operators, sorted mail, worked in the motor pool, computed the velocity of bullets and mixed gunpowder as ordinance engineers.
Some women even were trained as glass blowers, making test tubes for the Army’s chemical laboratories.
“They were X-ray technicians, teachers. They were everything,” Cyndee said. The only requirements were they had to be U.S. citizens between the ages of 21 and 45 with no dependents, be at least 5 feet tall and weigh a minimum of 100 pounds.
According to the U.S. Army Center of Military History, the first battalion of WACs arrived in London in July 1943. A second battalion arrived that fall. A detachment of 300 WACs served with the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force as stenographers, typists, translators, legal secretaries, cryptographers, telegraph and teletype operators, radiographers, and general clerks, these women assisted in the planning of D-day. Mollie Schaffer, who worked in medical intelligence to ensure there were sufficient hospital beds prior to the launch of an operation, was among those who handled classified materials.
Mollie Schaffer never thought she’d use the foreign language skills she learned in high school in Normandy and later in Paris, where she served as an informal interpreter.
Imagine being part of the Army of Occupation in Germany after the end of war.
“I want people to leave with an understanding of the role women played in World War II, that today’s woman does a lot more than the women of the ’40s and ’50s because of them.”
The Women’s Army Corps was discontinued as a separate corps of the Army in 1978.
