Download Women in Combat: The World War II Experience in the United States

Women in Combat: The World War II Experience in the United States, Great Britain,
Germany, and the Soviet Union
Author(s): D'Ann Campbell
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 301-323
Published by: Society for Military History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2944060 .
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Womenin Combat: The WorldWarII
Experiencein the UnitedStates,Great
Britain,Germany,and the SovietUnion
D'Ann Campbell
WO
MEN are the invisiblecombatants ofWorldWar11.1The concern
here is with regular combat soldiers in uniform,not resistance
fightersor guerrillas."Combat" means an organized lethal attack on an
organized enemy (and does not include self-defensein emergency
situations).2 Hundreds of thousands of women engaged in combat.
They served on both sides and on everyfront.German women soldiers
1. Researchsupportwasprovidedin partbya grantfromtheNationalEndowment
forthe Humanities,Divisionof Research,RO-20660-84. I especiallyappreciated
the commentsofCol. RobertDoughty,Col. KennethHamburger,Col. Paul Miles,
Lt. Col. JudithLuckett,Capt. Richard Hooker, Connie Devilbiss,Nancy Loring
Harrison,RichardJensen,DennisShowalter,
and JudithStiehm.Archivists,
librarians,
and historianswere especially helpfulat Indiana University;the U.S. Military
Academy;theNationalArchives(NA); theDwightEisenhowerPresidentialLibrary;
the WACMuseumat FtMcClellan;MaxwellAirForce Base Library;theNavyHistory
Center,Washington;the FranklinD. RooseveltPresidentialLibrary;the George C.
Marshall Library(ML); the U.S. Air Force Academy; the Imperial War Museum
(IWM), London; the PublicRecordOffice,London; theCanadian Archives,Ottawa;
the Militargeschichtliches
Forschungsamt(MF) Freiburg,Germany;Moscow State
University;
the Georgian State Museum,Tbilisi;the Royal Dutch MilitaryHistory
Museum; and theAustrianFederal MilitaryHistoricalService (MSH), Vienna. The
Russian archivesprovedimpossibleto use. However,thereis in Moscow a Soviet
Women's Center which helped arrange very useful interviewsfor me in 1986.
Special thanksto LarryI. Bland (ML); Colonel (Dr.) Roland G. Foerster(MF); Dr.
ErwinSchmidl (MSH); and Dr. V. S. Murmantseva.Invaluable were the excellent
translationsmade forme by Shannon Jumper.
2. "Combat" is used as itwas definedat thetime,particularly
bythe U.S. Army's
JudgeAdvocateGeneral'sOffice,and also by Britishpolicymakerssuch as Winston
Churchilland General FrederickPile.
The Journal ofMilitaryHistory57 (April1993): 3(01-23
? SocietyforMilitarylistory
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301
Tl'A\T\T CAMfPnPT.T.
helped inflictcasualties on American and Britishforces,and in turn
they were killed, wounded, or captured. Likewise, Soviet and British
women foughtbravely.
American women were not sent into combat. The question is why
not-and whatdoes thattellus about genderroles in America? Historians
in recent years have been exploringthe changes in gender roles during
WorldWar II. The general consensus is that on the home frontwomen
temporarily assumed new roles ("Rosie the Riveter") but that no
permanent or radical transformationtook place.3 The question is more
open regarding militaryroles: making women soldiers was the most
dramaticgovernmentexperimentin changing traditionalsex roles ever
attempted. Puttingthese women soldiers into combat constituted a
radical inversion of the traditional roles of women as the passive
sweetheart/wife/sex
object whose ultimatemission was to waitfortheir
virile menfolkto returnfromtheir masculine mission of fightingand
dying for "apple pie and motherhood" (that is, for traditional social
values.) The Pentagon was well aware of the performanceof European
women soldiers,and ArmyChiefof StaffGeorge C. Marshallconducted
a full-scaleexperimentto see how wellAmerican women could perform.
There was never a question of an all-femaleunit; the issue at stake was
whether mixed gender units could performcombat roles effectively.
The experimentstunnedtheGeneral Staff:mixedgenderunitsperformed
and further
down
betterthan all-male units.As the draftscraped further
the barrel, the availability of large numbers of potentially excellent
unutilized soldiers became more and more an anomaly. The demands
of militaryefficiencycalled forassigningwomen to combat.
The Luftwaffelost the Battle of Britain in 1940 but remained a
powerfulforce.It had to be defeated,and the ground soldiers' preferred
solution was strongantiaircraftunits (hereafterAA units).4 In 1941 the
Britishbegan using their women AuxiliaryTerritorialService (ATS)
soldiers in "protected"AA units; protectedbecause these soldiers were
immune from capture and their living conditions could be closely
monitored. To help emphasize the importance ofwomen servingin AA
units to free more men to fighton the European continent, Winston
3. D'Ann Campbell, Womenat War withAmerica: PrivateLives in a Patriotic
Era (Cambridge,1984); Leila M. Rupp,Mobilizing WomenforWar: German and
American Propaganda during WorldWarII (Princeton,1979); MaureenHoney,
CreatingRosie the Riveter: Class, Gender,and Propaganda during WorldWar
II (Amherst,1984); RuthMilkman,Gender at Work:The Dynamics ofJob Segregation by Sex During World War II (Urbana, 1987); Susan M. Hartmann,The
Home Frontand Beyond:American Womenin the1 940s (Boston,1982). William
Chafehas arguedforradicalchanges: The Paradox of Change (New York,1992).
4. RobertR. Palmer,Bell I. Wiley,and WilliamR. Keast, The Procurementand
Training of Ground Combat Troops (Washington,1948), 120-21.
302
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Womenin Combat
Churchill'sdaughter Mary served in one such brigade. Marshall asked
General Dwight Eisenhower to investigate the effectivenessof these
mixed-gender
AA units.When Eisenhowergave a positivereport,Marshall
decided to conduct his own experiment.5 Security was tight-there
were no leaks whateveruntillong afterthe war.6
Marshall wanted to recruit for his experiment women who had
already volunteered formilitaryservice. He turned to the only official
American women's organization at that time, the Women's Auxiliary
ArmyCorps (WAAC) whichin Julyof 1943 would become the Women's
ArmyCorps. Waacs fromthe 150th and 151st WAAC Technical Companies and the 62nd WAACOperations Company, a total of 21 officers
and 374 enrollees,wereselected forthisexperiment.From 15 December
1942 to 15 April 1943, they were trained in the MilitaryDistrict of
Washingtonon twocomposite antiaircraftgun batteriesand the nearby
searchlightunits.The Waacs servedwiththe36th Coast ArtilleryBrigade
AA. Colonel Edward W. Timberlake, the immediate commander of
these experimentalunitshad nothingbut praise forthem. "The experiences . . . indicate that all WAAC personnel exhibited an outstanding
devotion to duty,willingnessand abilityto absorb and grasp technical
informationconcerning the problems,maintenance and tactical disposition to all typesof equipment." Indeed the Waacs learned theirduties
much more quicklythan the men, most ofwhom had been classifiedas
"limited-dutyservice." Colonel Timberlake recommended that in the
futurethe training periods for women recruits could be shortened.
Whenevaluatingthesearchlightunits,he reported,"thesame willingness
to learn and devotion to dutyhas been manifestedin these units as in
the gun batteries."7
In contradiction to generally existingstereotypesof women being
physicallytoo weak to performcombat jobs, Timberlake concluded
thatwomen met the physical,intellectual,and psychologicalstandards
for this mission. In an echo of a widespread belief at the time, he
reported,"WAAC personnel were found to be superior in efficiencyto
5. Reportno. 1101, Eisenhowerto General Marshall,12 August1942. Women's
ArmyCorps,WDCSA, 1942-43, 291.9; Reel 306, Item 4688. Originalin NA,copy
in ML. Marshallto Eisenhower,6 August 1942, and MarshallMemorandum,18
November 1942, in LarryI. Bland, ed. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall
(Baltimore,1981- ), 3:288-89, 443-44, also 561; AlfredD. Chandler,ed., The
Papers ofDwightDavid Eisenhower (Baltimore,1970- ), 1:450-51.
6. The firstmentionof the experimentcame in the officialhistoryby Mattie
Treadwell,The Women'sArmyCorps (Washington1954), 301-2. Treadwell'swork
remains the best single source on the WAAC and WAC (and the best on any
women'sunitduringthewar).
7. U.S. WarDepartment,Organizationand TrainingDivision,G-3. 291.9 WAAC
7 July1943, RG 165, Entry211, Box 199, 1-3. Copy in ML, Xerox2782.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
men in all functionsinvolvingdelicacy ofmanual dexterity."He specifically listed their operation at the director, height finder,radar, and
searchlightstations, and concluded "theirperformance of repetitious
routineduties is considered superiorto thatofmen." Indeed he judged
thatWAACpersonnel could be substitutedformen in 60 percent of all
AA positions. Because men and women were going to be workingin
close proximity,Timberlakewas concerned about any possible scandals
which mightoccur. Promiscuity,or even rumorsof impropriety,could
undermine the unit's combat effectiveness.He was relieved to find,
"The relationshipbetween the Armypersonnel and WAAC personnel,
both enlisted and commissioned, has been highly satisfactory."No
sexual harassmentwas noted; insteadhe found,"A mutualunderstanding
and appreciation appears to exist." Timberlake asked his superior,
Major General John T. Lewis of the MilitaryDistrictof Washington,to
judge the experiment for himself.Soon Lewis was as enthusiastic as
Timberlake. Lewis wrote that Waacs could "efficientlyperformmany
duties in the antiaircraftartilleryunit." Theirhighmorale and a paucity
of disciplinary problems "increases materially the relative value of
WAAC personnel in antiaircraftartilleryin fixedpositions." Lewis was
so proud ofhis Waacs thatin May 1943, he asked Marshallforauthority
to continue the experiment, increase the number of Waacs to 103
commissioned and 2,315 enrollees, and replace halfthe 3,630 men in
his AA Defense Command withthese more efficientsoldiers.8
Marshall now had to make a choice. Ifhe let Lewis have the women,
the whole countrywould immediatelyhear thatwomen werebeing sent
into combat. What would that do to proposals to draftwomen? What
would conservativeSouthern congressmen, who never liked the WAAC
in the firstplace, do to Marshall's plans to expand the WAAC?9Would
the general public approve? Would women stop volunteering?Would
the male soldiers react favorablyor not? IfMarshallapproved, he could
no longer keep this experimentsecret. The Judge Advocate General's
Officesaid that Congress would have to change the existinglegislation
and it provided the wordingfora suitable amendment: the new Section
20 would read, "Nothing in this act shall preventany member of the
Women'sArmyAuxiliaryCorps fromservicewithany combatant organization withher own consent."10
8. Ibid., 5-10; 15 June 1943 MemorandumforAsst.C/S G-3,/s/ Lewis,291.9
WAAC7 RG 165, Entry212, Box 199, 1.
9. RepresentativeCarl Vinson, the major Congressional voice on military
affairs,
opposed women in combat. MarilynA. Gordon and MaryJo Ludvigson,"A
ConstitutionalAnalysisofthe Combat Exclusion forAir Force Women,"Minerva
9 (Summer 1991): 1-34.
10. ASF Director of Administration,020 WAAC,11-18-42, RG 160, Box 1.
[JAGto CofS] Xerox2000, ML. Also see Marshall Papers, 3: 454.
304
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Womenin Combat
Marshallasked his staffforadvice. They recommended thatMarshall
terminate the experiment immediately. General Miller White of the
Personnel Division,General Staff,acknowledged that"The War Department believes the experiment . . . has demonstrated conclusively the
practicabilityof using members of the Corps in this role." However,
since thepresentstrengthofthe WAACwas farbelow totalrequirements,
he argued that the Waacs "can be more efficientlyemployed in many
otherpositions forwhichrequisitionsare already in hand, and thattheir
use in antiaircraftartilleryto release limited service personnel is not
justifiedunderpresentcircumstances."11 In otherwords,the experiment
was a success, but the Army needed these women forhigher priority
positions. Had Germany or Japan been able to pose a practical threat
fromthe air to the continental UnitedStates then puttingwomen in AA
positionsmighthave become a highpriority.However,given the relative
safety of both coasts by 1943, Waacs were most needed to serve in
clerical bandadministrativepositions. The AA unitshad been using men
who could only be used forlimited duty service and there were more
than enough ofthese men to fillthe currentneed forAA units.However,
clerical and administrativepositions which normally were filled by
women in the civilian worldwere held by able-bodied men withfootball
fingerswho could be in combat instead.
In 1942, Marshall had discovered that some congressmen were so
concerned about protectingthe women sailors that theyamended the
law to forbidWAVESfromservingoverseas.12 Marshallhad been lobbying
Congress to upgrade the WAAC fromauxiliary status to full military
status (the Women's ArmyCorps-WAC). He wanted the Wacs to serve
overseas. The War Department withdrewthe WAC bill entirelyin April
1943, because ofthe "flak"over the Navybill and resubmittedit in May.
Finally Congress passed the WAClegislation on 28 June,withauthority
foroverseas service.13Had Congress learned that Marshall wanted the
Wacs to serve in combat units,then the WACbill mighthave been lost
foreveror many new restrictionsplaced on the abilityof the Armyto
utilizewomanpower. General Russell Reynolds,Director ofthe Military
Personnel Division,summarizedtheArmystaff'sconsensus to eliminate
the AA experiment before Congress got wind of it: "It is not believed
that national policy or public opinion is yet ready to accept the use of
women in fieldforceunits."14
11. BrigadierGeneral RayE. Porter,Asst.C/S, G-3,Xerox2788 ASF, Directorof
Personnel,MilitaryPersonnelDivision,RG 160, Entry484, Box 491. 14 July1943.
/s/Col. R. W. Berry,Exec. forAsst.C/S, G-1,copy in ML.
12. Campbell, Womenat War withAmerica,20.
13. Ibid. See also Treadwell,Women'sArmyCorps, 220.
14. ASF, DirectorofPersonnel,MilitaryPersonnelDivision,RG 160, Entry485,
Box 491.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
Marshall made the decision. He terminatedthe experiment,reassigned the Waacs, ordered the results kept confidential, and never
thoughtof using women in combat again.15 America had drawn the
gender line. Ifthe decision had been made exclusivelyon the grounds
ofefficiencyand performance,women would have been assigned to AA
batteries. It was based rather on the current needs of the Army for
female office workers, on the state of public opinion, and on the
general hostilitytowardwomen in nontraditionalgender roles in 1943.
To evaluate the fullimplications of Marshall's decision-to explore
what might have happened-it is essential to study the model the
United States was watchingclosely-the Britishexperience. Beforethe
war, in 1938, a prominent woman engineer, Caroline Haslett, was
asked to visitthe AA batteriesat practice and advise the commanding
officer,General Frederick Pile, if any of these jobs could be held by
women. Except for the heavy work of loading ammunition, Haslett
reported that women could performall the other functions.16As the
Britishmilitarybegan reassigning the most able-bodied antiaircraft
men to the field army, Pile decided to experiment withintegratedor
mixed batteries. The National Service Act of December 1941 drafted
125,000 women into the militaryoverthe nextthreeyearswhile430,000
more volunteered.The largestofthe women's units,AuxiliaryTerritorial
Service (ATS), began as a woman's auxiliaryto the militaryin 1938 and
in 1941 was granted militarystatus (withtwo-thirdspay of the men of
equal rank).17 Pile went to the ATS to find women soldiers to serve
alongside his men who were battling the Luftwaffe
bombers day and
night.Sir James Grigg,Under-SecretaryofState forWar,declared Pile's
proposal "breath-takingand revolutionary."18Prime MinisterWinston
Churchillwas enthusiastic. He argued that any general who saved him
40,000 fightingmen had gained the equivalent of a victory.By August
1941, women were operatingthe fire-controlinstruments,and men the
actual guns in Richmond Park,near the headquarters ofAA Command.
BySeptember1943, over56,000 women wereworkingforAA Command,
most in units close to London. The firstmixed regiment to fire in
action was the 132nd on 21 November 1941 and the first"kill"came in
April 1942. As Pile observed, "Beyond a littlenatural excitementand a
15. General George C. Marshallto Major General Lewis, 13 August1943, RG
160, Entry489, Box 492, copy in ML.
16. General Sir FrederickArthurPile,Ack-Ack(London, 1949), 186; See also
J.W.N.,"'Mixed' Batteries,"Journal oftheRoyal Artillery69 (1942): 199-206.
17. Pile, Ack-Ack,187. PatriciaJ. Thomas, "Women in the Military:America
and theBritishCommonwealth,"ArmedForces and Society 4 (August1978): 629.
18. Pile, Ack-Ack,188. See also ShelfordBidwell,The Women'sRoyal Army
Corps (London, 1977), 118-19, on Britishpublic opinion.
306
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.
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British women in theAuxiliary TerritorialService learn everyaspect
of this antiaircraft gun except to fire it, which was forbidden.
(Courtesy Imperial War Museum.)
tendency to chatterwhen there was a lull, theybehaved like a veteran
party,and shot an enemy plane into the sea." 19
The mixedbatterieswerecommanded by men fromtheAA regiments.
Women officersfromATS served as "gender commissars," whose only
officialfunctionwas to supervise the militarybearing of the enlisted
women.20ATS officersweregivena briefcourse in thegeneral principles
of antiaircraftwork,but the only women allowed to participate in the
actual fightingwere the ATS enlistees. The male chain of command
19. Pile,Ack-Ack,188, 191, 193; Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 121-22.
20. "The Second WorldWarMemoriesofMissG. Morgan,"MSS PP/MCR/115,
1, housed at the ImperialWar Museum,London; Two ATS AA Officers,"Lifein a
MixedAnti-Aircraft
Battery,"ArmyQuarterly47 (October, 1943): 82, also points
out the excellentdisciplinein these units.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
handled all instructionand supervisionofboth men and women in the
technical areas. In practice, the women officerssoon took over some of
the fire-controloperations-a practice that was condoned by the AA
Command and ATS leadership. As one woman explained, "When we
arrivedat our site we had all been trained forparticularjobs, but since
then we have learned to do everyjob in camp except firethe guns-and
I bet we could do thattoo ifwe were allowed."21 Soon women skilledin
fire-control
operations learned as well to set the range and bearing dials
on the gun itselfa fewyards away and adjust the fuses on the shells.
Indeed they could even take over the complete operation of a light
40-mmAA gun. Butregulationsstrictlyprohibitedwomen fromengaging
the firingmechanism. They could not pull the triggeron a man, even if
he was a Luftwaffe
pilot.
ATS women were soon assigned to searchlightunits.22These units
were scattered around the gun-complex and thus each searchlightwas
some distance fromthe next. Each unit had to be supplemented witha
male soldier firinga tripod-mountedlight machine gun to deter any
raider who attacked down the beam; the women called him the "Lister
Twister"since his otherjob was to crank the Listergeneratorproviding
the power for the light.23 Some AA officersfrettedabout what the
Britishpublic (or the Luftwaffe)
mightthinkabout these one man/many
women searchlightunits.24The Germansneverseem to have commented
on the matter.Furthermore,the much-fearedsex scandals nevermaterialized in the searchlightor battery units.25At firstmiddle-aged men
(presumably more prudent) were sent to the mixed batteries. This
policy was not a success because, "The girlsregarded the older men as
21. Ibid. Freudwould have a fieldday analyzingpossible reasons women were
not allowed to firea gun (a phallicsymbol)targetedon males..
22. Accordingto Lt. Col. M. S. F. Millington,
"The formation
ofthe83 Searchlight
Regiment,withthe exceptionof the CommandingOfficer,was composed entirely
ofATS and was the only women's SearchlightRegimentin the world."Millington,
"Gunners' Mates," Lioness 52 (1979): 36. The Britishapparentlydid not know
about the all-femaleSovietunits.
23. Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 127; Pile,Ack-Ack,227-28. See also
"The WorkofAA SearchlightsDuringtheLast War,"Journal oftheRoyal Artillery
75 (1948): 241-52.
24. W.Boileau, "Searchlight-A.T.S.," The Gunner30 (April1948): 12, copy at
IWM;Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 127.
25. Whilethiswas the officialversionand no scandal campaign embarrassed
the mixed batteryunits,some mixingof the sexes took place. "One of the girls
cheerfully
admittedto havingbeen a prostitute
beforeshejoined up.... Therewere
nightswhenshe returnedto thehutwithhertunicand shirtin disarrayand herbra
slungsomewherearound her neck." "MemoriesofMiss G. Morgan,"1.
308
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Womenin Combat
grandfathers,and they fortheirpart found the girlsa bit tiresome."26
When younger men arrived,both sexes segregated themselvesat work
and werenot encouraged to mix offduty.Soon, however,theydeveloped
close workingrelationships,a formofbonding whichwas vitalwhen the
batteriescame under fire.As one Britishbatterycommander suggested,
"Loyaltymeans loyaltyin a mixed batteryand 'devotion to duty'has a
more definitemeaning than it has had. Isn't a woman's devotion more
sincere and lastingthan a man's?" 27The women developed bonds with
fellowAA workers,male and female, which they did not share with
formerworkersand friends."Afterexperiencingjust a couple ofmonths
of communal life, I found that the girls (civilians) with whom I had
workedbefore I enlisted were self-interested.... We no longer spoke
the same language even and thereseemed to be a barrierbetween us. It
was even worse with the boys."28 Pile observed, "The girls lived like
men, foughttheir lights like men, and alas, some of them died like
men."29
The firstwoman killedin action, PrivateJ. Caveney (148th Regiment)
was hit by a bomb splinterwhile workingat the predictor-the device
that predicted where the enemy plane would be when the shell finally
arrivedat the proper altitude.As had been practiced many times in the
casualty drills,the woman spotter "stepped in so promptlythat firing
In anotherattack,PrivatesClementsand Dunsmore
was not interrupted."
stuck to theirposts despite sufferinginjuries,caused "by being blown
over by a stickof bombs dropped across the troop position." The total
ATS battle casualties were 389 killed or wounded.30
Morale was high in the mixed batteries; soon the women were
allowed to wear the AA Command formationsign on the sleeves and to
be called Bombardiers and Gunners (only on duty).31As one recruit
explained, "I don't know what it was about Ack girls but we always
seemed to be smarter than the rest of the service" and they "acted
26. Pile, Ack-Ack,189; Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 124. But there
were otherswho insistedon the strictproprietyof all involved.Accordingto ATS
volunteerMurielI. D. Barker,"Therewas an absolutelymonasticsegregationwhen
it came to livingquarters."Muriel I. D. Barkerpapers, ATS/WAAC1941-1955,
73/31/1, especially 24-47, housed at IWM, quote from47. One mixed battery
commander explained that,"When a couple of girlswalkout of a hut in dressing
gownsto go to the ablutionhutsfora bath,nobodytakesthe slightestnotice. This
matterof factatmosphereis whatstrikeseveryfirsttime visitor."J.W.N."'Mixed'
Batteries,"206.
27. Ibid.,206.
28. "MemoriesofMiss G. Morgan,"11.
29. Pile,Ack-Ack,36-37; Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 130.
30. Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 130-32.
31. Ibid., 126. See also "Lifein a MixedAnti-Aircraft
Battery,"80-83.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
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accordingly."32 In 1944, morale in the mixed batteries soared when
news came that some were to serve throughout England (not just
around London) and even on the continent. One woman volunteer
described the command post situation at the Great Yarmouth Gun
Defended Area duringand just aftera raid:
The atmospherein thepostwascalm,almostsubduedand little
different
fromthatwhichhadprevailedduringourmanyexercises
in thepast.Thischangedas soon as stand-down
wasgivenand,
althoughwe stillhad workto do, therewas at least a buzz of
excitementabout the place and cigaretteswerefreelyhanded
around.Somehowitseemed thethingto do forme to takeone
and lightup as well-even thoughI didn'tsmoke,untilthenthat
iS.33
32. This excerptedaccount, entitled,"A Woman's View of Lifein a MixedAA
Battery,"
based on conversationsheldwithone ATS Private,compiledand presented
by Ronald Hadley, p. 10, is part of the "Second WorldWar Memoirsof Miss G.
Morgan,"1, PP/MCR/115collection at the IWM.
33. Ibid.,35-36.
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0 11
U~~~~~~~~~~~~~
._ . . ....
._
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i
. ..
Prime Minister and Mrs. Winston Churchill inspect a mixed-sex
antiaircraft battery. (Courtesy Imperial War Museum.)
The living conditions for both sexes were often primitive;the ATS
women boasted how harsh it was out on the hilltopsat night.Nervous
uncles wereappalled. Pressuresoon mountedto providebetterconditions
forthe women. Before such facilitiescould be built, one commander
assembled the one thousand women of his brigade and offeredto have
hours. Only
any of them moved to another location withintwenty-four
nine women asked fora change, and all of these were clerks who were
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
not involved withthe fire-controlequipment.34 One male leader of a
mixedbatteryunitconfessedthathe initiallyhated theidea ofcommanding a mixed battery,"But now that I have joined thisbattery,raised it,
watched it grow up and shared in its sorrowsand joys, I can say I have
never been happier than I am now."35 Aftersix months an AA corps
commander told Pile that "It has been an unqualified success." He
suggestedthatwhatimmediatelyimpressedobserverswas "the tremendous keenness and enthusiasmdisplayedby theATS in assimilatingtheir
operational duties. They learn quickly,and once having mastered the
subject veryseldom make mistakes." He also remarkedthat,"Contrary
once again to expectations, theirvoices carrywell and can be clearly
Pile concluded that"the
heard in the din ofgunfire."36Not surprisingly,
experimenthad exceeded even mymore sanguine hopes." 37The mixed
unit had achieved a standard of drill and turn-out"betterthan in any
male unit; for when the girls took to polishing their predictors, how
could the men have dirtyguns?"38
It is possible to ask how women compared withmen doing identical
jobs. BritishAA leaders concluded thatwomen were inferioras spotters,
comparable as predictors and superior as height finders.The British
experience was more complete than the American four-monthexperiment, but therewere no major differencesin the findings.The women
excelled in several areas, were comparable in others,and were inferior
in a few.But phrasing the question in terms of men versus women is
highlymisleading. The Britishwere not interested in setting up allfemale units in order to promote feminism.Rathertheyset up mixed
units so theycould shoot down more enemy planes and buzz bombs,
while making the most efficientuse of the limited human resources
available. The effectivenessof a militaryunit depends on the team
performance;team memberswho are betterat luggingheavyshells can
be assigned to that task,while those who are betterat reading the dials
should be doing that. The effectivenessof a team is not the average of
ofall trades. Ratherit is a composite
each person measured as a Jack/Jill
of how well each specialized task is performed,plus the synergythat
comes fromleadership,morale, and unitcohesion. The mixed unitsdid
verywell indeed.
34. Pile,Ack-Ack,376-81; Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 132; women
assignedto AA unitsoftenheld severaldifferent
assignments;one womanwas sent
back to AA Signalscourse,thenmovedto the RAFPlottingRoom and eventuallyto
severalAA headquarters.See Doris Madill, "FortyYears in Retrospect,"Lioness
52 (1979): 41-42.
35. "'Mixed' Batteries,"206.
36. Pile,Ack-Ack,192.
37. Ibid., 194; "'Mixed' Batteries,"202-4.
38. Pile,Ack-Ack,194.
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Britainhad to balance public doubts and ingrained gender norms
against pressing needs. When Pile and Churchillfirstassigned women
to AA jobs theyencountered resistance frompublic opinion. It was not
so much thatthe women were in danger-every woman in everyBritish
citywas in danger ofdeath fromGerman bombs, and tens ofthousands
did die. The public would not supporta proposal to allow women to fire
the AA guns. But the Britishwere a practical people, especially when
bombs were falling.They soon decided, "A successful air defence was
an even stronger political imperative than the possible moral and
physicaldangers to the daughtersof the nation."39 The governmentdid
concede some details to public opinion by not formallyclassifying
these AA jobs as combat and by symbolicallyprohibitingthe women
frompulling the lanyard. The mixed AA crews were as much combat
teams as were the airplane crews theyshot down.
One factor in whethernations employed women in combat roles
was the urgencyof the need forcombat soldiers. The tail-to-teethratio
was very high in the United States because Marshall feltonly ninety
combat divisions would be needed, and that the war would be largely
won by the efficiencyof the supply and support mechanism. Women
were not needed in AA units (fewmen were actually needed), but they
wereurgentlyneeded to handle clerical and administrative
jobs. Marshall
thoughtcaution the better part of valor when he decided not to riska
confrontation with Congress and public opinion on the matter of
genderroles.The Britishexperiencefitsthenextstageon thiscontinuum.
Men were urgentlyneeded forfront-lineinfantryunits in NorthAfrica
at the same time the Luftwaffe
threatenedthe homefront.Britishwomen
wereassigned to defensivemissionsto enable men to engage in offensive
action. They were at riskofbeing killed,but therewas littlechance they
could be captured. Living conditions, while difficult,protected them
fromunwanted sexual encounters. How did other European countries
react to severe threatswiththeirshrinkingmanpower assets? Did they
employ maximum personpower?
Hitler had always insisted that women remain at home and be
full-timewivesand mothers;Nazi women were to guarantee the survival
39. Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 119, 123. Perhaps women's poor
recordsas spotterswere due to theirpreviouslack ofexperiencein distinguishing
aircraft.Few women came to AA positions having memorized the Britishand
German models. In a similarsense, women sailorsoftentook longerto memorize
the differences
in shipsthan did men who may have grownup "playing"sailorsor
pilots as youngboys. Also, women typicallytook longer to learn a militaryrank
systemand to "spot" a seniorofficerapproachingwhomtheymustsalute.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
of the Aryan race in the labor room, not on the battlefield.40Even
single women were not recruitedforjobs in industryat thebeginningof
the war. By 1941 women were holding jobs in industryand servingin
Female AuxiliaryUnitsdoing administrativeworkforthe military.After
the invasion of Russia, German women in Female Auxiliary Units
increasinglybegan replacing men who were sent to the Eastern front.
Berlin did monitor its Finnish ally, which successfullyused "Lottas" as
auxiliaries to the army.41But it was not until January 1943, when the
war had clearly begun to turn sour and Albert Speer became the
economic czar, that Germany began full mobilization of its human
resources. Even so, measures to conscript women into industrywere
introduced "only withextreme reluctance, and were never efficiently
implemented."42Not surprisingly,
then, measures to draftwomen into
the military-including Goebbels's 1944 Second Order forthe Implementation of Total War-were even less well-enforced.43
German women, however,did serve in the military:in all, 450,000
joined the women's auxiliaries, in addition to the units of nurses.44By
40. For discussionson theGermandivisionofgenderrolesand itseffecton the
mobilization of German women during WWII, see Jill Stephenson, The Nazi
OrganizationofWomen(London, 1981); ClaudiaKoonz,Mothersin theFatherland
(New York,1987); Rupp,Mobilizing Womenfor War; Rupp,"Women,Class, and
Mobilizationin Nazi Germany,"Science and Society 43 (1979): 51-69; Rupp,
"Motherof the Volk: The Image of Women in Nazi Ideology," Signs 3 (Winter
1977): 362-379; Louise Willmot,"Womenin theThirdReich:The AuxiliaryMilitary
ServiceLaw of 1944," German History2 (1985): 10-20; JudithGrunfeld,"Mobilization of Women in Germany," Social Research 9 (1942): 476-94; RichardL.
Johnson,"Nazi Feminists:A Contradictionin Terms,"Frontiers1 (1975): 55-62;
Journal of
JostHermand,"AllPowerto theWomen:Nazi ConceptsofMatriarchy,"
ContemporaryHistory19 (1984): 649-67; InternationalLabour Review 50 (1944):
335-5 1; Linda Gordon,"Nazi Feminists?"FeministReview 27 (September1987):
97-105; T. W. Mason, "Women in Nazi Germany,"HistoryWorkshop 1 (Spring
1976): 74-113, and 2 (Autumn1976): 5-32.
41. Lottas,foundedin 1918, were to takejobs in the rear to replace men who
could thenfighton thefront.Theyweredisbandedin 1944 as partoftheconditions
of the Armisticebecause of their Nazi ties. See Else Martensen Larsen, "Das
danische weiblicheFleigerkorps,"Wehrkunde14 (August1965): 403; Document
KA:NL Raus B/186/I-Thema21: "Improvisationenals Mittelder Fiihrung,"Code
number851: 26, example #16. Copy suppliedby MHS, Austria.Foran overviewon
theFinnishexperience,see CharlesLeonard Lundin,Finland in theSecond World
War (Bloomington,1957).
42. Willmot,"Womenin the ThirdReich,"11.
43. Ibid., 13, 14, 16, 17.
44. JeffM. Tuten,"Germanyand the WorldWars,"in Nancy LoringGoldman,
ed., Female Combatants or Non-Combatants? (Westport,1982), 52-53; see also
Journal 92 (March 1979):
"A German Antiaircraft
General Speaks,"Antiaircraft
46; General G. L. Appleton,"Flak: Some Commentson the GermanAnti-Aircraft
Defences 1939-1945," Journal of Royal Artillery74 (1947): 85-89; Franz W.
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1945 women were holding approximately 85 percent of the once allmale billets as clericals, accountants, interpreters,laboratoryworkers,
and administrativeworkers,togetherwithhalfofthe clerical and junior
administrativeposts in high-levelfield headquarters.45These German
women, in uniformand under militarydiscipline, were not officially
referredto as female soldiers. They were unofficiallynicknamed "Blitzmadchen." While it may seem surprisinglythat the Nazis ever allowed
women to serve in the militaryin any capacity, to test our hypothesis
we must examine the German model to see ifwomen held more than
combat supportor combat service supportpositions.46
Antiaircraftunits became increasingly central to Germany's war
so on 17 July1943, Hitler,at the urgingofSpeer, decided to train
effort,
women forsearchlightand AA positions. Basic trainingwas to take four
weeks. These AA auxiliaries were placed as follows:threeto operate the
instrumentto measure distances, seven to operate the radio measuring
instrument,three to operate the command instrument,and occasionally one woman served as a telephone platoon leader. By the end of the
thousand and one hundred thousand women
war, between sixty-five
Some searchlightunits
were servingin AA units withthe Luftwaffe.47
Seidler, Frauen zu den Waffen-Marketenderinnen,Helferinnen,Soldatinnen
[Women to Arms: Sutlers,Volunteers,Female Soldiers] (Koblenz/Bonn, 1978),
47, 50, 51, 59, 64, 65. For some of thesejobs Seidler says that women were to
replace men at a ratioof3:2 (women to men), sometimes4:3. Even in traditional
women'sworkthe Germans thoughtthatmore women wouldbe needed to do the
heldby male soldiers;theAlliesdiscoveredjust theoppositewas true.
jobs formerly
45. Seidler,Frauen, 60, 74. "The Guidelines forEmergencyEmploymentof
Women"explainedthatspecial care mustbe givento employingwomenaccording
to theirmentaland physicaldispositionsince theywould not be able to do all the
workdone by men. "No workis to be given to women that requires particular
presence of mind,determination,and fastaction." Richtlinienfurdie BeschaftigIlIc 565-38g, 16
ung von Frauen im Mobfall [Anlage der Reichsarbeitsminister,
September 19381, as cited in Ursula von Gersdorff,Frauen im Kriegsdienst,
1914-1945 [Womenin WarService,1914-19451 (Stuttgart,1969), 286; see also
"Frauen im Kriegsdienst.
Tuten, "Germanyand the WorldWars,"56; Gersdorff,
Problemeund Ergebnisse,"Wehrkunde11 (November1965): 578; copy at Federal
forDefenseofthe Country,MHS, Vienna,Austria.
Ministry
46. FranzSeidler,Blitzmadchen.Die Geschichteder Helferinender deutschen
(Koblenz/Bonn,1979); Leopold Banny,DrohnWehrmachtim Zweiten Weltkrieg
in Osterreich
ender HimmelBrennendesLand: Der Einsatz der Luftwaffenhelfer
1943-45 (Vienna, 1988), 195; copy at MHS, Austria;Seidler,Frauen, 29-34. For
examplesoffemalesoldiersnot correspondingto theNationalSocialistconception
of womanhood;see Anlage, Oberkommandoder Wehrmacht,5 September1944,
Frauen im Kriegsdienst,441.
AZ. 26/27 Nr. 1649/44. Cited in Gersdorff,
47. Seidler,Frauen, 60, 65, 86, 87; Tuten,"Germanyand the WorldWars,"55.
Az. DI Nr.
Details on AA basic trainingare found in Der Reichsarbeitsfiihrer
(Bundesarchiv
von RAD-Flakbatterien"
680/43g. 8 August1943. Betr.:"Aufstellung
NS 6/vorl.345); copy suppliedby MHS.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
were eventually90 percent female.48Similar to the Britishexperience,
German women whojoined AA unitswere soon "proud to be servingas
AA-Auxiliaries,"and were "Burning soon to be trained well enough to
be able flawlesslyto stand our ground at the equipment."49 In these
units women developed the unit cohesion which had been evident in
the BritishAA units.As one veteran recalled, "We have been raised with
the same kind ofspirit,we had the same ideals, and the most important
was the good comradeship, the 'one forall.'"50 Here again these AAAuxiliaries emphasized their continued femininity.As Lotte Vogt
explained:
In spiteofall thesoldier'sdutieswe had to do, we didnotforget
thatwe are girls.We did not wantto adopt uncouthmanners.
Wecertainly
wereno roughwarriors-always
simplywomen.51
As in Britain,however,the German women servingwithAA units
learned all aspects of the guns, but were forbiddento firethem. Hitler
and his advisersfirmly
believed thatpublic opinion would nevertolerate
these auxiliariesfiringweapons.52Indeed, German propaganda warned
all women in the auxiliaries not to become "gun women" (flintenweiber).53 "Gun women" was the contemptuous German term for
Soviet women who carried or firedweapons. Many Soviet women were
withoutuniformsand thusconsidered de facto partisans.The Germans
looked upon armed Soviet women as "unnatural" and consequently
had no compunction about shooting such "vermin" as soon as they
were captured. The verbal degradation ofenemy femalesmade it easier
48. Center of MilitaryHistory,"MilitaryImprovisationsDuring the Russian
Campaign,"U.S. DepartmentoftheArmy,CMH Pamphlet104-1, 1986, 80.
49. JuttaRiudiger,
ed. Zur Problematik von Soldatinner: Der Kampfensatz
-Berichte und Dokumentationen
in ZweitenWeltkrieg
von Flakwaffenhelferinnen
(Munich,1987), 29, quotingLotteVogt.
50. Ibid.,91.
51. Ibid.,28.
52. DockyManner,Die Frau in den USA.Schriftenreihe
der NSDAP (Munich,
1942), 44, as cited in Seidler,Frauen, 153. See also 60 and Gersdorff,
Frauen im
Kriegsdienst,441.
53. In February1944 one ofthenaval auxiliarieswroteto a friendwhohad been
captured: "I've been sent to the Naval AuxiliaryService. I am now a soldier who
replaces you in the country.The serviceis not difficult
as we are not raised to be
gun women. Whatis good about itis thatone is also treatedas a woman. Obviously
we must conduct ourselves honorablyas women otherwise[indecipherablel is
completelylost. We are amongst sailors but we have nothingto do withthem."
Excerptedin "Studies of Migrationand Settlement,"Administrative
Series. Field
reports8-12, "Women in Nazi Germany,"part E, "Morale," 27, in FranklinD.
RooseveltLibrary.
316
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forGerman soldiers to overcome inhibitionsabout harmingwomen.54
In November 1944, Hitlerissued an officialorder that no woman
was to be trained in the use of weapons. The only exception was for
women in the remote areas of the Reich whichcould be easily overrun
by the Soviets. In one such area, a twenty-two-year-old
Pomeranian
woman, "Erna," was awarded the Iron Cross (second class) when she,
togetherwitha male sergeant and private destroyed three tanks with
bazookas. Indeed, the German propaganda suggestedthatthe bazooka
was the most feminine of weapons.55 The FreikorpsAdolf Hitler was
formedin 1945 and trainedin the use ofbazookas, hand grenades, and
automatic rifles.Lore Ley, daughter of a leading Nazi, once knocked
out a Soviet armored scout car and took fromits commander military
documents and money.56In all, thirty-nineGerman women received
the Iron Cross (second class) fortheirdutynear the front.The majority
of these women, however,were nurses.57
The true Nazis resisted weapons training for women auxiliaries
until the final stages of the war. As
servingwiththe Armyor Luftwaffe
Reichsleiter Martin Bormann sputtered to ReichsministerDr. Josef
Goebbels, as late as November 1944: "Aslong as thereis stillone single
man employed at a workplace in the Wehrmachtthatcould as well be
occupied by a women, the employment of armed women must be
rejected."58 More and more desperate every day, in February 1945
Hitlercapitulated and created an experimental women's infantrybattalion. Ironically,thisunit's mission was in part to shame cowardlymen
54. Seidler, Frauen, 60, 153, 170; Gersdorff,
Frauen im Kriegsdienst,441.
Seidler also states that the National Socialist propaganda mocked the American
Wacs who were considered traitorsto theirsex because they were performing
functionsin theArmyunder the pretence ofemancipation.Seidler,Frauen, 153.
On brutalization,see Omer Bartov,Hitler'sArmy:Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the
Third Reich (New York,1991), 66-72, 89, 94, 135.
55. March 1945 orderfromBormann(Reichsleiter)Rundschreiben119/45. 5
March 1945. BundesarchivNS 6/vorl.349, as cited in Seidler,Frauen, 349. For
handlingofbazookas in special cases, see Anlage, OKW No. 1350/45, 23 March
1945, cited in Gersdorff,
Frauen im Kriegsdienst,531. Seidler dismissedboth the
descriptionof bazookas as feminineand the heroics by Erna as propaganda,
Seidler,Frauen, 155. Bazookas werelight-weight
and did not have the heavyrecoil
thatonlya largebody could absorb.
56. Guenther W. Gellermann, Die Armee Wenck-Hitlers letzte Hoffnung.
Aufstellung,Einsatz und Ende der 12. Deutschen Armee im Fruehjahr 1945
(Koblenz: Bernardund GraefeVerlag,1984), 43-44; copy housed in MHS,Austria.
57. Seidler,Blitzmadchen, 99. Hitler'stest pilots Hanna Reitschand Melitta
Schilla-Stauffenberg
weretheonlywomento receivetheIron Cross (firstclass); see
Karl Otto Hoffman,Die Geschichte der Luftnachrichtentruppe,
vol. 2, part 1
(Neckargemiind,1968), 182, cited in Seidler,Frauen, 158.
58. BA R43 II/666c, ReichsleiterM. Bormann to Herrn ReichsministerDr.
Goebbels, 16 November1944, cited in Gersdorff,
Frauen im Kriegsdienst,465.
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D'ANN CAMPBELL
who were evading theirnatural gender role of dying fortheircountry
(thousands of men were desertingin 1945). The cowards ought to stay
with their units and fightlike real men. The war ended before the
women's battalion could be raised and trained.59
In contrast to the Germans, the Soviets mobilized their women
early, bypassing the "auxiliary" stage entirely.About eight hundred
thousand women served in the Red ArmyduringWorldWar II, and over
half of these were in front-lineduty units. Many were trained in allfemale units.About a thirdof the total number of women servingwere
given additional instructionin mortars,lightand heavy machine guns,
or automatic rifles.Anotherthreehundredthousand served in AA units
and performedall functionsin thebatteries-including firingtheguns.60
When asked why she had volunteered for such dangerous and "unwomanly" work, AA gunner K. S. Tikhonovich explained, "'We' and
'Motherland'meant the same thingforus." Sergeant Valentina Pavlovna
Chuayeva fromSiberia wanted to settle the score and avenge the death
of her father:"I wanted to fight,to take revenge,to shoot." Her request
was denied withthe explanation that telephone operator was the most
vital work she could do. She retortedthat telephone receiversdid not
shoot; finallya colonel gave her the chance to trainforthe AA. "At first
my nose and ears bled and my stomach was completely upset.... It
wasn't so terribleat night,but in the daytime it was simplyawful."She
recalled the terrorofbattle: "The planes seemed to be heading straight
foryou, rightforyourgun. In a second theywould make mincemeat of
you.... It was not really a young girl'sjob." Eventuallyshe became
commander ofan AA gun crew. PrivateNonna AlexandrovnaSmirnova,
AA gunner fromthe Georgian village of Obeha, did not like the training
program in which men with little education, often mispronouncing
words, served as their instructors.The uniformsthey received were
designed for men. Smirnova, the smallest person in her company,
usually wore a size 34 shoe but was issued an American-made boot size
59. Seidler,Frauen, 155; Tuten,"Germanyand the WorldWars,"56; Wilmott,
"Womenin the ThirdReich,"18-20.
60. Anne Eliot Griesse and RichardStites,"Russia: Revolutionand War,"in
Goldman, ed., Female Soldiers-Combatants or Noncombatants? 69, 73; see
also K. Jean Cottam,ed., The Golden-TressedSoldier (Manhattan,Kans., 1983);
Cottam,"Soviet Womenin Combat in WorldWar11:The Rear Services,Resistance
Behind Enemy Lines and MilitaryPolitical Workers,"International Journal of
Women'sStudies 5 (1982): 363-83. Shelley Saywell, Women in War (Toronto,
1985); V. S. Murmantseva,Soviet Women in the Great Patriotic War, 2d ed.
(Moscow,1979) (in Russian);Murmantseva,"The Military
and Labor Achievement
ofSovietWomen,"Military-HistoricalJournal 5 (1985): 3-96; L. 1.Stishova,ed.,
On theHome Frontand on the WarFront:WomenCommunistsduringthe Great
Patriotic War (Moscow, 1984). DuringMay 1986, thisauthormet in Moscowwith
318
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42. "They were so heavy that I shuffledinstead of marching."'61(In
everynation the women's serviceshad troublewiththe quartermaster's
notion of whata shoe should be.)
The noncombat-combatclassificationwhichpreoccupied theAmericans, British,and Germans proved an unaffordable luxury to the
Soviets. In a nation totallycontrolled by the Kremlin,organized public
opinion was hardly a factor. Implicit public opinion regarding the
primacyoftraditionalgender roles was another matter,but the evidence
available does not speak to that. (The Kremlin controlled the media
and thehistoriography-andeven the memoriesofWorldWarII; perhaps
someday glasnost willloosen some tongues.) Article13 ofthe universal
militarydutylaw, ratifiedby the FourthSession of the Supreme Soviet
on 1 September 1939, enabled the militaryto accept women who had
training in critical medical or technical areas. Women could also
registeras part of a traininggroup and afterthey were trained they
could be called up foractive dutyby the armed forces.Once war broke
out, these Soviet women together with their fathers,brothers, and
husbands went to the militarycommissariats, to partyand Komsomol
organizations to help fight.They served as partisans,snipers,and tank
drivers.62Afterone woman's tankerhusband died, she enlisted herself,
served in a tank she named "Front-lineFemale Comrade" and perished
in 1944.63 Women constitutedthree regimentsof pilots, one of fighter
pilots (the 586th FighterRegiment),one of bombers (the 587th), and
the most famous, the 588th NightBombers who proved so effectiveat
hittingtheir targets that they were nicknamed by the Germans the
nightwitches.According to one veteran German pilot, "I would rather
flyten times over the skies of Tobruk [over all-male Britishack-ack]
than to pass once through[Russia where] the fireof Russian flak [was]
sent up by female gunners."64 In all, Soviet women made up about 8
several Soviet women veteransof WorldWar II who explained the multipleroles
women playedduringthe war.There is littlematerialwrittenon thesewomen and
whatis availableis writtenwitha "Military-patriotic"
purposeas Cottamdescribesit;
see K. Jean Cottam,Soviet Airwomen in Combat in World War II (Manhattan,
Kans., 1983), ix-xiv.
61. S. Alexiyevich,War's Unwomanly Face (Moscow, 1988), 9, 49, 83-86;
translatedfromthe Russianby KeithHammondand LyudmilaLaxhneva.
62. Murmantseva,Soviet Women in the Great Patriotic War, Chapter II,
especially126.
63. Griesseand Stites,"Russia:Revolutionand war,"70.
64. Ibid., 69. On Soviet pilots,see also Cottam,Soviet Airwomenin Combat;
BruceMyles,NightWitches:The UntoldStoryofSoviet Womenin Combat (Novato,
Calif.,1981); Cottam,ed. and translator,In the SkyAbove theFront:A Collection
of Memoirs of Soviet Airwomen Participants in the Great Patriotic War (Manhattan,Kans., 1984).
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_
_
percent ofall combatants. Between 100,000 and 150,000 of themwere
decorated duringthe war, including 91 women who received the Hero
of the Soviet Union medal, the highestaward forvalor.65
The Soviets boasted that theirwomen were in combat units, and
even sent some abroad on publicity tours.66Combat roles were not
publicizedin Germany,Britain,or America,even as thegeneralsrealized
that women soldiers in AA units had combat missions.67 They were
shooting at the enemy, and he (or she) was shootingback. The British
discovered that Luftwaffe
gunners firedat everyonearound the searchlightsor the guns and not just the men there. As ShelfordBidwell,the
distinguishedhistorianofartilleryand of the ATS, concluded, "There is
not much essentialdifference
between manning a G.L. set or a predictor
and firinga gun: both are means of destroyingan enemy aircraft."He
noted that, "The situation became more absurd when the advance of
automhationwas such that the guns were firedby remote control when
on target, from the command post." AfterJune 1944, most of the
targets were V-1 robots, but the women still could not shoot.68 What
stopped the British,Americans, and Germans fromallowing the AA
women to pull the triggerwas theirsense of gender roles-a sensibility
thathad not yet adjusted to necessity.
Understandingthe reaction of the servicemento women in combat
involvesstudyof the structureofgender roles in societyat large and the
militaryin particular,and calls out fora comparative framework.In the
UnitedStates,most male soldierswere stronglyopposed to the Women's
ArmyCorps and urgentlyadvised theirsistersand friendsnot to join.
Scurrilousrumorsto the effectthatWacs were sexual extremists(either
promiscuous or lesbian) chilled recruitmentand froze the Corps far
below its intended size. The rumorswere generated almost entirelyby
word of mouth by servicemen. In point of fact, rumors were false
because the servicewomenwere much less sexually active than service-
65. Griesseand Stites,"Russia:Revolutionand War,"74.
66. WhenJuniorLieutenantLiudmilaPavlichenkometwithreportersin Washington,she was dumbfoundedto be asked about lingerieinstead of how she had
killed309 Germans. Time,28 September1942, 60.
67. The Germanmilitary
providedthefemaleAA-Auxiliaries
withspecial identity
cards as they were considered "combatants" but this was not broadcast to the
German public. These women had to be at least twenty-oneyearsold, volunteers,
and haveno children."DienstordnungfurLuftwaffenhelferinnen"
Heft2, Flakwaffenhelferinnen(Service RegulationsforFemale AA-Auxiliaries)15 December 1943,
BA-MA,RL 6/16, 1-5; copyfromBA-MA,Freiburg,
suppliedbyMilitargeschichtliches
Forschungsamt,
Freiburg.
68. Bidwell,Women'sRoyal ArmyCorps, 126-27.
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men, and rather less active than comparable civilian women.69 The
but to what?Senior officers
rumorsthereforereflecteda stronghostility,
had mostlybeen opposed to the WAC,but almost unanimouslyreversed
their position when they realized how effectivethe women were and
how many men theycould freeforcombat. Most of the senior officers
had been trained as engineers (especially at the militaryacademies)
and perhapsweremore sensitiveto efficiency
thanto human sensibilities.
Most women themselvesprobably opposed going into combat.70Some
enlisted men withnoncombat jobs were aghast at the idea (explicit in
recruitingposters) that women who enlisted would send a man to the
front.As one officerwrotefromthe South Pacific:7'
and muchmoreso thanmanyof
They[WacsIare good workers
our regularmen. You perhapshave heard many wild stories
that I hear. In
about thembut I wouldn'tbelieve everything
.comparison,our men are a lot worse.So manymen talkabout
themand itseemstheyare theones whohaven'tseen a Wac,or
doesn'tknowanythingabout them,or even is a littlejealous.
Thenagainsome ofthegirlstakeovereasyjobs thatsome ofthe
men hold and theydon'tlikeit whentheyhaveto get out and
work.
saw militaryserviceas a validationoftheirown
Young men furthermore
virilityand as a certificateof manhood. If women could do it, then it
was not very manly.72The exhilaration of combat could become an
aphrodisiac, ifnot a sexual experience in its own right;perhaps like the
69. Treadwell,Women'sArmyCorps, 191-218; Diane GertrudeForestell,"The
VictorianLegacy: HistoricalPerspectiveson the Canadian Women'sArmyCorps"
(Ph.D. diss.,YorkUniversity,
1985).
70. At least WACveteransin the 1980s did not supportthe notion ofopening
contemporarycombat rolesto women. D'Ann Campbell,"ServicewomenofWorld
WarII," ArmedForces and Society 16 (Winter1990): 263-66.
71. LetterfromAirForce quartermaster
officer,
excerptedin "MonthlyCensorship Surveyof Morale, Rumors,and Propaganda: August 1944," in MaxwellAir
Force Base Library,code 704.7011, August44.
72. Samuel Stouffer
et al., The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath
(Princeton,1949), 2: 131-34; JohnCostello,Love, Sex and War: Changing Values,
1939-1945 (1985), 192; WilliamArkinand Lynne R. Dobrofsky,
"MilitarySocialization and Masculinity,"
Journal ofSocial Issues 34 (1978): 151-68; JudithHicks
Stiehm, "The Protected,the Protector,the Defender," Women's Studies International Forum 5 (1982): 367-76, on the necessity of women being absent;
GeorgeL. Mosse,Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping theMemoryofthe World W"ars(New
York,1990), 60-61, 203-10 on manhoodand Germanmotivations.
The proscription
against homosexualitylikewiseinvolveda protectionof the ideal of manliness.
Allan Berube, Coming Out UnderFire: The Historyof Gay Men and Womenin
WorldWar Two (New York.1990). 176.
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321
D'ANN CAMPBELL
"Tailhookers" of
recentdaystheyfelt
this should be forbidden territory
to
AA4
females.73
The closM
ure of territoryto
femaleswas stronglyenforcedbyevery
fifth
word the men
spoke-languagedeliberatelyoffensive
to women.74 At a
deeper level, can
-societyalowwomen
to shoot at men? L
(The "batteredwife
.....................
is a case : :11 ..
defense"*J
>
in point.)
-lP .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
......
...
..;......~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~....
......
o..?
The questionof
women in combat
has generated a vast literaturethat draws fromlaw, biology, and psychology, but seldom fromhistory.The restrictionsagainst women in
combat that persisted fordecades in the United States were not based
on experimental research (quite the reverse), or froma consideration
oftheeffectiveness
ofwomen in combat in otherarmies. The restrictions
wereprimarilypoliticaldecisions made in response to the public opinion
of the day, and the climate of opinion in Congress. Still horrifiedby
Belleau Wood, Okinawa, and Ia Drang, many Americans to this day
visualize"combat" as vicioushand-to-handknifefighting.75
Major Everett
S. Hughes displayeda keen insightinto the issue ofwomen in combat in
a reportto the General Staff:
-
73. Costello, Love, Sex and War, 169. For a Persian Gulfreference,see Peter
Copeland, She WentTo War: The Rhonda Cornum Story(Novato,Calif.,1992).
74. J. Glenn Gray, The Warriors: Reflectionson Men in Battle (1959); H.
Elkin, "Aggressiveand Erotic Tendencies in ArmyLife,"American Journal of
Sociology 51 (1946): 408-13; Wayne Eisenhart,"You Can't Hack It LittleGirl: A
Discussion of the Covert PsychologicalAgenda of Modern Combat Training,"
Journal ofSocial Issues 31 (1975): 13-23.
75. Women soldiersdid in factdie in hand-to-handcombat on Okinawa. The
Japanesedraftedhighschool students,male and female,intomilitiaunitsthatwere
hurledinto combat, and killedto the last person. The saga of the all-female"Lilly
Brigade"is nowpartofJapanesefolklore.Thomas R. H. Havens,ValleyofDarkness:
TheJapanese People and WorldWar Two (New York,1978), 188-90. IfMacArthur
had invaded Kyushu,he probablywould have encountered thousandsof women
322
*
THE JOURNAL OF
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Womenin Combat
We have handicapped ourselvesby numerousman-madetechnical
definitions of such things as Combat Zone. . . . Some of us
conclude thatwomen have no place in theTheater ofOperations,
others thatwomen have no place in the combat zone. We failto
consider that the next war is never the last one. We forget,for
example, that whatwas the Combat Zone duringthe WorldWar
may be something else during the next war. We use technical
termsthat are susceptible to individual interpretation,and that
change with the art of war, to express the idea that women
should not participate here, there, or yonder. We are further
handicapped by man-made barriers of custom, prejudice and
politics,and failto appreciate how rapidlyand thoroughlythese
barriersare being demolished.76
Hughes's report was made in 1928, and was not rediscovered until after
the war. It was not feminism but fear of the lack of sufficient"manpower"
to fightWorldWar II, whichserved as the catalystforMarshall'sexperiment, Pile's mixed batteries,and the Soviet NightWitches. Necessity,
once it was dire enough, could overcome culture. "If the need for
women's servicebe great enough theymay go any place, live anywhere,
under any conditions," concluded Major Hughes. Success in combat
was a matterof skill,intelligence, coordination, training,morale, and
teamwork. The militaryis a product of historyand is bound by the
lessons it has "learned" fromhistory.77The problem is that the history
everyonehas learned about the greatestand best-knownwar ofall times
has airbrushedout the combat roles of women.
Apartfromcartoons,I have neverseen an Americanreferenceto fighting
infantry.
enemy women. In 1945 Willietipped his hat to a Blitzmadchenhe was taking(at
jacket, and a
gunpoint) to a POW compound. She wore a helmet,a Luftwaffe
civilianskirt;a hand grenadewas stilltuckedin herbeltbecause he was too muchof
a gentlemanto search her.The cartoon succinctlycapturedthe uncertaintyofan
unexpectedsex role. Bill Mauldin's Army(Novato,Calif.,1983), 348.
76. 21 September 1928 "Memorandumforthe AssistantChiefof Staff,G-1.
Subject: Participationof Women in War" (copy in ML, Xerox 612; original in
WDWAC314.7) by E. S. Hughes (Major, General Staff),approved by Brig.Gen.
Campbell King(Asst.ChiefofStaff).
77. Ibid. M. C. Devilbiss,Womenand MilitaryService: A History,Analysis,
and Overview of Key Issues (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., 1990), comes to a
similar conclusion that necessityhas been a. drivingfactorfor the militaryin
dealingwithgenderissues.
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323