Getting Started

The initials WAVES stood for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. WAVES did not serve aboard ship, nor on any foreign soil. The Navy Nurses Corps served wherever there were American wounded navy men, and were an entirely different unit from the WAVES. Their uniforms were black with much gold braid, for they were all officers. The WAVES uniforms were navy blue, designed by the fashion icon Mainbacher.

By train, Pullman car, I traveled in civilian clothes to New York. Of course, enlistees were arriving there from all over the country, for a new regiment was about to be formed. By bus we were transported to the Armory, where we sat on the floor, and got assigned alphabetically into platoons, and then into groups of eight for living quarters. Next we got our hats, the bonnet type, so that we could start saluting the officers. Black shoes were next, the lovely “old woman’s” type that laced up, with an inch and a half heel. We soon learned these were the very best type for the time spent in outdoor drill and we marched in formation everywhere we went. Finally we got measured for the beautiful uniforms, receiving them the very next day. The dress uniform was three-season dark blue wool gabardine, with which we wore white shirts and black ties in a square knot. Our black shoulder bag hung from the right shoulder and rested against the left hip—the only practical way to wear a no-nonsense shoulder purse. Our name was on every item of clothing we had and on our prescribed laundry bag on its assigned peg in our one closet for eight.

I wonder what you are imagining for our living quarters. You may be surprised. We were located in the Bronx, one of the five boroughs of New York City. Our base was the Bronx campus of Hunter College (the other one was in Manhattan), and on the subway, headed for Hunter, we passed Yankee Stadium just as the train emerged from underground and became the Elevated, or the El, or vice versa if going the other direction. Within walking distance of the campus, we lived in lovely apartments that civilians had to vacate for the purpose. The building complex had three large wings and was four stories high. Each level of each wing reserved one apartment to be used as a smoking room. I entered one of those only once. Talk about smoke-filled rooms! This had to be the smokiest. So, when most of the girls ran for a smoke the minute they got back to barracks, I began my letter writing. And at mail call every day, I got more mail than anyone else, up to twenty-five letters and cards some days. To be continued

♥