Life at the Oakland WAVE Barracks

From the train, some of us were transported by bus to the Oakland WAVE Barracks, consisting of a main building containing officers’ quarters, offices, and our dining hall, with, presumably, a kitchen, and four long buildings of quarters for the non-officers. Each long building was divided in half and numbered something like 1-A and 1-B, on through 4-A and 4-B. On each side of the long central hall were cubicles, containing four bunks, two desk/tables with a mirror above them, two chairs (I think), and two large built-in cupboards, each divided into halves, one half for each girl. In these well designed closets we hung our uniforms and stored anything else we had in the several drawers and on shelves. This, of course, is where we kept our purses at night and anytime we were away without them. These units had combination locks.

The compound was surrounded by a strong fence─not to keep us in, but to keep others out─with one gate and a guard around the clock. He was our protector and our friend but was not allowed to be chatty with us. That was good.

The WAVES whom I supervised here, for eight hours a day or night, went to work daily by bus to places where they worked at repairing ships, painting them, or whatever work they needed, or the same on Navy planes. Each one of them doing that sort of work released a man to go to sea to fight the war.

Except the war was now over, remember? We’d celebrated that in August in New York. But some work needed to continue. WAVES were getting out of service and heading home, though, and when I got there, these barracks were already ¾ vacated. Only Building 1 was still operating. I was called a Master-at-Arms─alarming sounding, isn’t it?─and I had an office shared by two other WAVES who manned the other shifts. Yeah, they manned them. They didn’t woman them. At the beginning I quartered in one of those cubicles with Frieda Novak, Juanita Salazar, and a tall girl whose name I do not recall at the moment. They put on work pants and tops and got on a bus and went to work. I, wearing a skirted uniform, walked down the hall to my office. Soon another Master-at-Arms was discharged and I moved into a room, all by myself, hearing right away, some had no idea the room could be so neat!

This is getting too long. To be continued.

♥