Captain Mildred H. McAfee, wartime Director of the WAVES, listens as Storekeeper 2nd Class Dorothy Oates explains her duties handling salvage materials at Naval Air Station Pearl Harbor, 4 July 1945.
Naval History and Heritage Command, 80-G-334303. Public domain.
More than 86,000 women served in the WAVES, the women's branch of the United States Naval Reserve, established in 1942. They worked mostly on home soil, in communications and intelligence, administration and training, freeing sailors for the sea. They staffed naval stations, air bases, and hospitals across the country, and they were among the first American women ever commissioned as officers in a branch of the military outside the nursing corps.
1900 to 1994
Captain, U.S. Naval Reserve; first Director of the WAVES; president of Wellesley College.
McAfee was the Navy's first female line officer, commissioned on 3 August 1942, and led the WAVES to a peak strength of more than 80,000 women. She was the first woman to receive the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.
1909 to 1969
Lieutenant (junior grade), U.S. Naval Reserve.
Pickens and Frances Wills became the first African American women commissioned as officers in the U.S. Navy on 21 December 1944. Pickens graduated as the top-ranked member of her officer candidate class and served as a physical training instructor at Hunter College.
1916 to 1998
Ensign, U.S. Naval Reserve.
Commissioned the same day as Pickens, Wills was the second African American woman to be commissioned a Navy officer. She served as a classification test administrator at the enlisted WAVES training facility at Hunter College in the Bronx.
1898 to 1986
Captain, U.S. Navy; Director of the WAVES, 1946 to 1953.
Hancock served as a Yeoman (F) in World War I and was commissioned a WAVES lieutenant in October 1942, working in the Bureau of Aeronautics. She was instrumental in the passage of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948.
Researched and written by Erin Faith Allen · Fortitude Research