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World War II women in the military
The recent war in Iraq brought to light a number of differences that have come about, which were not in place during previous wars. Among the glaring differences were the women involved in combat positions, from privates to generals -- and then came the reports of women being captured by the enemy. I'm sure that this was the natural result of the success of the feminist movement in our country in recent years. But, this achievement of equality was, nevertheless, a shocking development for many people in our country.
On December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to start World War II, there were Army Nurses and there were Navy Nurses, but no other women in military branches. Historically, nurses had been attached to military units as early as the Civil War, but there were no women soldiers or sailors.
There were reports of women serving in the army during the Civil War, but these women had disguised themselves as men. And there were women who served in the Civil War, acting as spies, for both the North and the South. Presumably women spies served later in the Spanish-American War, and during World War I as well. Mata Hari was famous as a spy for the Germans during the First World War, and it can be assumed that the Allies had their counterparts to Mata Hari as well.
Before World War II women pilots, notably Amelia Earhart, had lobbied the Army to admit women as flyers, and later Jackie Cochran and a number of other well-known women pilots distinguished themselves by ferrying military planes from the United States to England.
The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor left 2,200 servicemen and 68 civilians dead. There were 82 Army Nurses on duty that day at Pearl Harbor. These women worked tirelessly side by side with Navy and Civilian Nurses to treat the hundreds of casualties suffering burns and shock. Many of these women earned the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star during this time.
After Pearl Harbor, women rushed to be a part of the war effort. Many went to work in defense plants and shipyards, inspiring a popular song of the day, "Rosie The Riveter." Others did what they could to support our men in uniform, writing letters, sending Care packages, entertaining servicemen at USO centers, or serving hot coffee, sandwiches, and magazines to the servicemen passing through on troop trains at McCook, North Platte, and other rail centers.
What they could not do was to join the service. However, it did not take long to change the government's policy concerning women in uniform. After Pearl Harbor it only took four days for Congress to set the machinery in motion to establish the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (they later dropped the Auxiliary part, making them a full-fledged arm of the Army as WAC). Women's units in the Navy (WAVES), and Air Force (WAF) soon followed.
June Eskew, who now lives in McCook, is a very small woman, but a person of great determination, a trait she displayed in 1942 and a trait, which is apparent today. June was born in Trenton, but after she lost her mother at an early age, she was placed in a foster home in Mitchell, where she finished her secondary education. Following Nurses training in Oklahoma, June joined the staff at Cook General Hospital, in Chicago, in a neo-natal ward, taking care of the tiny pre-mature babies -- work she found extremely fulfilling.
When World War II began, June felt compelled to offer her services to the Army Nurse Corps. She was shocked when the authorities decided that she was too small to pass the physical requirements to be in the Army. After numerous discussions, and being shuttled from one office to another, she met one doctor who arbitrarily changed her records, upping her height to 5 feet and her weight to 100 pounds. After that things went smoothly and she was presented with an Army commission and sent to Camp Carson, in Colorado, which was a staging area for the South Pacific.
Soon June found herself aboard a troop ship bound for New Caledonia, where she joined a field hospital unit, as a surgical nurse. Over the next months, her unit followed Gen. MacArthur's campaign, from Guadalcanal, to New Guinea, to Luzon, in the Philippines, treating battle casualties from all of the major battles of that campaign.
This was exhausting, sometimes heartbreaking work, but to June it was also a most fulfilling time in her life. The troops invariably treated her and the other nurses with the utmost respect, and she felt that she was serving in a position where she was needed, where she felt she was truly making a difference.
During her time on Luzon June treated an aide of Gen. MacArthur, who had been wounded in the ankle. The war had moved on to Okinawa, on the way to an invasion of the Japanese mainland, but there were still a number of high-ranking officers on Luzon. One day, about the time he was to be returned to active duty, the officer asked June, "Say, how would you girls like to take a swim in the pool at the Royal Palace in Manila?" The Palace, formerly the residence of the monarch, had been taken over, as headquarters, by Gen. MacArthur. The general had moved on, but the palace was still used by members of MacArthur's staff. The aide had access to the palace and its ornate pool, and was a gracious host to a contingent of off-duty nurses, at a swimming party -- an experience June enjoys recalling.
Then, after hectic months of nursing wounded and broken men back to health, came the 6th of August, 1945, and suddenly the war was over. An invasion of Japan itself, an event all had dreaded, was not going to happen. Plans were made to set up a hospital in Tokyo, and June was invited to volunteer for an extended tour in Japan at that hospital. There was a certain temptation to get to see Japan, but June decided she had done enough, and she opted to return home. (A visit to Japan would have to wait for some years, when she visited Japan, China, Australia, and a great number of other countries, with her husband, who was an official in the Department of Agriculture).
Once back in the United States, to the base where she was to be discharged, June again faced problems. In submitting to the physical exam she was delayed because she was a good deal smaller than the 100 pounds and 5 feet tall that her records showed she had been upon entering the Army. She was the same size she had always been, but that was in variance with her induction records. The doctors felt that something must have happened to her while she was in the service, and they wanted to identify the disease that had caused her to become smaller. They wanted to have her admitted to the hospital for extensive tests. Again she was shuttled from one office to another. Her explanation of the real reason for the variance finally prevailed, and the doctors signed her papers, attesting that she was physically fit for discharge. That diagnosis appears to have been correct (in November 1945), smiles June, as she celebrated her 90th birthday in April 2003.