Even though they were fewer in number, SPAR officers also had to face the same rigors of training as the enlisted women. Their training stations and jobs were different, but all SPARs, regardless of rate or rank, were given an overall picture of the Coast Guard.
Unlike their enlisted shipmates, SPAR officers were trained in only two locations. The first SPAR officers were also former WAVEs who volunteered to transfer to the Coast Guard and attend the Naval Reserve Midshipman School in Northampton, Mass. Later, the recruitment of civilians for SPAR officers began and the women also began training at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. The officer candidates gained practical knowledge of leadership and organization during their six-week curriculum.
Of the 955 SPAR officers, 299 were prior enlisted. At that time, any qualified enlisted woman was eligible to apply for officer training. In fact, the last class of SPAR officer candidates was comprised entirely of former enlisted personnel. (Right: Newly commissioned SPAR officers talk with a Coast Guard Academy cadet.)
In December 1942, 12 WAVEs, who transferred to the Coast Guard, attended Northampton's naval training school. All together, more than 200 women followed in their footsteps at this school.
Marching to classes in both fair and foul weather was the norm. In fact, it was an order from headquarters. Known for its hills, Northampton's SPARs marched back and forth three times a day to classes, dormitories and their chow hall at the Hotel Northampton. In addition to the estimated 10 miles a day they put on their marching shoes, the SPARs also spent two hours a day doing physical education or drill just to stay fit.
Memorizing facts and figures, attending five classes per day, and marching and physical training filled the seemingly endless days of training for the OCs. Arthur, who attended officer training in Northampton, said the OCs even devised their own systems for remembering vital information for tests at the training station.
"One entire platoon astonished the instructor by murmuring aloud on a quiz: 'Bad Girl Eats Raw Yellow Mangoes Too Carelessly, Poor, Poor, Sap,'" Arthur said. "But they all managed to name the grades that could be warranted: boatswain's mate, gunner's mate, electrician's mate, radioman, yeoman, machinist's mate, torpedoman, carpenter's mate, pharmacist's mate, photographer's mate and storekeeper."
The OCs were afraid of bilging out - the SPAR term for being dropped from training - but they hoped and waited for the all-sought-after graduation day.
Relatively few women trained at the Navy school in Northampton. The primary training facility for the OCs was the Coast Guard Academy. Not only were the SPARs the pioneers for today's Coast Guard women, they also were the first women to attend a military academy. During the war, the Coast Guard was the only service that trained women OCs at its academy. Here, more than 700 future SPAR officers were immersed in the traditions of the nation's oldest, continuous seagoing service for their six-week indoctrination period.
These OCs learned their practical leadership and Coast Guard administration skills from two experienced women officers who were temporarily assigned to the academy. Like most new OCs at the school overlooking the Thames River, the new arrivals at the formerly all-male school were not triumphant. After being dumped out of a taxi cab at Chase Hall, the OCs fell into the school's routine. They went out on boats and marched the same paths as the future male officers. Here also, the training included classes, physical training, inspections, drill and watches.
"I've never been so bushed in my life," wrote an unnamed academy OC in her secret diary, which at the time was considered non-regulation. "If it weren't for the identification button on my chest, I couldn't even remember my name. We hit the deck around here at 0615 which is the Coast Guard way of saying 6:15 a.m., which is too darned early no matter how you say it. Before the New England dawn has thoroughly jelled, we are up, dressed, fed and marking time."
WAVE LT Dorothy Stratton is inteviewed by Coast Guard Commandant VADM Russell Waesche.
Through all the turmoil of academy life, the SPARs endured until their commissioning day to receive their first stripe as an ensign - a blue braid. Following the indoctrination period, the majority of SPAR officers did not receive any specialized training because those who were recruited into the officer ranks already had some civilian training or experience that would benefit the Coast Guard.
In addition to training in their first few weeks, both enlisted and officer SPARs were issued their seabags. Early recruiting pamphlets described the SPAR uniforms as a "navy blue, semi-fitted garment." With the intent of making the figures of all members as nearly equal as possible, the uniform consisted of a six-gored skirt of serge gabardine or tropical worsted and a four-button blouse with rounded lapels. The Coast Guard shield was worn on the sleeve and the seal on the lapels. Like the uniforms of today, rating badges and rank stripes were worn on the sleeves. One big difference was in the officer uniforms. Rank stripes on their whites were blue instead of gold - blue denoted reserve ranks. The SPARs had a variety of shirts, including work shirts, silk dress shirts and every-day cotton shirts.
Left to right: Standing: SPARS Lewis, Davis, Cooper, Statham; Kneeling: SPARS Rapier, Rathburn, Nicit.
They also had several covers depending on the occasion and their officer or enlisted status. For enlisted women, the round-crowned, snap-brimmed hat was known as jaunty or casual. This hat had "U.S. Coast Guard," in gold letters across the hatband. The officer's hat, often referred to as boat, was adorned with the same cap device that male officers wore: the Coast Guard gold eagle on a horizontal silver anchor. However, no provisions were made for women with the rank of commander or above to wear reserve blue scrambled eggs on the brim. For informal use, both officers and enlisted women wore garrison caps.
During the summer, SPAR's work wear included a gray and white striped short-sleeved seersucker dress with a removable jacket. Their head gear matched the gray and white seersucker; however, garrison caps were also authorized. For summer dress occasions, another version of the standard uniform was made in a white fabric. They even disguised the regular-issue handbag by removing the strap and covering the black bag with an envelope of white poplin.
Since glamour was not the intent with the SPAR uniform issue, inclement weather did not call for umbrellas. But rather, it called for a navy blue cap cover of water-resistant material, that was patterned after gear worn by British soldiers in 1857. Now that the SPARs were indoctrinated, trained and outfitted, they were ready and eager to serve their country. (See photo at right.)
The commandant of the Coast Guard sent word to field commanders that they were expected to use SPARs and release men for duty elsewhere wherever they could. Well over half of all Coast Guard men were at sea duty during the war and SPARs appeared in high proportion to men at shore establishments, according to Arthur. At the peak of the Coast Guard's reserve strength during World War II, one out of every 16 enlisted members and one out of every 12 officers was a SPAR.
The first SPARs of 1942 were filling shore billets only in the continental United States. Working in district offices and field units alike, SPARs were assigned to every Coast Guard district except the 10th District in Puerto Rico. Finally in late 1944, Congress relaxed its ruling that kept service women stateside and allowed them to serve in Alaska and Hawaii. However, they were still restricted from duty in Puerto Rico because of a lack of housing suitable for women.
SPAR officers inspect LORAN stations in Alaska;
Thirty-seven percent of SPAR officers held general-duty assignments. Duties in this category included administrative and supervisory work throughout the Coast Guard. There were other billets for SPAR officers, including communications officers, pay and supply officers, barracks officers and recruiting officers.
Although all enlisted SPARs were not automatically slated for clerical work, a large portion did become yeomen and storekeepers. "Not all of us assigned to paperwork found it boring," Arthur said. "We didn't by a long shot. We may have liked that type of work to begin with or we may have had the kind of job where, if we had any imagination, we could see how our contribution fitted into the same pattern of victory which the men were weaving abroad."
SPAR Helen O'Brien on duty at Coast Guard Headquarter's communication center.
While traditional clerical work represented the bulk of the ratings for SPARs, many worked in other specialized fields. Billets for SPARs included parachute riggers, chaplains assistants, air control-tower operators, boatswains mates, coxswains, radiomen, ship's cooks, vehicle drivers and many more. For instance, a small group of women became pharmacist's mates. Those with prior practical nursing or medical experience were assigned as assistants in sick bays.
Another field was opened to women during the SPAR years - aviation. Only 18 women were rated parachute riggers, 22 were trained as Link trainer operators and 12 as air control tower operators. This small corps of women in the aviation field may not have been piloting the aircraft, but their jobs demanded the utmost in accuracy and skill because numerous lives depended on it.
Another non-traditional field that employed SPARs throughout the Coast Guard was the radioman technician rate. Because of the stringent qualifications, only a small number of women were both qualified and interested in performing the fundamentals of radio repair and maintenance at district radio repair bases.
Even though there were several non-traditional fields for women, one stands out among them all because it was probably the least publicized and most unique - LORAN. With the birth of this new long range aid to navigation in October 1942, it was not yet a household word for the Coast Guard. In fact, it was a secret. During this time of war, any kind of military communications was hush-hush enough - but loran was a word that was only said behind locked doors.
In 1943, headquarters decided that loran monitoring stations in the continental United States should be crewed by SPARs. The SPAR operators were to stand watch 24 hours a day. This job entailed recording measurements every two minutes of the radio signals transmitted from two shore-based stations. The signals were picked up by a receiver-indicator installed on ships and planes, enabling them to calculate their exact position.
The new concept of women in loran that was proposed by headquarters became a reality when the Coast Guard established its first loran station crewed with women in Chatham, Mass. Following a two-month loran operations and maintenance course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, LTJG Vera Hamerschlag was assigned as the commanding officer of the Chatham station.
The officers of the High Frequency Radio Direction Finding Evaluation Control Center.
"Later, 11 enlisted SPARS were assigned to a one-week course in operations only," Hamerschlag said. "The selection of these SPARs was unique, to say the least. Loran was so hush-hush that not even the training officer had any conception of what the duties of these SPARs would be, nor what their qualifications should be."
The SPARs assigned to Chatham were volunteers with a sense of adventure for an unknown job. When Hamerschlag reported to Chatham, it was crewed 100 percent by men. Within one month, it was turned over to 100 percent SPARs, except for one male radio technician. This sole technician joined his shipmates in overseas duty six months after the SPARs took over. Hamerschlag was not only the CO of the 50- by 30-foot station, she was the operations officer, engineering officer, medical officer, barracks officer, personnel officer, training officer and even the captain of the head for the 11-SPAR crew.
In the station building, which provided sleeping quarters, a recreation room, office space, an operations room, a repair shop and sleeping space, Hamerschlag and her crew became experts in plumbing, coal heating and emergency generators. "I remember the feeling I had when I looked at the 125-foot mast for the station's antenna and wondered which SPAR would climb the rigging if something went wrong," Hamerschlag said. "I asked the CO I was replacing who took care of it. His nonchalant answer was not to worry since nothing would happen to it short of a hurricane."
Chatham's head SPAR said esprit de corps kept the unit together. "The human element of the work kept it from getting dull and routine for the operators," she said. "The thought that we were participating in a system that was playing such an important part in winning the war gave us a feeling of being as close to the front lines as it was possible for SPARs." Loran Station Chatham is believed to have been, at that time, the only all-woman station of its kind in the world.
Although the SPARs were serving in a wide variety of jobs including the non-traditional loran field and they were meeting critical needs of the service, their time was not forever. The Women's Reserve was not established to be a permanent branch of the service, but was intended to be activated during the war and remain for six months afterward. This day finally came for the SPARs. They had reached the goal toward which they and millions of other service men and women had been working. World War II was over.
Above: the staff of the Boston District personnel office celebrate VJ day.
Following V-J day in August 1945, the demobilization effort began and SPARs were discharged gradually along with the reserve men. Known also as the big day, discharge day loomed in the distance for the SPARs. As that day arrived for each woman, there would be many things about the service the SPARs would miss - comradeship; the feeling of belonging; a few special friends who shared gripes, good times and clean shirts; and the tremendous thrill of being a part of the nation's military forces, Arthur said.
On June 30, 1946, the SPAR demobilization-completion day came and the 10,000 members of the Coast Guard Women's Reserve departed the service in the same spirit with which they entered - with patriotism for a country they loved and helped to defend, and faithfulness to their Coast Guard which they served with pride and dedication.
Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:
www.uscg.mil
