The WAVES
It was a fitting acronym for women serving in the Navy, WAVES standing for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. That national emergency was World War II, and following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of legislation authorizing the WAVES on July 30, 1942, women began joining the sea service in greater numbers than in World War I, representing 2 ½ percent of all personnel serving in the Navy by war’s end. In addition, the ranks of jobs for which they were eligible had expanded to include not only the yeoman rate occupied in the Great War, but also service as parachute riggers, aviation machinist’s mates aviation ordnancemen, control tower operators, and LINK trainer instructors, contributing directly to air operations on flight lines and in hangars at stateside bases and in Hawaii. Even after women were made a permanent part of the Navy in 1948, the WAVES acronym endured into the 1970s, years after the national emergency that triggered its establishment had ended.
