Some women who joined the Women’s Army Corps maintained and repaired small arms and heavy weapons. These jobs required a high degree of mechanical skill and analytic ability to quickly solve problems.
Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, National Archives and Records Administration
Private First Class Nona Heminger, a Member of the Women’s Army Corps Ordnance Section Stationed at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, photograph by Army Signal Corps, January 3, 1944
Serving the Nation: Women’s Army Corps
In 1941 Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill to allow women to volunteer for service in the U.S. Army in non-combat roles. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps Act into law in 1942. The following year, Congress approved legislation granting women full military status and allowing them to enlist directly in the Army for the first time. By the end of World War II, more than 150,000 American women had served in the Women’s Army Corps.
If we are to have total war . . . there is a very definite place for women in it. Modern war recognizes no limitations of battlefields, no gender of its participants. To win a total war every resource, every service must be utilized.
Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives, March 17, 1942
Some women who joined the Women’s Army Corps maintained and repaired small arms and heavy weapons. These jobs required a high degree of mechanical skill and analytic ability to quickly solve problems.
Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, National Archives and Records Administration
