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Feature story in March 99 Issue of "Soldiers - The Soldiers Almanac"
Compiled by SFC John Valceanu
FROM the Revolutionary War through Operation Desert Storm to the present, women have made vital contributions to the Army and the nation.
The Revolutionary War
Women were not allowed to enlist in the Continental Army or the various local militias during the Revolutionary War, but they played a vital role by joining their husbands during campaigns and serving as camp cooks, laundresses, seamstresses and nurses. Some women earned places in history through their bravery and selflessness.
Mary Hays McCauly took her fallen husband's place at his cannon during the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. She will forever be remembered by artillerymen as "Molly Pitcher."
While McCauly's bravery is known to many, another woman, Margaret Corbin, performed the same act a year earlier during the Battle of Fort Washington. Corbin was wounded during the battle and taken prisoner by the British after the Americans' defeat. Through an act of the Continental Congress on July 6, 1779, she became the first woman to receive a federal pension because of a war wound.
Another little-known Revolutionary War heroine is Tyonajanegen, a member of the Oneida tribe who married an American Army officer of Dutch descent. She rode into battle at her husband's side during the Battle of Oriskany and loaded her husband's weapon for him after a wrist injury rendered him incapable of loading it himself.
The War of 1812
Mary Ann Cole served as an American Army nurse during the siege of Fort Erie, from July to October 1814. During the siege, 1,800 Americans were killed or wounded in action. Cole cared for patients, prepared meals, dispensed medications and kept medical records for the regimental surgeon during a period of heavy British bombardment and increasing casualties.
The Mexican-American War
Elizabeth Newcom joined the Missouri Volunteer Infantry in 1847. The problem with that was that women weren't allowed to join the Army at that time, so she listed herself as "Bill Newcom" and disguised herself as a man. Newcom marched more than 600 miles with her infantry company, yet wasn't discovered to be a woman until the unit went into winter quarters near Pueblo, Colo. She was released from duty as a soldier, but was assigned other duties until she was mustered out of the Army the following year.
Newcom eventually married and, five years after the war, asked the Missouri courts to grant her the military pay and bounty land promised to soldiers serving in the Mexican-American War. She was eventually granted her pay and benefits by the U.S. Congress.
The Civil War
Thousands of women served in the Civil War, primarily as nurses. Clara Barton, Dorothea Dix and Mary Ann Bickerdyne are among the best known. But hundreds of other women also served with distinction in the conflict. One woman, Dr. Mary Walker, was a Union Army surgeon and treated Confederate wounded after she was taken prisoner.
Secular schools of nursing did not exist during the Civil War, so Catholic nuns were a major source of professionally trained nurses for the military. The Sisters of Charity furnished 300 nurses and ran 19 hospitals, while the Sisters of Mercy provided 100. Other orders also contributed to the effort, supplying different numbers of nurses at different times.
Though not a nun, Sally Tompkins of Richmond, Va., displayed angelic compassion. She used her own funds to staff and equip a hospital for Confederate soldiers and served as its supervisor. Due to her emphasis on cleanliness and diet, her institution had one of the highest recovery rates of all Confederate hospitals. The Confederate army eventually granted Tompkins a special commission to captain.
The Spanish-American War
More than 1,500 women served as military contract nurses in the Spanish-American War. They worked in general hospitals, aboard hospital ships and in camps in the United States, Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Nurses who had already contracted yellow fever, and thereby become immune to the disease, were assigned to higher-risk hospitals in Cuba. These nurses, including 32 black women, faced long hours, an oppressive climate, poor sanitation, limited supplies and seemingly limitless cases of illness and wounds. Twenty contract nurses died during their wartime service.
The performance of contract nurses in the war led directly to the 1901 creation of the Army Nurse Corps. This was the first time women became official members of the American military.
World War I
In World War I, 230 bilingual telephone operators were recruited and trained for duty by the Army Signal Corps. They were nicknamed "Hello Girls," and worked on switchboards in France, relaying messages between the front lines and headquarters elements. Other women worked for the Army Quartermaster Corps as stenographers in supply offices in France.
And women continued to distinguish themselves as military nurses, working long hours close to the front lines, sometimes braving hostile fire to save lives. More than 400 American nurses died in the line of duty during the war. The majority of them succumbed to an influenza pandemic that was ravaging the globe, concentrating on port towns, military installations and other densely populated areas.
World War II
Answering the nation's call again, women began enlisting in the newly-formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942. At the time, War Department planners needed them to fill combat-support roles, freeing men for combat positions. The following year, the Women's Army Corps was created by legislation signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. By that time, some 60,000 women had enlisted.
Though they no longer served only as nurses, female soldiers continued to provide medical support to frontline troops. Sixty-six Army nurses spent 33 months as prisoners of war at the Santo Tomas prison camp in the Philippines. Thirteen Army nurses walked 800 miles across mountains to freedom after their medical evacuation plane crashed behind enemy lines in the Albanian mountains. Other female soldiers had to endure torpedoed ships, air raids, artillery shelling and a host of other threats. Many died.
Following the war, military planners decided that a small corps of women should hold permanent positions in each of the military services. President Harry S. Truman signed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 into law. Though the act finally created a provision for women to serve on active duty outside of a conflict, each service had a 2 percent cap on the number of women who could serve, and promotions were very restricted.
Korea
Five hundred and seventy Army nurses served in Korea. Of these, 70 percent served in the then-experimental mobile Army surgical hospital units. The typical MASH followed combat troops, moved frequently and often provided care under fire.
Many other women also served in Japan, and more than 120,000 served in the United States as part of the war effort. The Korean War marked the first time enlisted female Reservists were involuntarily recalled to active duty.
Vietnam
During the Vietnam War an estimated 7,500 women served in Southeast Asia, most as military nurses. Some were wounded, and eight were killed. Their names are engraved in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.
The first non-Medical Corps women to go to Vietnam were a detachment of 100 WACs assigned to the U.S. Army, Vietnam, headquarters in 1966. They served as clerk typists and administrative workers first at Tan Son Nhut, and eventually at Long Binh. The detachment grew to 140 soldiers within a few years, and the women expanded the fields in which they worked to include communications, personnel, finance and intelligence.
The All-Volunteer Army
When the draft ended and the all-volunteer Army came into being in 1973, less than 3 percent of the Army was made up of women. But their numbers grew steadily as they took on such new jobs as construction equipment operators, military police and pilots.
Women gained eligibility to participate in Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs in 1972; and the U.S. Army Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., began accepting female cadets in 1976. In 1978, the Women's Army Corps was inactivated, and female soldiers became just as much an integral part of the nation's Army as their male counterparts.
Female soldiers serving in nontraditional roles saw action in Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury in 1983. One hundred and seventy women took part in that operation.
Six years later, 770 women deployed to Panama for Operation Just Cause. There, three female helicopter pilots came under heavy fire, and CPT Linda Bray made her way into the history books as the first woman to command a U.S. Army unit engaged in direct combat. Other female soldiers, serving in a variety of jobs, also saw combat during the operation.
The Gulf War and Beyond
Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm represented the largest deployment of women in the Army's history. They served in a variety of combat-support and combat-service-support positions, proving their ability to meet the challenges of modern warfare on today's high-tech battlefield.
Following the Gulf War, female soldiers continued to play key roles in Army missions, serving in such places as Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia.
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