Keeping the home fires burning

Sea Power, Sep 2003 by Vergun, David

Navy League Women Members:

While U.S. servicemen were fighting in various combat theaters around the world during World War II, members of the Navy League-many of them women-were working diligently, and in innovative ways, to support the war effort.

Dozens of consultant bureaus were set up throughout the country by Navy League women members-most of whom had husbands on active duty-to place women in defense-related jobs, most of which formerly had been held by men.

In Philadelphia, the Navy League opened a Convalescent Service for members of the armed services who had been injured or wounded in action. Navy Leaguers took the service members to picnics in the countryside or at the seashore and would make every effort to make their guests feel like they were at home. If an automobile was not available, which was frequently the case, a bus or train was used. One convalescent soldier wrote his hostess an appreciative note after a particularly enjoyable weekend in the country: "It's people like you who make guys like us want to give all we have." Navy Leaguers provided similar outings to the families of personnel who were fighting on the combat fronts overseas.

"The Convalescent Service serves any person in the allied forces of any country who is in a military hospital here, regardless of race, creed, or color," said Mrs. Horace E. Greenwood Jr., Convalescent Service chair. The Convalescent Service-initially set up in five Army and Navy hospitals in and around the Philadelphia area-proved to be such a success that similar services were established in other hospitals around the country.

Navy League women also played an active role in preparing active-duty personnel for their naval/military assignments. Several women's councils taught at a number of special defense training schools, conducting courses in such subjects as parachute packing, radio communications, and cryptanalysis.

As they (or their mothers or older sisters) did during World War I, Navy League women volunteers made thousands of uniforms and uniform items for members of the sea services-usually working alongside other women volunteers from the Navy Relief Society, the Seamen's Church Institute, and the Society for Seamen's Children.

The New York City Women's Council hosted a number of celebrity dinners and dances, using the proceeds to purchase clothing for the wives and widows of enlisted men; the council also found employment for many of these same women.

The National Women's Council distributed wooden cribs and wooden toy trains to the children of Sailors assigned to the Navy's torpedo boat squadrons, which played a key role in disrupting Japanese naval operations in the early months of World War II in the Pacific. The wood used to make the toys and cribs was scrap wood left over from the construction of new PT boats. One member of the council, Mrs. Polly Culbertson, wrote a book-Peter: The PT Boat-which the council also distributed to the children.

Navy League women also helped to keep Sailors and Marines on liberty out of trouble by issuing "pathfinder cards" that were good for free meals and entertainment at USOs and enlisted clubs, many of which were staffed by volunteers from the Navy League and other patriotic organizations.

"Every port is full of honky-tonks and street girls," said Navy Lt. Cdr. Charles A. Travers, port director for the Port of Baltimore, "but here in Baltimore, we have a set-up that is hard to beat. The Navy League offers decent entertainment and makes it attractive. A Sailor has an opportunity to meet refined girls. When a ship comes into port, I personally board the ship and see that Navy League pathfinder cards are distributed to every man on board. Over the ship's loudspeaker system the men are informed that the Navy League is tops for good fun while ashore. ...

"We feel that if we can get the men to go to the Navy League their first night ashore," Travers continued, "our troubles are over. Since we have been sending Navy personnel to the Navy League the percentage of men picked up by the shore patrol has noticeably decreased. In the last two weeks only two men have been brought in. The splendid work of the Navy League in Baltimore has attracted the attention of the Navy Department. Recently ships have been sent to Baltimore solely for the purpose of giving the crew recreation. I am sure that many more Sailors will say, as I do, that Tm completely sold on the Navy League.'"

Navy League women members performed a large number of other important services during World War II, of course. Many of them were volunteer nurses, for example. Others were active and highly successful recruiters for the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service); some of them volunteered for active duty themselves. Their unceasing and devoted labor of love has never been forgotten by the men they cared for, or by their country.

Gunnery Sgt. David Vergun, USMC (Ret.) is the associate editor of The Military Engineer magazine