Aviatrix Nancy Harkness Love, director of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron, and Col. Robert H. Baker, commanding officer, inspect the first contingent of women pilots in the WAFS at the New Castle Army Air Base, Del., in 1942. Women served and died on the nation’s battlefields from the first. They were nurses and cooks, spies and couriers in the Revolutionary War. Some disguised themselves as men to fight for the Union or the Confederacy. Yet the U.S. military’s official acceptance of women in combat took more than two centuries. New roles for females were doled out fitfully – whenever commanders got in a bind and realized they needed women’s help. A look at milestones on the way to lifting the ban on women in ground combat.WASHINGTON – American women have served and died on the nation’s battlefields from the first. They were nurses and cooks, spies and couriers in the Revolutionary War. Some disguised themselves as men to fight for the Union or the Confederacy. Yet the U.S. military’s official acceptance of women in combat took more than two centuries.
New roles for females have been doled out fitfully, whenever commanders have gotten in binds and realized they needed women’s help.
“The main driver is that it’s been militarily necessary,” says retired Capt. Lory Manning, a 25-year Navy veteran who leads military studies for the Women’s Research & Education Institute. She points, for example, to creation of the Army Nurse Corps in response to the struggle against disease in the Spanish-American War.
Some milestones on the way to this week’s lifting of the ban on women in ground combat jobs:
FROM THE FIRST