[Music]
[First man] Hey there goes one of those petticoat soldiers now.
[Second man] Yeah my sister wants to join the WACS. What do you think of that?
[First man] [Laughs] She's crazy. What the devil does a woman
want to be a soldier for?
[Second man] Just a waste of time.
This is a man's war. What sort of jobs can they do?
[Female narrator] What sort of jobs can we do? Take a look mister. X-ray technicians.
Inspectors of Army meat. Teachers, schooling our soldiers. WACS are
classification experts. Assignment interviewers.
[Male narrator] So this is a man's war is
it? WACs are at work on every sort of Army vehicle. Doing every sort of motor
transport job. Testing walkie-talkies. Testing radio tubes. Those are just a few
of the jobs they do. There are 239 more. Hey you two armchair generals on the
porch, here's something more for you to think about it.
Listen, General Eisenhower said, in many jobs, WACs do the work of two men. The Army
needs and can use all it can get.
And listen to the women of the United Nations.
They too have some ideas on the subject. The English with their calm
courage. The stalwart women of heroic Russia. The Canadian and Australian women.
The women of China with their undying fortitude. And tens of thousands of
American WACS. What are their ideas on the subject? Listen.
[Drumroll]
[Women]: We shall live up to the legends of our fighting men.
[music]
[Male narrator] Where did these thousands come from?
Where will the United States Army get thousands more? Thousands to backup
manpower for battle abroad. Who are the women who will help retain the needed
manpower for the production battle at home?
Who are the women who will help
fight our country's war?
It's Mary Jones. Jane Doe.
It's the idle housewife, and the
girl next door. Oh yes it's your war too, Miss and Mrs America.
[Female narrator] Here at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia, one of the most beautiful Army posts in the world,
we, the newly hatched WACs, gather to learn what all the shooting is about...
our kind of shooting.
From morning to night we hustle through a very novel, interesting life.
Not just classes, and drill, and duty, but all kinds of women's sports and recreation.
We work hard and play hard.
[Music]
We learn that the Army's privileges, as well as its hardships, are ours.
We get furlough rates on trains. Special prices at theaters. Special life insurance rates.
We know that the rumors about the WACS are so much hot air.
[Second female narrator] Cotton stockings, all the time. [First female narrator] Scratch that one out.
Off-duty--rayon or whatever you can get.
[Third female narrator] You can't use makeup. No rouge.
No lipstick. No nail polish. No rouge. No lipstick. No nail polish. No rouge.
[First female narrator] Toss that one in the ashcan.
[Fourth female narrator] Everyone's hair is alike. The same old hairdo. The same old hairdo.
[First female narrator] Nonsense. Our hair dress is up to us, as long as it's neat, smart, and off the collar.
[music]
[Fifth female narrator] All work and no fun. All work and no fun.
[First female narrator] Strictly Axis propaganda.
[Music]
[Male narrator] From WAC training centers at Fort Oglethorpe and at Des Moines,
WACs go forth to Army Posts,
Camps, specialist schools, air bases... to every part of the United States.
Savannah, St. Louis, Newport, Baton Rouge,
Seattle, Santa Barbara.
To Washington, our nation's Capitol, comes hundreds of WACs. Many to be stationed in
the famous Pentagon Building... and attached to the combined Chiefs of Staff.
WACs are entrusted with tasks involving the utmost secrecy.
Here the important work
of decoding messages whose information must be carefully guarded and
transcribed with perfect accuracy. At Aberdeen Proving Grounds, valuable men
have been released for combat duty by WACs, inspecting mammoth tanks, computing
ordnance firing tables for the light accurate American carbines. The carbines
that have canceled the effectiveness of many a Nazi and many a Jap.
Here, they also check the efficiency of remote control units and make secret ballistic
measurements. These are just a few of the important and interesting jobs done by WACs.
At air bases here and overseas women soldiers perform over 25 technical jobs.
War jobs now, but civilian careers later on.
[Female narrator] We are in the machine shop. In the
repair shop. We rigged the parachute. We guide our fliers home.
[Pilot] Altitude 5,000 feet.
Five zero zero zero. Request landing instructions.
[WAC] Metro Field tower to Army three-one-three-one. Circle field twice at 3,000 feet.
[Pilot] Let me in, will you? I've got a heavy date tonight.
[WAC] Hmm keep your chute on
lieutenant. Field won't be clear for five minutes.
[Male narrator] Potential American pilots are taught blind flying by our WACS. They are taught
to handle night raids over Europe and the black Pacific...taught to navigate
safely through black space, loaded with hidden peril.
Thousands of WACS volunteer for overseas duty, eager to serve in the actual
theater of operations... the goal toward which they've worked and trained.
Wherever the American armies will go, WACs may follow.
[Music]
Male narrator: "Women have proven their definite value... in England, in North Africa, in Algiers, in
New Caledonia, India, and Egypt. Every WAC making the war shorter by a month,
a week, a day, a minute.
Yes, wherever the American armies will go, WACS may follow.
To Berlin and Tokyo too.
Ladies and gentlemen, General Marshall.
[General Marshal] The Women's Army Corps is an integral part
of the Army of the United States, and its members who are soldiers in every sense
of the word, perform a full military part in this war. There are hundreds of
important Army jobs which women can perform as effectively as men. In fact, we
find that they can do some of these jobs much better than the men. As more and
more American soldiers engage the enemy in combat, women must replace them at
overseas bases and at posts in this country. In view of the urgency of the
situation, enlistment in the military service should take precedence in my
opinion, over any other responsibilities except imperative family obligation.
[Music]
[WAC] In 1918, we were on the sidelines.
[music]
General Marshal: "When the war has been won, the women in the Army will march shoulder to shoulder
with the men, in the great victory parades which will celebrate the return of
peace to the world."
[Music]