WAAC at Last

The long-delayed "Petticoat Army" Bill was close to enactment last week. Even happier than the bill's feminine backers was the Army itself, which wanted to free as many men as possible for combat.

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps will provide women for the Army's humbler jobs--switchboard operators, cooks, chauffeurs, laundresses, welfare workers, clerks, Aircraft Warning Service spotters & plotters. They will serve under the War Department, with special names for ranks, but with Army pay, Army uniforms and Army discipline.

At House committee hearings Representative Frances P. Bolton of Ohio had said there need be no worry about feminine morale: "A laundress is a laundress and glad to be one. . . . Lots of women washed for the Army the last time and never had any particular garb and never had recognition. . . ."

At the same hearings, Massachusetts Representative Edith Nourse Rogers, instigator of the bill, said she did not know "a human being who is opposed to the bill," and no one gainsaid her. The only things that delayed the bill were working details: whether the women should be part of the Army or separate, whether to limit enrollment, what to do about uniforms, age limits, ranks, pay. The Senate will probably pass the House bill this week, permitting the War Department to employ up to 150,000 "women of excellent character in good physical health, between the ages of 21 and 45 years and citizens of the United States."*

The Navy meanwhile was sponsoring a more liberal measure to incorporate women in the Navy and Marine Corps with ranks all the way to lieutenant commander, men's pay, and no limit in numbers. The bill was stalled: the Senate NavalAffairs Committee wanted to alter it to match the Army's bill or shelve it entirely.

* The Army Signal Corps decided not to wait any longer for the petticoat army to materialize, started recruiting women radio and telephone operators along with men. They will serve (as men do) as civilian specialists.

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