"PETTICOAT ARMY"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 176, 28 July 1942, Page 2

"PETTICOAT ARMY"

AMERICAN W.A.A.C.'S ARMY CORPS ESTABLISHED SAN FRANCISCO, May 21. The United States' first "petticoat army"—a potential non-combatant force of 150,000 women—came into existence when President Roosevelt signed legislation establishing the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, 37-year-old Texas newspaper executive and mother of two children, was named directress of the W.A.A.C., with a relative rank of major. An executive order directed Secretary of War Stimson to limit the initial mobilisation to 25,000. President Roosevelt, however, said that this number might be expanded later. W.A.A.C. members will be assigned to non-combatant service with the army anywhere in the world. The volunteers will replace enlisted men now performing certain types of non-combatant duties. They will not be armed, nor will they receive combat training of any type, but they will be taught the fundamentals of military discipline and receive some close-order drilling. They will be subject to the same penalties as men for insubordination and other infractions of military law. Recruiting will start in about three months, with the first 9000 accepted scheduled to be employed in the Air

Interceptor Command's air raid warning work. However, candidates for the officers' training school at Fort Des Moines, lowa, may apply much earlier. Volunteers with the corresponding rank of private will be known as "auxiliaries." They will receive 21 dollars a month—unless Congress increases the figure under a pending bill now in conference between the House and Senate.

The women will be organised into companies of 250 "enlisted" women and four officers each. The executive order made provision for not more than 100 such units. It was understood that 40 companies would be organised for air raid warning service alone. The period of enlistment is for the duration and for a period thereafter not to exceed six months, unless otherwise previously discharged.

The commander of the nation's first "petticoat army" said that its members would be allowed to don make-up and nail polish, but she sidestepped the question of "dates" with army men. Holding a Press conference immediately after taking the oath of office in the presence of Secretary of War Stimson, she told reporters that W.A.A.C. members would be punished for infractions of regulations, but would not have to serve time in the guardhouse. W.A.A.C.'s are going to be assigned to 62 different kinds of jobs, must salute like soldiers, and go wherever they are sent—in this country or abroad—she said.

Mrs. Hobby said that 40 of the initial officer candidates will be negresses, and that two of the first six companies of auxiliaries to be organised will be negresses. The W.A.A.C. will follow the same general policy concerning negroes as the army, she said.