PHOTO BY LT. KAREN KUTKIEWICZ, U.S. COAST GUARD DISTRICT 1 NATIONAL ARCHIVES U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTO
LEFT: Coast Guard women known as SPARs (Semper Paratus Always Ready) served on active duty during World War II. RIGHT: The “original nineteen” as they were called, were the first group of Coast Guard SPARS to be assigned to the 13th Naval District from boot camp. BELOW: A World War II recruiting poster for the SPARs.
The 20th century and its world wars introduced a new era for women performing Coast Guard duties. Lighthouse keepers such as Kate Walker and Ida Lewis had thrived in their roles because they lived and worked apart, geographically and socially, from a world run by men. Many achieved distinction by doing work nobody else wanted to do. The reserve corps of Coast Guard women who served in the world wars worked mainly to support an effort conducted by men – but it was a change of venue for Coast Guard women, who were now onshore and in the mainstream of society. It would be decades before they would compete with men for the most sought-after Coast Guard positions. But it was a start. The military buildup preceding Congress’ April 6, 1917 declaration of war on the German Empire generated a mountain of paperwork, a problem confounded by the fact that the enlisted men assigned to complete it soon would be called overseas. The Navy and Coast Guard both used the enlisted rating of “yeoman” for those performing administrative or clerical duties, so the Navy authorized the enlistment of women into the Naval Reserves, with the rating “Yeoman (F).” The use of “yeomanettes” to assist in administrative and clerical work was extended to the Coast Guard, and the first women to wear the Coast Guard uniform, 19-year-old twins Genevieve and Lucille Baker, were transferred from the Naval Coastal Defense Reserve and reported to Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Several additional yeomanettes would transfer to the headquarters building before war’s end, but Coast Guard personnel records of the period are scant. Celebration of the Baker sisters as the first Coast Guard women is mildly controversial today, as some prefer to recognize Myrtle Hazard, a young mother who, after graduating from a radio and telegraphy class at the Baltimore YMCA, applied for a position in the regular Coast Guard as an electrician (there was no radioman rating yet for the Coast Guard). She became the service’s first female electrician on Jan. 21, 1918, and worked at headquarters as an electrician’s mate 3rd class. She was later promoted to electrician, 1st class, before being demobilized after the war’s end. American mobilization for World War II involved a more significant effort to recruit women for service at home. Every branch had its women’s reserve during the war, and on Nov. 23, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed a law creating a Coast Guard analogue modeled after the Navy’s WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), which had been created a few months earlier. The purpose of the new women’s reserve was to replace male officers and enlisted men at shore stations, releasing them for sea duty. Organizing a large contingent of young women was something the armed forces had never done before, and the Navy turned to an academic, the former dean of women at Purdue University, for help. Navy Lt. Dorothy Stratton agreed to transfer to the Coast Guard and, with the rank of lieutenant commander, to di-
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