Women Air Raid Defense

Women’s

AIR RAID DEFENSE

STARTED IN HAWAII

By Scott Pawlowski, Curator, Pearl Harbor National Memorial

U.S. Army Signal Corps; Hawaii War Records Depository

National Park Service, Pearl Harbor National Memorial, USAR 1400 & 1402: Women’s Air Raid Defense Cap and silver colored metal wings. Donated by WARD Bette Ballentyne.

The Women’s Air Raid Defense or WARDs was an organization comprised entirely of women begun on Oahu in the aftermath of the December 7th Pearl Harbor attack. Newly appointed Air Defense Commander, Brigadier General Howard C. Davidson, was tasked with running the Air Defense Command’s Information and Control Center (ICC) located on Oahu.

Much of his Pre-December 7th staff were in the process of being reassigned to various commands across the Pacific to places like Samoa and Fiji. General Davidson decided to recruit women on the island into an organization modeled after the Women’s Auxiliary Airforce of Great Britain to run the ICC. By Christmas Day, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9063 which allowed women to be recruited into auxiliary units of the Military. Suggesting how critical staffing needs were, General Davidson met with a group of 20 women the next day at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Things were moving fast!

His list of qualifications was quite focused to start. Recruits needed to be between 20 and 34 years of age, childless, pass a physical examination and background check. Pay would be $120 per month with furnished uniforms, quarters (if needed) and Officer’s Mess privileges. The first group also needed to have been recommended by Alexander and Una Walker of Oahu. Induction of the first group happened on January 1st at Iolani Palace. More would follow as recruitment by word of mouth spread and General Davidson could retain military wives who were scheduled to evacuate back to the mainland happening simultaneously to the spin up of the WARD unit.

The WARDs were commissioned! And went to work soon after a crash 10-day training course. Their job was to run the Air Defense Command Center Information and Control Center (ICC). WARDs would be helping defend the Hawaiian Islands from further attacks by coordinating and tracking all airplane movements picked up on RADAR units around Hawaii. Places like Opana, He’eia and Koko Head all had SCR-271 RADAR units on Oahu. There were others on Haleakala, Maui and Kauai. All sent messages to the ICC, where WARDs took the information and tracked the planes on a large map. WARDs also alerted US forces to potential unidentified threats so that they could intercept the incoming enemy. WARDs served with distinction and even earned a nickname… the Shuffleboard Pilots.

Pearl Harbor National Memorial and Pacific Historic Parks have been lucky to be associated with many of the WARD women. In 1991 Arizona Memorial Museum Association (the precursor to Pacific Historic Parks) published a great book “Shuffleboard Pilots: The History of the Women’s Air Raid Defense in Hawaii 1941-1945” by Candace Chenoweth and A. Kam Napier. Directly resulting from the research of this book the National Park Service conducted and acquired oral histories from many of the WARDs. Pearl Harbor National Memorial’s museum collection also contains a number of WARD related items like uniforms, insignia and identification tags which were graciously donated by these special women. As if this were not enough, a husband and wife team, Bill and Ruth Cope, volunteered with the National Park Service and Pacific Historic Parks for a number of years. Ruth served in the WARDs throughout the war while her husband flew bombers across the Pacific. What a team!