Anxious to make a difference

In the spring of 1942, Helen Huckabee, my mother, was anxious and restless. The country was at war and most of the men she knew were off serving their country. Life on the dairy farm in Brookfield, Vermont, felt stifling.  

After graduating from high school in 1938, Helen had gone as far in college as her hard-earned scholarships allowed, earning a two-year teaching certificate from the University of Vermont. The first year of teaching was rewarding, but by then the country had entered World War II. 

Three of her four brothers had already joined the military. The youngest brother was only 15 and still in high school. Her only sister was busy raising a young family. 

“I had to do something,” Helen said many years later. “I wanted to contribute to the war effort and teaching school didn’t seem very patriotic at the time.”

As soon as school was out for the summer, she went to Harford, Connecticut, for a job at an airplane factory. She sorted, counted and packaged screws – all day, every day.

“I made twice the money there that I had teaching school, but I was bored to tears,” she said. “Any 10-year-old child could have done what I was doing.”

When fall arrived, she left the factory, frustrated. The tedium was too draining on her. She reluctantly returned to her teaching job in Vermont, but the restlessness continued. 

New opportunities for women  to make a difference

While she had been packaging screws that summer, progress was happening in Washington. President Roosevelt signed new legislation in July establishing the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, better known as the WAVES. 

A recruitment brochure for the newly established WAVES caught Helen’s attention. “It’s a proud moment when you first step out in brand new Navy blues! The trim uniform was especially designed by the famous stylist Mainbocher to flatter every figure and to make you look – and feel – your best!”

Helen loved it. Until then, she had been considering joining the WACS, the also newly established women’s branch of the Army. But the uniform determined her choice and she signed up in late spring 1943 for the WAVES. By then, nearly 27,000 women had preceded her.

Rigorous training in the heat

As soon as school was out, she left for three weeks of basic training in New York. The Navy had set up a training center for women recruits in the facilities of Hunter College in the Bronx.

“And wouldn’t you know it, that was the hottest summer ever in New York. A massive heat wave had hit the city,” she said.

“It was hard on the women. Most of us had never experienced such rigorous physical activity,” she said. She stayed on the seventh floor of one of Hunter’s dormitories. The recruits, not allowed to use the elevators, had to climb the seven flights of stairs at the end of each grueling day to get to their beds.

Every day, they went out in full dress summer uniforms – cotton skirt, long-sleeve cotton jacket and cotton stockings with lace-up shoes – to march down the streets of New York City, despite the sweltering heat. The Marine sergeants who trained the women seemed to resent their jobs and were especially tough on them.

“A lot of the women gave up and dropped out,” Helen said. “But I wasn’t about to do that.” 

Because of her teaching background, she was tapped as a link trainer operator and sent to Atlanta. For 10 weeks, she and other former schoolteachers learned the intricacies of “blind flying” at the Link Instrument Training Instructors School. The Navy then assigned the link trainers to airfields in Texas or Florida to teach cadets and aviators how to use instrument panels to fly their airplanes. 

New adventures on the horizon

Although she requested Corpus Christi because her father still had family in Texas, she was sent to Pensacola and assigned to Whiting Field, the newest and most ambitious of the entire Pensacola training center. Initially disappointed, she soon discovered Whiting Field had a lot to offer.