A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE COAST GuARD BY JOHN A. TILLEY Ida Lewis served as the keeper of Lime Rock Light on a small island in Newport, R.I., for 54 vears. She began tending the light, along with her mother, at the age of 75 after her father was immobilized bV a stroke. Lewis devel­ oped outstanding boat-handling skills while rowing back and forth to the main­ land. During her vears at the lighthouse. she rescued between 78 and 24 people. Lewis was one of manv women who kept America's lights lit and mariners safe.

omen have been performing piers ... within any bay, inlet, harbor, or Coast Guard duties longer port of the United States, for rendering the than there has been a Coast navigation thereof easy and safe." The first W Guard. At least one profes­ female federal employees probably were sional ancestor of the modern female Coast lighthouse keepers. Guardsman predated the federal govern­ The old-fashioned lighthouse was a prim­ ment itself. In 1776, John Thomas joined the itive contraption. Its light came from a Army to fight in the Revolutionary War. His whale-oil lamp mounted behind a thick wife, Hannah, took over his job as keeper of glass lens, sometimes equipped with a Gurnet Point Light, near Plymouth, Mass. weight-driven mechanism to make it rotate The oldest root of the modern Coast and pump oil to the lamp. Guard's institutional family tree can be Along with the position of keeper went a traced back to Aug. 7, 1789, when the new house, usually built into the base of the Congress appropriated funds for "the nec­ light tower, and a plot of land on which the essary support, maintenance and repairs of keeper's family was expected to keep live­ all lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public stock and grow vegetables. The position of

A history of women in the Coast Guard regarding the hiring of women to work at lighthouses. The early records are skimpy, but two modern researchers, Mary Louise Clifford and J. Candace Clifford, found the names of 138 women who were employed as lighthouse keepers between 1828 and 1947. The majority were the wives or daughters of keepers or other Lighthouse Board employees who died on the job.

. t II' 1y Iitll VOn1 11' Mary Reynolds became keeper of the light­ house at Biloxi, Miss., in 1854 with a salary of $400 per year. She augmented her income by caring for "a large family of orphaned chil­ dren" who were "heirs at law to a consider­ able estate," the executor of which sent her an annual stipend. Seven years later, Reynolds' world suddenly disintegrated when the city government ordered Biloxi Light ex­ tinguished and some characters in Confeder­ ate uniforms absconded with her valuable store of lamp oil. She appealed to the gover­ nor of Mississippi for help, offering her ser­ vices to make clothing for the soldiers "to do my share in our great and holy cause of free­ dom." Lighthouse Board records clo not indi­ cate whether Reynolds continued to be paid her salary through the Civil War, but she was listed as keeper of Biloxi Light until 1866. In 1881, Navy CAPT Charles McDougal drowned in a storm off the coast of . He left his widow, Kate McDougal, with four children and a Navy pension of $50 a month. McDougal's friends at Mare Island Naval Ship­ yard, Vallejo, Calif., arranged to have her ap­ pointed keeper of the nearby Mare Island Light. She lived there for 25 years, raising her children with the help of donated school­ books and tending the residence with the help of a Chinese-American cook. During most of the year her only contact with the outside keeper did not require much education, train­ world was via a telephone line to the naval ing, or mechanical skill; it demandecl dedica­ shipyard, whose officers set up the poles and tion, stamina, patience, and a willingness to strung the wire for her as a Christmas work for a low salary. It was just the sort of present. job, in the social atmosphere of Victorian The loneliness and independence of life at America, for a woman. a lighthouse exerted an odd attraction to There seems to have been no official policy some people. John Walker and his German

A history of women in the Coast Guard is a Commandant's Bulletin insert for March 1996. For information about the Coast Guard, visit your local library or write to the Coast Guard historian at: Commandant (G-CP­ 4), 2100 2nd St., SW.. Washington, DC 20593-0001. Editing, design and layout by CW03 Paul A. Powers. Photos courtesy G-CP-4. Front Cover: Today, Coast Guard women perform all of the Coast Guard's missions. They have proven themselves under some of the most strenuous conditions. Back Cover: Women have been working aboard Coast Guard cullers since 1977.

A history ot women in the Coost Guard. 1 immigrant wife, Kate, were appointed keeper electric lights. A 1948 issue of The Coast and assistant keeper of Robbins Reef Light, Guard Bulletin commented that these tech­ off Staten Island, N,Y., in 1883. The light was nological improvements had "placed the du­ a conical iron structure at the end of a sub­ ties of keepers of lighthouses beyond the ca­ merged reef - a man-made island within pacity of most women," The last of the wom­ sight of the Manhattan skyline, When Walker an lighthouse keepers apparently was Fan­ died of pneumonia in 1886, his widow took nie Salter, who lived at Turkey Point Light, over his job. For the next 33 years she Md., from 1925 to 1947, climbed to the top of the light tower and ~t filled the kerosene lamp several times each 'Tilt 1) night, assisted by her son and daughter. The cI ri <"II as~i. 'le 1 t t . children went to school on the mainland, The Coast Guard was created Jan, 28, but Walker rarely set foot outside the light­ 1915, when President Woodrow Wilson house grounds, Over the years she saved signed a congressional law consolidating the some 50 people from drowning, According Revenue Cutter Service and the Life SaVing to a Times reporter who inter­ Service, The new service was to operate un­ viewed her in 1906, der the Department of the Treasury during "AJI that she knows from personal peacetime, and to be absorbed by the Navy experience of the great land to which upon declaration of war. A little more than she came '" is comprised within the two years later, the latter provision was put limits of Staten Island, , into effect when the United States declared and Brooklyn ... As a wife, mother, and war on Germany, widow, the happiest and sad­ Nineteen-year-old twin dest days of her peaceful life sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker were the have been spent within the first Coast Guard circular walls of her volun­ women in uniform, tary prison, She declares They transferred from that if she were compelled to the Naval Coastal live anywhere else she would Defense Reserve dur­ ing World War I, " be the most miserable wom­ an on earth, and that no mansion on Millionaires' Row could tempt her to leave of her own free will." Walker retired in 1919 and moved to a house on Staten Is­ land, where she died 12 years lat­ er. The New York Evening Post car­ ried an obituary: "There are the queenly lin­ ers, the grim battle craft, the countless carriers of com­ merce that pass in endless procession. And amid all this and in sight of the city of towers and the torch of liber­ ty lived this sturdy little woman, proud of her work and content in it, keeping her lamp alight and her windows clean, so that New York har­ bor might be safe for ships that pass in the night." In the early 20th Century the number of female lighthouse keep­ ers declined steadily, Steam-driv­ en foghorns replaced the old fog bells, and oil lamps gave way to

2 • A history of women in the Coast Guard American society in the early 20th Century embrace you without uniform tomorrow." saw three spheres of the professional world as proper domains for women: the school, 'NIi. kc ( !c'\tt vvilll Uncle S, nl' the office, and the hospital. During World During World War II more than 16 million War I the United States undertook an un­ men joined the armed forces - while the precedented expansion of its armed forces, country's industrial and agricultural produc­ producing a manpower shortage and a stupe­ tion had to increase. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, fying mass of paperwork. The Navy, which noting the examples provided early in the had been operating an auxiliary Nurse Corps war by Great Britain and the Soviet Union, re­ since 1908, concluded with some reluctance alized even before Pearl Harbor that women that war had created a legitimate role for would have to playa major role in the U.S. women in uniform. war effort. "Enroll women in the Naval Reserve as On Nov. 23, 1942, President Franklin Roo­ yeomen," said Secretary of the Navy Jose­ sevelt signed Public Law 772 of the 77th phus Daniels, "and we will have the best cler­ Congress, 2nd Session, creating the Women's ical assistance the country can provide." On Reserve of the Coast Guard. The purpose of March 19, 1917, the Navy authorized the en­ the act was, "to expedite the war effort by listment of women in the Naval Reserve. with providing for releasing officers and men for the rating " CF)" and the popular la­ duty at sea and their replacement by women bel "Yeomanettes." in the shore establishment of the Coast The Navy's policy was extended to the Guard, and for other purposes." The Wom­ Coast Guard, but personnel records from en's Reserve was to be modeled on the one World War I contain scarcely any references the Navy had created a few months earlier. to the Coast Guard Yeomanettes. A handful Two Navy restrictions were carried over to of them apparently were employed at the the Coast Guard. Women were not to serve diminutive Coast Guard headquarters build­ outside the continental United States, and no ing in Washington. Nineteen-year-old twin woman, officer or enlisted, could issue or­ sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker trans­ ders to any male serviceman. ferred from the Naval Coastal Defense Re­ The armed forces, never having confront­ serve to become the first uniformed women ed the prospect of organizing a large contin­ in the Coast Guard. gent of young women, sought help from the With the war's end the Coast Guard Yeo­ academic community. Navy LT Dorothy manettes, along with their Navy and Marine Stratton, former dean of women at Purdue Corps counterparts, were mustered out of University, IND., agreed to transfer to the the service. Daniels bade them farewell: "As Coast Guard and, with the rank of lieutenant we embrace you in uniform today, we will commander, became director of the Coast Guard Women's Reserve. During World War II, Fifty years later she said, "I am sometimes Navy LT Dorothy referred to as the commanding officer of the Stratton transferred SPARs. Actually I had no command authority. to the Coast Guard All I had was power of persuasion .. , . I didn't and assumed the even have authority over the enlisted man at rank of lieutenant commander. Strat­ the desk across the hall." ton became the An informal proposal to call the Coast director of the Coast Guard women WARCOGS was mercifully Guard Women's abandoned. Stratton suggested that the Reserve, She also Women's Reserve be known by an acronym created the term based on the Coast Guard motto: "Semper SPAR. Paratus - Always Ready." By early 1943 the WMC and WAVE recruiting posters on post­ office walls and telephone poles were joined by placards urging women to "Make a Date With Uncle Sam" and "Enlist in the Coast Guard SPARs."

He cruiting for lIH SP I S The initial estimate was that the Coast Guard would need 8,000 enlisted women and

A history of women in the Coast Guard • 3 400 women officers, with a recruiting target painted on their vehicle's spare tires. A of 500 enlisted and 25 officers per month. song-and-dance show called "Tars and Applicants had to be between 20 and 36 Spars" played in the cities of the East Coast. years old (the upper limit for officers was The recruiters faced some serious obsta­ 50) and have no children under the age of cles, for military women were experiencing 18. Enlisted women had to have completed an image problem. In 1943, a nationwide ru­ two years of high school and officers two mor mill gave rise to public speculation years of college. "Married women 'may en­ about American women in uniform. One list provided their husbands are not in the popular tale had it that the female recruiting Coast Guard. Unmarried women must agree effort was a front for a government-spon­ not to marry until after they have finished sored prostitution ring, the function of

The Coast Guard pictured World War" SPARs as attractive, wholesome, impec­ cably groomed young women. It is rare to find a non­ staged Coast Guard photograph of a SPAR.

their period of training. After training, a which was to slake the sexual appetites of SPAR may marry a civilian or a serviceman new male soldiers and sailors. Each uni­ who is not in the Coast Guard.'" A SPAR who formed woman supposedly was receiving a became pregnant "must submit her resigna­ monthly issue of prophylactics to help her tion promptly." accomplish her mission. Newspaper editors The first 153 enlisted SPARs and 15 SPAR and clergymen started warning parents not officers were former WAVEs who agreed to to sell their daughters into slavery. be discharged from the Navy and join the The Coast Guard constructed what it Coast Guard. Several of them were assigned wanted the public to perceive as the real as recruiters and dispatched throughout SPAR: an attractive, wholesome, high-spirit­ the country. ed young woman with impeccable grooming Recruiters were told not to sit in their of­ habits, perfect teeth, and no ambition be­ fices and wait for women to walk in, but to yond serving her country, "releasing a man go out in the field to talk to prospects and to fight at sea," and getting married ­ their families. At least one recruiting office preferably after the war. took that advice literally, sending its staff on The SPARs adopted a slightly modified ver­ repeated treks through the cotton fields of sion of the WAVE uniform, which had been de­ the South to seek out potential SPARs. Re­ signed by Mainbocher of New York, a women's cruiters made speeches on the stages of fashion firm. Newspapers and magazines were movie theaters. Mabile units traveled in bombarded with glossy prints of SPARs smiling jeeps with "Don't Be a Spare - Be a SPAR" as they marched in formation, smiling over

4 • A history of women in the Coast Guard again relied on assistance from academe. The first enlisted SPARs were former WAVEs who had received their basic training at Oklahoma A&M University in Stillwater. When civilian women began joining the SPARS they were sent to Iowa State Teachers College, in Cedar Falls. A joint training center for WAVEs and SPARs was established at in New York City. In the middle of 1943, the Coast Guard set ! up its own indoctrination facility in what had been the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla. The slogan "Train under the Florida sun" was added to the recruiters' propaganda arsenal and during the next 18 months, more than 7,000 SPARs received their basic training at Palm Beach. After graduation, the new SPARs were or­ dered to various specialized schools through­ out the country where they received the same training as their male counterparts. Late in the war, as the SPAR recruiting effort met its quota and the number of new recruits diminished, the Palm Beach facility shut down and newly-enlisted women were trained

steaming pots, smiling at assorted vehicles, and alongside enlisted men at the Coast Guard smiling at male Coast Guardsmen. One man­ training facility in Manhattan Beach, N.Y. aged to look as though she was smiling while Enlisted men were assigned specialties blowing a bugle. There is almost no such thing when they enlisted, but the service's initial as a casual photograph of a World War II SPAR. policy was to give all enlisted SPARs the rat­ ing of seaman second class. It was assumed P J\ r':lini, g that a woman could not bring any useful To train the new recruits the Coast Guard civilian skills (other than typing or working a

A history ot women In the Coast Guard • 5 telephone switchboard) into the military. and a former professional photographer Then a former policewoman demonstrated suggested that she could qualify as a pho­ in boot camp that she knew how to shoot, tographer's mate. The policy changed, and by the end of the (Top) SPARs were war SPARs held 43 dif­ originally assigned to ferent ratings from office work but restrictions were boatswain's mate to eventually lifted. By yeoman. the end of World The first 200 SPAR War II, women officers were trained at I worked in 43 a Navy facility on the l different ratings. (Bottom) Women campus of Smith Col­ received handgun lege, a women's school and other nontradi­ in Northampton, Mass. tional training during The Coast Guard real­ th@war, ized, however, that it needed an indoctrina­ tion facility for its own female officers. On June 28, 1943, the Coast Guard Academy, New London, Conn., opened its doors to women when a class of 50 SPAR officer candi­ dates reported for in­ doctrination. SPAR

6 • A history ot women in the Coast Guard ---=------,------­------

officers, like male reserve officers, went "the thing that made the SPARs successful through a streamlined program crammed was the support of the commandant." Not into six weeks (later lengthened to eight) every male Coast Guardsman showed the that bore little resemblance to the acade­ same inclination. When Splaine reported for my's peacetime curriculum. But, in using its duty at headquarters her officer in charge service academy to train women, the Coast gave her a look of utter disgust and as­ Guard was taking a step that none of the signed her to a desk behind his so he would other armed services emulated. More than not have to look at a woman in uniform. He 700 of the 955 SPAR officers commissioned practically ignored her until one day when during the war received their training at his civilian secretary called in sick. The offi­ New London. cer turned to the SPAR and said, "1 don't suppose you could take a letter." She, in ') I{ 11'1 SUI} C). "' fact, could take shorthand faster than he I( Ll ('( ukl lC1K( c I l1c( could dictate, and soon was doing most of The largest single employer of SPARs was the clerical work in the office. headquarters, located in the former (and, according to rumor, condemned) Southern Tl) !-, '1'( t S} ( iall\' Railway Building at 1300 E Street in Wash­ Late in 1942 the Coast Guard began set­ ington. As the war went on, most of the cler­ ting up a new, highly confidential electronic ical work in the eight-story structure came navigation system called loran. Reports to be done by SPARs and female civilian from the British Royal Air Force, whose fe­ employees. male radar operators had helped win the Wartime Washington was hard pressed Battle of Britain, probably were instrumen­ to find room for all the military women and tal in convincing the Coast Guard that a lo­ civilian "government girls" who were crowd­ ran station would be an appropriate billet ing into the city. They were jammed into ev­ for SPARs. ery bUilding the government could locate In the summer of 1943, LTJG Vera Hamer­ that would accommo­ schlag took command of the Chatham, date a few bunks. SPAR Mass., loran monitoring station, which con­ Betty Splaine recalled sisted of a 30- by 50-foot, one-story building how fortunate she felt and a 125-foot tower on the beach at Cape when she and three Cod. The 11 SPARs under Hamerschlag's other SPARs, after command had responsibility for ascertain­ stints in an insect-in­ ing and maintaining the accuracy of trans­ fested rooming house missions from several other loran stations and the Plaza Hotel, on the East Coast. The duty involved moni­ were quartered in a toring and recording those transmissions dean's office at Ameri­ every two minutes, 24 hours a day. The can University. SPARs were told not to "even think loran," "It had wal'l-to-wall and never to give anyone in or out of the carpeting, and we got service any hint of what was happening in­ individual solid maple side the mysterious building. beds rather than iron The policy of denying women authority bunk beds," she said. over men inevitably created practical prob­ Eventually the lems, particularly when female officers were SPARs moved into assigned to stations that had male Coast a row of temporary Guardsmen on staff. The Coast Guard even­ barracks, named after tually got around the difficulty by means of Coast Guard cutters, an opinion from the judge advocate gener­ on Independence al's office dated November 1943. The JAG Avenue. concluded that the prohibition applied ADM Russell "only to authority which pertains to com­ Waesche, then com­ mand," and that "the authority of a subordi­ mandant, was an early nate officer as a representative of the officer convert to the cause of in command has full legal effect in the exe­ the SPARs. Stratton as­ cution of his regulations, instructions, and serted afterward that policies. The fact that the subordinate is a

A history of women in the Coast Guard • 7 member of the Women's Reserve does not months before the recruiting effort began alter the effect." shutting down. In other words, a SPAR could give orders to a male Coast Guardsman so long as her En I ( f tile ~ P 1\1 S commanding officer was a man. The logic The SPARs had enlisted for "duration plus behind the new policy was rather convolut­ six" - the length of the war plus six ed, but it put SPAR officers a step ahead of months. SPAR recruiting virtually ended in their counterparts in the other services. December 1944. Shortly after the surrender On Sept. 27, 1944, Congress revised the of Japan, the women's reserve branches of law prohibiting WAVEs and SPARs from all the services were disbanded, and the serving outside the continental United SPARs officially ceased to exist (though the States. Henceforth, SPARs with good label was still being applied informally to fe­ records who requested such duty could be male Coast Guardsmen in the 1960s). A few stationed in American overseas territories. SPARs were allowed to remain on active The war in Europe was almost over by this duty long enough to finish the projects on time, but about 200 SPARs were sent to Alas­ which they were working; the remaining ka and 200 more to Hawaii before VJ Day. 12,000 returned to civilian life. Stratton, who In October 1944, the secretary of the had attained the rank of captain, became di­ Navy ordered the WAVEs and SPARs to be­ rector of personnel for the International gin accepting black recruits. The first black Monetary Fund, and later would serve 10 SPAR was YN3 . By then the years as national executive director of the SPARs' initial recruiting goals almost had Girl Scouts. been achieved, and the service had stopped During the next few years many Women's accepting civilian women for officer training. Reserve records were destroyed, and the A few black women enlistees did go' federal government seems largely to have through OCS and were commissioned as en­ forgotten about the SPARs. But the SPARs signs before the end of the war. Personnel never forgot the years they had spent in uni­ records do not indicate the total number of form. Dorothy Gleason, who enlisted in 1943 black SPARs who enlisted in the three and had just been commissioned an

In 7973, the Coast Guard ended the Women '5 Reserve and allowed women to join the regular and reserve Coast Guard. Officer can­ didate school also opened up to women.

8 • A history of women in Ihe Coosl Guard to exist as a separate entity on paper, the Women from the first Coast Guard of the 1950s had scarcely any oes class trained recognizable policy regarding women. In aboard the CGC Unimok. alongside 1950 Eleanor L'Ecuyer, a former SPAR who their male counter­ had graduated from law school after World parts. The year was War 1/, responded to an announcement that 1973, the Coast Guard was offering commissions to former reservists who had done addition­ al work in college. She was appointed an en­ sign - and was thereupon "placed in limbo" because the service had no billet for her. (L'Ecuyer joined a reserve unit and eventu­ ally was called to active duty, becoming, in her words, "probably the only officer, male or female. who never had a day of OCS training.)" Splaine passed the warrant officer qualifi­ cation test in 1957, only to be told that she would "have to go home" because "we've never had a woman WO before." It took her eight months of arguments to get her commission. In the 1960s individual reserve units did their own recruiting, and businessmen who when she was demobilized, recalls the pride held reserve officers' commissions some­ she and her fellow SPARs felt at having times talked their secretaries into enlisting. played "an active part at a crucial time in But the Vietnam War gave the Coast Guard a our country's history ... we were the surplus of qualified male applicants, and the pathfinders; we ended up doing many things service made little systematic effort to at­ because we showed we could," she said. tract women. In the early 1970s, with ADM Chester Ben­ Dolclrul ns il tll< '~OS Cll1cl ' 50s der as commandant, the Coast Guard came The Women's Armed Services Act of 1948 to the forefront of American military policy integrated women into the regular Army, regarding women. All the armed services Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. The legis­ were adjusting to several important national lation did not mention the Coast Guard, phenomena: civil rights legislation, the end probably because that service was run by of the Vietnam War, and the women's move­ the Department of the Treasury rather than ment. The Army, Navy and Air Force wrung the Department of Defense. their hands and held back the tide as long The Korean conflict of 1950 to 1953 saw a as they could. The Coast Guard, though not brief expansion of the armed forces, as re­ without reluctance, accepted it. servists were called to active duty and re­ A congressional law, passed in 1973, end­ tired members were invited to reenlist. The ed the Women's Reserve as a separate enti­ Coast Guard made no systematic effort to ty. Henceforth women would be eligible for mobilize the former SPARs of World War II, active duty in both the regular Coast Guard largely because it had made no effort to and the reserve, in which men and women keep up with their name and address were to serve side by side. In the same year changes. About 200 former SPARs voluntari­ the service opened its officer candidate pro­ ly reenlisted in the early '50s, but most left gram to women, thereby becoming the first when the military effort in Korea wound American armed service to do so. down. By 1956 there were nine enlisted women and 12 female officers in the Coast I( \ V Lon I )11 goes CO( d Guard, and The Coast Guard Magazine re­ On Oct. 7, 1975, President Gerald Ford ported that "your chances of seeing a SPAR signed an Act of Congress requiring that the on active duty today have a slight edge over armed services admit women to their ser­ the possibilities of your running into Greta vice academies the follOWing year. The Garbo at the corner drugstore." academy, to the accompaniment of despair­ Though the Women's Reserve continued ing howls from some of its alumni, had al-

A history ot women in the Coast Guard. 9 Today-women do

10. A hislory of women in Ihe Coasl Guard it all

A history ot women in the Coast Guard. II ready announced that it would accept fe­ sert just as emphatically that the only wom­ male applicants for the class entering in July en who found sexual discrimination were 1976. Female cadets would receive the same those who looked for it. The key to success training as males - including summer cruis­ at the academy, says one successful gradu­ es aboard the training barque Eagle, which ate, was "not to get wrapped up in being a had a compartment designated "Woman female Coastie. Just be a Coastie." Cadet Quarters" added to its lower deck. The first-generation female academy S '

The Coast Guard Academy began admitting women in 1975. Its four-year curriculum includes nautical and academic training.

Ih coosl Guard 12 • A hislory of women \n e their families received a newsletter detailing cerns, and, in some cases, frustrations" the arrangements that would be made to ac­ when they were told that women would be commodate the "mixed crews." joining the ship, but he asserted that "there Some of the most vocal opposition to have been no major problems to date .... women's presence aboard ships came from Today, I doubt that there are over two or the sailors' wives. three who retain such hardcore opposition." Women reported for duty aboard the In sending women to sea the Coast Guard Morgenthall and Gallatin late in 1977, to the was steering toward a collision with the accompaniment of considerable media at­ Navy. By congressional law the Coast Guard tention and a couple of seamen commenting is transferred from DOT to the Department "there goes the neighborhood." Those who of the Navy in wartime, and the high-en­ expected the two cutters to either sink or durance cutters were designed for double turn into nautical dens of iniquity were dis­ duty as anti-submarine warships. Navy poli­ appointed. As had been the case when the cy, based on the long-standing congression­ Coast Guard set up its first racially integrat­ al law banning women from combat, exclud­ ed ships' companies during World War II, ed women from most seagoing billets. For a the "mixed crews" quietly settled into a few years the Coast Guard maintained a working routine and went about their busi­ contingency plan to replace each seagoing ness with little if any commotion. woman with a man upon transfer of the CAPT Alan Breed, commanding officer of Coast Guard to the Navy. The Navy's "no the Gallatin, acknowledged a year later that sea duty for women" rule, however, was some of his male crewmembers had experi­ negated in 1978 by the Owens vs. Brown enced "apprehensions, reservations, con­ federal court decision, and the plans to re­ move women from Coast Guard cutters in wartime were eventually scrapped.

Y ( -110-110 c 1 ci b< 1!l< 01 ,han( 11 O. 5 On April 1, 1979, LTJG Beverly Kelley, who had been part of the Morgenthau exper­ iment, took command of the CGC Cape Newagen, a 95-foot patrol boat operating out of Maui, Hawaii. Kelley, who came from a seagoing family (her father was a captain in the merchant service), emphasizes today that she got the command "through natural progression," but she immediately became a media celebrity. The announcement that a woman had taken command of a United States ship of war spawned newspaper headlines ranging from "Female skipper likes Coast Guard challenge" to "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Chanel No.5." Kelley, who now holds the rank of com­ mander, recalls that the biggest challenge she confronted came from the media. The Cape Newagen's 14-man crew adjusted rela­ tively painlessly to the fact that their CO was a woman (though several remarked that the female voice on the PA system sounded "strange"), and the cutter, once the media attention died down, carried out its duties in exemplary fashion. The Cape Newagen received a Meritorious Unit Com­ mendation for its search-and-rescue work during a major Pacific storm in 1980. In 1979, RADM William Steward, then

A history of women in the Coast Guard • 13 From the academy, OCS and the enlist­ ed ronks, women have risen to leader­ ship positions in the Coast Guard.

. the coost Guord 14. A history of women In ------­ A history ot women in the Coast Guard. '5 chief of personnel for the Coast Guard, testi­ tured in People magazine and National Geo­ fied before a House of Representatives sub­ graphic, and made an appearance on the committee reviewing the Defense Depart­ television show "To Tell the Truth." She ac­ ment's policies regarding women. When cepted the attention because, "it was a good asked about the Coast Guard's experience thing for the Coast Guard," but "I can't wait with women aboard ships, Steward replied, for the day when I'm thought of as the sev­ "There are times when obviously a enth captain of the Katmai Bay - not the 200-pound pump may not be able to be first female." lifted .by women; however, that same LCDR June Ryan, formerly an enlisted pump may not be able to be lifted by woman who is now military aide to Presi­ all of the male population of a particu­ dent Clinton, recalls that when she took lar uTlit as well. We have exposed the command of the icebreaker CGC Neah Bay women to the gamut of our missions: "they (the media) were so focused on my law enforcement; marine environmen­ being a woman that my crew took a back tal protection; aids to navigation; all of seat. I didn't care for that." ''I'm not a wom­ the other missions that we have. I can en's libber or a bra burner," said Ryan. "I try categorically state, sir, that their per­ to keep a low profile. I just want to be a formance has been outstanding." Coastie." During the next few years women were Wall, now executive officer of the 210-foot assigned virtually every duty to which their CGC Courageous, expresses a similar view. ranks entitled them. In 1983, LCDR Melissa "]'m no longer a 'female officer;' now peo­ Wall, then a LTJG, took command of Loran ple just say, 'okay, she's an officer,'" she Station St. Paul, Alaska, with a complement said. of 26 - all males - serving under her. By Coast Guard women acknowledge that a 1983, of 129 women officers in the Coast gender gap still exists in the service, but Guard, 35 were serving aboard seagoing many of them see that gap as no wieleI' than vessels and five were aircraft pilots. Female the one that exists in civilian life. enlisted strength in the same year stood at "It's okay for guys to have wives on the 1,747, including 85 enlisted women at sea. pier waving goodbye," said Wall, "but it By the late 1970s, the course the Coast doesn't work the other way around." Guard had charted was clear: women were BMCS Diane Bucci, who became the first in the service to stay. Official distinctions enlisted woman to command afloat when between men and women dropped away she became officer in charge of the tug CGC one by one. The practice of discharging Capston in 1988, says she has noticed a sub­ pregnant females was abandoned, and the tle but significant change in the relationship Hollywood costume designer Edith Head between Coast Guard men and women in provided a female version of the new "Ben­ the past decade. der Blues" uniform. "Being 'one of the guys' used to be the Coast Guard women continued, however, key," she said. "You had to not only listen to to encounter discrimination in more subtle the dirty jokes but tell them. That's not so forms. any more." "I'm not sure I really want sea duty," said A 1990 study entitled "Women in the a reserve officer. "If the men hear that ]'m Coast Guard" led to a systematic effort to having dinner with the captain, they think identify gender-related concerns and prob­ I'm bucking for promotion. If I have dinner lems. The Coast Guard now has a Women's with the exec (executive officer), I'm asking Advisory Council consisting of nine officers for favoritism. If I hang out with the enlisted and senior enlisted women who advise se­ men I must be giving it away cheap, and if I nior officers and civilian administrators on stick with the other women I must be policy matters. The Defense Advisory Committee on a ." 'n the Services, or DACOWITS, ad­ Women I G arc! as dresses the concerns of the Coast u Oc1St ,Uc: r \ well as DOD's. b Ch'ld Program \V0I11 I in tlK '~)O,' . The Care of New orn I . Coast Guard women still make headlines ives new mothers and fathers the optIOn of 1t to or not When LT San­ g . ff with the assurance of re­ whether theYkwal mmand of ~he icebreaking takll1g a year 0 , hen they re­ dra Stosz too co I , , g the'lr ranks and ratmgs w . . . 1990 she was ea- talmn tug CGC Katmal Bay 10

'n the coast Guard 16 • A history 01 women I ~---_.....---_.• turn to active duty. All Coast Guardsmen with women crewmembers have taken part in watch films designed to define and dis­ rescue and migrant-control exercises in the courage sexual harassment. Friction con­ Caribbean, and a PSU was sent to Port au tinues to exist between genders, but most Prince, Haiti, eluring the 1994 intervention Coast Guardsmen have found that creat­ there. All the members of that unit were ing the diverse environment caHed for by housed in a warehouse whose amenities did the regulations isn't as hard as they ex­ not include bulkheads. pected. Bucci recalls that when she re­ The women consulted during the prepara­ ported aboard her first ship, she ran into tion of this article were unanimous in their an enlisted man who had the right idea. assertion that the Coast Guard is ahead of "He just shook hands and said, 'we're the other armed services in its policies to­ glad you're here,'" she said. ward and treatment of women. Another con­ International events of the '90s have sistent theme among Coast Guard women is put the military's new policies toward an intense dedication to their profession. women to the test. Three reserve port-se­ Splaine, who retired in 1971 as a CW04 after curity units, all with women among their a career of 28 years, summarized her attitude members, were sent to the Middle East toward the Coast Guard: during Operation Desert Shield. Cutters "I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it." .:.

ADDITIONAL READING • Cliiford, Mary Louise; and Clifford, J. Candace. Women Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female LighthQuse Keepers. Williamsburg, Va: Cypr ss ommunications, 1993. • Holm, MAJGEN J anne U. AF (ret.). HI: men In the Militwy: An Unfinished Revolution. Revis d edition. No­ vato, CA: Presidio Pr 5S, 1992. • Johnson, Robert Erwin. Guardians of the Sea: History of the Us. Coast Guard 1915 to the Present. Annapo­ lis: Naval Institute Press, 1987. • Lyne, Mary C.: and Arthur, Kay. Three Years Behind the Mast: The Story of the United States Coast Guard SPARS. N.p.: No publisher, no date. • U.S. Coast Guard Public Information Division. The Coast Guard at War. Vol. XXII: Women's Reserve. Wash­ ington: U.. Coast Guard. 1946. • Willoughby, Malcolm. The U . Coast Guard in World War II. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1957 and 1989.

A history of women in the Coast Guard. 17