Veterans Day: they were simply Marines

On January 15, 1943, my Aunt Anne (Adams Lentz) was commissioned a captain in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, the first woman on active duty in the new force. She served as Supply Officer for much of the war, ensuring that the women were provided with suitable outfits for an expanding catalogue of roles, including acting as paper pushers and secretaries for officers, but also as drivers and mechanics.

In peacetime, Aunt Anne had worked in Manhattan, designing and procuring school uniforms. With the outbreak of World War II, she eagerly joined up to do her part and found a similar role in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The WAAC lent her to the Marines for a 30 day stint in late 1942. She apparently decided she wasn't leaving. She pulled the considerable strings she had access to as the wife of Army Brigadier General John M. Lentz, who was attached to the Army Ground Forces Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to receive an immediate commission and rank.

Her name turns up in the contemporary Marine Recruiter magazine and prominently in the 1994 commemorative pamphlet, Free a Marine To Fight: Women Marines in World War II by Colonel Mary V. Stremlow, USMCR. Stemlow's little book makes lively reading:

Some stories sound too contrived to be true, yet are repeated too often to be dismissed as mere folklore. One such tale was rescued and restored to its rightful place in history when Mary Eddy Furman confirmed that, yes, the portrait of Archibald Henderson, 5th Commandant of the Marine Corps, crashed from the wall to the buffet the evening that Major General Commandant Thomas Holcomb announced his decision to recruit women into the Corps. Mrs. Furman, then a child, was a dinner guest ... on 12 October 1942 when the Commandant was asked, "General Holcomb, what do you think about having women in the Marine Corps?" Before he could reply, the painting of Archibald Henderson fell. 

... General Holcomb's opposition was well-known. He, as many other Marines, was not happy at the prospect. But, in the fall of 1942, faced with the losses suffered during the campaign for Guadalcanal — and potential future losses in upcoming operations — added to mounting manpower demands, he ran out of options. ... 

... With 143,388 Marines on board and tasked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to add 164,273 within a year, the Marine Corps had already lowered its recruiting standards and raised the age ceiling to 36. At the same time, President Roosevelt's plan to impose a draft threatened the elite image earned by the selective, hard-fighting, disciplined Marines, and so, the Commandant did what he had to do. In furtherance of the war effort, he recommended that as many women as possible should be used in non combatant billets. ... 

... The public, anticipating a catchy nickname for women Marines much like the WACS, WAVES, and SPARS, bombarded Headquarters with suggestions: MARS, Femarines, WAMS, Dainty Devil-Dogs, Glamarines, Women's Leather-neck Aides, and even Sub-Marines. Surprisingly, considering his open opposition to using women at all, General Holcomb adamantly ruled out all cute names and acronyms and when answering yet another reporter on the subject, stated his views very forcefully in an article in the 27 March 1944 issue of Life magazine: "They are Marines. They don't have a nickname and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere at a Marine post. They inherit the traditions of Marines. They are Marines." 

... A mere two-and-a-half years after the formation of the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, there were 18,460 women on active duty: 17,640 enlisted persons and 820 officers. Women commanded 28 units and comprised another 17. A few were assigned independently to specialities such as recruiting. 

... The task of demobilizing the war machine was essentially an administrative process requiring more clerks than warriors. There's an old saw that says an army fights on beans and bullets. In 1945, the War Department learned that an army disbands on a mountain of paperwork. Although nearly everyone expected the women to return home quickly, they were needed more, not less. ... 

... among all the beautifully worded accolades bestowed on the women Marines of World War II, is a simple statement made by General Holcomb, the Commandant so opposed to having women in the Marine Corps in the beginning: "like most Marines, when the matter first came up I didn't believe women could serve any useful purpose in the Marine Corps . . . . Since then I've changed my mind."

• • •

I didn't ever have much contact with my Aunt Anne, my father's older sister. She never lived in Buffalo  where the family was centered and died in 1976 by which time I had decamped to California. I cannot begin to imagine what she would make of women's roles in the today's fighting forces. Much of her job in designing Marine uniforms was to ensure that the women remained properly recognizably feminine. But she was clearly no submissive female; General Lentz was the second of four successive husbands, each of whom I think offered her access to a world beyond the propriety of the upper middle class, urban midwest.

We might not have quite approved of each other, but I think we might have found each other interesting.