WAVES (United States Naval Women's Reserve)

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This article is part of a feature on women in the military during World War II.

Lt.(jg.) Harriet Ida Pickens and Ens. Frances Wills, the first Black women WAVES to be commissioned. They were members of the final graduating class at Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School (WR) Northampton, MA. December 21, 1944.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, 520670.

During World War II, the United States Navy created a branch of the Naval Reserve to enlist women, known as the WAVES (an acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). Approximately 100,000 women served in the WAVES over the course of the war. They performed a variety of jobs, from clerical work and storekeeping, to weather forecasting and navigation, to hospital work, to engineering.

After the end of the war, the WAVES demobilized. However, the 1948 Women's Armed Services Integration Act permitted women to serve in the Army and Navy on a permanent, regular basis.

This page collects information about the parks, historic places, people, and stories connected to the history of the WAVES.