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$Unique_ID{bob01118}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) History Of The Women Marines 1946-1977
Chapter 8}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stremlow, Col. Mary V.}
$Affiliation{U.S. Marine Corps Reserve}
$Subject{women
reserve
training
marine
units
reservists
platoon
enlisted
marines
officers}
$Date{1986}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) History Of The Women Marines 1946-1977
Author:      Stremlow, Col. Mary V.
Affiliation: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Date:        1986

Chapter 8

Reserves After Korea

     Following the Korean War, the Woman Marine Organized Reserve program was
reestablished and expanded.  The extraordinary success of the original 13
platoons activated in 1949-1950 and mobilized by August 1950 demonstrated the
wisdom and practicality of the plan to maintain a trained cadre of women.
Accordingly, when the Reservists completed their tour of duty and the Korean
emergency neared settlement, Headquarters set an objective of 18 women's
platoons having a strength of two officers and 50 enlisted women each.

     Their mission explicitly was ". . .  to provide trained women reservists
to meet initial mobilization needs of the Marine Corps."  To this end, each of
these post-Korean platoons was assigned a specialty determined by mobilization
needs.  The original plans called for units trained in administration, supply,
classification, and disbursing.  In 1953, First Lieutenant Margaret A. Brewer,
a future Director of Women Marines, organized a communication platoon of 10
officers and 47 enlisted women in Brooklyn, bringing the total up to 19 WR
units.  Later, a 20th platoon was activated in Miami, Florida.  Unlike the
pre-Korea Reserve program, these women not only participated in formal
specialty training at their home armory, but they attended summer training at
Marine Corps posts and stations.

     The WR platoons were attached to the parent Reserve unit and came under
the command of the male commanding officer.  Women officers were designated as
platoon leaders and assistant platoon leaders, but were commonly referred to
as the commanding officer and executive officer by the women members. Active
duty women Marines, one officer and one or two enlisted women were assigned to
the inspector-instructor staff to assist the Reserve platoon leader.

     The women's platoon was responsible for its own internal administration,
recruitment, adherence to rank and military occupational specialty
distribution of the members, training, and mobilization state of readiness.
Additionally, to make up for the increased work of the parent unit caused by
the WR platoon, the women were directed to assume part of the administrative
work of the male organization.

     Forty-eight two-hour training sessions per year were required.  Training
of the WRs took several forms: basic general military information for women
with no prior service; refresher courses for former servicewomen; and formal
classes in the unit's specialty.  Summer camp was the highlight of the
training program, not only because of the benefit of the classes, but because
it provided military experiences (e.g., squadbay accommodations, restrictive
liberty hours, liberty cards, standing duty watches, field night, barracks
inspections, male drill instructors, mess halls, and reveille), unknown and
impossible to acquire at the home armory.  For some of the inexperienced
Reservists, unaccustomed to military routine, the overnight change from
civilian to Marine was jolting.  They learned quickly that a merely clean sink
was not good enough and that returning from liberty a few minutes late was
tantamount to a calamity.  As a rule, liberty at summer camp expired at 2200
for women below the rank of corporal and some of these lower ranking Marines
carried an alarm clock in their purse to avoid being late.

     The annual two-week training period included combat demonstrations, gas
mask drill, classes, participation in a parade or review, as well as softball
games and picnics with the regular WMs.  At each post where women Reservists
trained, a Woman Reserve liaison officer was assigned to coordinate the unit
activities.  She conducted the annual pretraining conference in the spring,
attended by inspector-instructors and the platoon officers, and she assisted
the unit during the actual training session.

     At home, the Reservists enlarged the intended scope of the program with
numerous recreational and public relations activities.  Rifle, bowling, and
softball teams were the rule.  The WR platoons participated in parades on
Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, and in celebration of local holidays.  They
were asked to attend movie premieres in the days when John Wayne and Marine
Corps movies were common; and they helped the Marine Reserve Toys for Tots
campaign by laundering and mending doll clothes, wrapping gifts, and posing
for publicity photographs.  It was not unusual for enthusiastic women
Reservists to spend several evenings a week at the armory rather than the
required two hours.

     The first post-Korea WR platoon to be established was the Woman Marine
Classification Platoon, 2nd Infantry Battalion, in Boston, which was activated
on 13 January 1952, "Boston's Own" was so successful that on 16 November 1955
it was redesignated a company with an authorized strength of three officers
and 103 enlisted women.  At the ceremony in honor of the first Woman Marine
Reserve company, the unit was awarded two recently won trophies, the Katherine
Towle Trophy given each year to the Woman Reserve platoon attaining the
highest percentage of attendance at annual field training and the Commanding
Officer's trophy annually awarded to the best Woman Marine platoon attending
summer training at Parris Island based on scholastic standing, percentage of
attendance, and military bearing.  The platoon had already made history as the
first to win the Ruth Cheney Streeter trophy for attaining the highest
percentage of combined officer and enlisted woman attendance at drill periods
during 1952, a feat repeated in 1953.  To the already impressive collection,
the Boston Reservists added the National Women Reserve Rifle Team Trophy.

Deactivation of the WR Platoons

     As a result of fiscal limitations and a desire to increase male enlisted
strength to meet mobilization requirements, the Reserve Structure Board,
meeting in May 1958, recommended the deactivation of the WR platoons.  Two
units, Kansas City and Tampa, had already been deactivated, leaving only 18 in
1957.  At the time of the proposed dissolution of the platoons the total
strength was 29 officers and 618 enlisted women as opposed to an authorized
strength of 34 and 687.  The strength of the WR platoons had peaked in 1955
with 35 officers and 664 enlisted women Marines.

The undersigned does not concur with the recommendation of the Reserve
Structure Board that the Woman Marine Reserve units be disbanded and the
membership in the Organized Marine Corps Reserve units be restricted to male
personnel, or to the arguments given to support such a recommendation.

     The board report emphasized the decreasing strength of the platoons since
1955 and the cost involved in training women.  The point was made that the
same amount of money would support 200 additional six-month trainees (male).
Lieutenant Colonel Elsie E. Hill, Head of the Women's Branch, Division of
Reserve, took exception to the report and on 14 May 1958 submitted her views
which were:

She continued:

In as much as the statement is made that a strength of 45,000 is sufficient to
provide all of the initial requirements for desired augmentation of the Fleet
Marine force upon mobilization it is assumed that numbers of trained personnel
become of paramount importance.  From just the standpoint of numbers alone, it
becomes obvious that 600 women is a larger number of trained personnel than
the 200 six month trainees . . . .

     She argued that the 600 women could be used for administrative support
during the early stages of mobilization, thus releasing a like number of
Regulars who, she wrote, "are not only highly trained but at the optimum of
training."  Referring to the issue of the $200,000 spent each year on the
women's program, she pointed out that in 1957, two women had to be enlisted
for a net gain of one, while five men had to be enlisted to produce the same
result.

     Lieutenant Colonel Hill concluded that to continue the organized program
for women was the only economical course to follow.  As might be expected, the
Director of Women Marines, Colonel Julia E. Hamblet, the one person most
directly responsible for the activation of WR platoons, did not agree with the
board's recommendations and added the comments:

The basic problem appears to the undersigned to boil own to the following:
which will be more important in the early stages of mobilization -
approximately 600 trained or partially trained administrative personnel or a
somewhat lesser number of potential combat Marines in various stages of
training.  It is believed that it would be impossible to mobilized Selected
Reserve of the size indicated . . . in the time contemplated without prior or
simultaneous augmentation of administrative personnel at Mobilization
Stations, Joint Examining and Induction Stations, District Headquarters and
Processing Centers.  It is my belief that the male administrative personnel in
the Organized Reserve will be needed in the numbers available in the FMF and
other operating force units with an early deployment schedule, and that the
women will be needed as part of the required immediate administrative
back-up . . . .

     The women's protests notwithstanding, it was decided to disband the units
and to allow 227 women Reservists (one half of one percent of the authorized
strength of the Organized Reserve) to remain in a drill pay status, affiliated
with male Reserve units.  There was a great deal of bitterness on the part of
women Reservists who had faithfully served in the Reserve for as many as 11
years.  Retired Lieutenant Colonel Mary E. Roddy recalls hearing the news of
deactivation while she was at summer training with her platoon at San Diego.
The Dallas women were finishing up an enjoyable and profitable two week and
she was reluctant to tell them of the impending disbandment of the program.
On the night before leaving for home, she broke the news so that she would be
the first to tell them.  A final inspection at deactivation ceremonies for the
unit was held at the Dallas Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Training Center on
Saturday, 27 September 1958.  Joining Major Roddy for the inspection was
Lieutenant Colonel J. B. Griffith, Jr., commanding officer of the 1st 4.5-inch
Rocket Battalion.

     At first there was spirited competition for the coveted 227 billets but
by 1967 the number of women participating in a paid status with the Organized
Reserve dwindled to two officers and 74 enlisted women.  Between 1958 and 1967
there was no Reserve program for WMs.

Woman Special Enlistment Program

     An outgrowth of the Woman Marine Program Study Group of 1964 (General
Pepper Board) was the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee in 1966 to study Reserve
training for women Marines.  This committee recommended the creation of three
women's platoons, and the enlistment of women without prior service who would
be sent to Parris Island for a 10-week period of training (an adaptation of
the six-month training program in effect at the time for male Marines).

     The platoon idea was quickly discarded as being too expensive and too
restrictive geographically.  The Director of Women Marines, Colonel Barbara J.
Bishop, did not approve of the plan to train Reservists at Parris Island due
to the lack of space at the Woman Recruit Training Battalion.  So, it was not
until 10 June 1971, nearly four years after the submission of the committee
report, that the Woman Marine Special Enlistment Program was established in
the Marine Corps Reserve.  Marine Corps Order 1001R.47 provided for an initial
quota of 88 women to be recruited and enlisted by Organized Reserve units
(ground and aviation).  These women, integrated with platoons of regular WMs,
received ten weeks of active duty.  Training of varying periods was offered
after completion of basic training.  Reservists then returned home and
attended regular drills and training periods with their units for the
remainder of a three-year enlistment.

     From that time on, the assignment and utilization of women Reservists
paralleled that of the Regulars.  In 1973 when the Commandant approved a pilot
program to assign women Marines to division/wing, and force service regiment
headquarters based in the United States, women Reservists moved into those
units in the Organized Reserve.  By May 1976, one and one-half percent (i.e.,
30 officer and 400 enlisted billets) of the members of the 4th Marine
Division/Wing were women.

     In the year in which the prohibition which limited women officers to
succeeding to command only of units made up primarily of women was lifted,
1973, the way was opened for women to command Organized Reserve units.  One of
the first to do so was Major Jeanne B. Botwright Humphrey, Commanding Officer,
Truck Company, 4th Service Battalion, Erie, Pennsylvania.

Strength

     As early as 1948, a strength goal for women Marines was set at one
percent of the authorized enlisted strength of the Marine Corps even though
the law allowed for a maximum of two percent.  The same figures dictated the
number of women allowed to participate in the Reserve.  In 1967, Public Law
90-130 removed the percentage restrictions and has allowed for a steady
increase in the number of women Marines, Regular and Reserve.  In 1975, the
Director of the Division of Reserve, Major General Michael P. Ryan, acting on
a request from the Commanding General, 4th Marine Division, stated that it
would be possible and advantageous to increase the number of women to five
percent of the authorized strength of the Organized Reserve.  But due to the
desirability of an incremental rate of growth, he asked that the ceiling for
fiscal year 1976 be increased to three percent.  This translated into 1,937
women.  By 1977, ahead of the schedule, a maximum of five percent was
authorized.  Actual figures on 30 June 1977 were 40 officers and 668 enlisted
women in the 4th Marine Division and 4th Marine Aircraft Wing.

Women Reserve Officers

     There remained the perplexing problems of providing adequate training for
women Reserve officers.  While organized units were willing and often anxious
to join enlisted women, most of whom had administrative skills, few units
could find a place for the officers, especially if they were above the rank of
captain.  Major General Ryan encouraged the male units to join women officers.
Believing that the most profitable training comes from experience in an
organized unit, he took positive steps to make this opportunity available to
the women.  In 1976 a message was sent from Headquarters Marine Corps to the
Commanding Generals, 4th Marine Division and 4th Marine Aircraft Wing
authorizing them to exceed authorized officer strength by joining WM officers
in numbers not to exceed five percent of total authorized officer strength.
Since these are combat-ready units, the women could not be included in their
mobilization plans, but upon mobilization would be reassigned individually to
base units to replace male Marines who would in turn augment the Reserve
units.  Women Reservists who had been openly critical of the lack of
meaningful training opportunities found reason for optimism in the message and
especially the final paragraph which put teeth into the plan and read:

As the majority of available WM officer assets are in the administrative and
supply fields, this an opportunity for individual commanders to improve
administrative and supply efforts.

Request this headquarters be advised of results of this program.  Request you
reply no later than 31 December 1976.

Formal Training for Women Reservists

     Beyond unit training, increased numbers of women Reservists received
orders to formal technical and professional schools.  In 1971, four years
after the first Regular woman officer entered the midlevel Amphibious Warfare
School at Quantico, Major Patricia A. Hook and Captain Elizabeth D. Doize were
assigned to Phase I of the shortened Reserve version of that course. Major
Hook returned to Quantico the following summer to complete Phase II and became
the first woman Reserve officer to graduate from the Reserve Officers'
Amphibious Warfare Course.  In 1973, Lieutenant Colonel Patricia A. Meid and
Major Hook attended the special Reserve course offered by the Command and
Staff College, becoming the first women Reservists to do so.

     The most dramatic manifestation of a change in attitude and policy
resulting in broader and unusual opportunities for women Reservists was the
assignment of the military occupational specialty of air delivery to Private
Beth Ann Fraser.  Having joined the Reserve under the Special Enlistment
Program, her three-year contract provided for initial recruit training at
Parris Island followed by specialist training.  In Private Fraser's case, that
meant three weeks at the Army Airborne School ("jump school") at Fort Benning,
Georgia.

     She graduated with Platoon 9A, Woman Recruit Training Command, on 15
November 1976.  Even before her basic training began she had been preparing
herself for the physical rigors of jump school by running two miles several
days a week.  At Parris Island she performed extra physical training and
unlike the other women, she wore combat boots and utilities during the
required run.

     Private Fraser entered the Airborne School on 16 November where the
training included physical conditioning, practicing parachute landing falls,
tower jumps, and finally actual jumps from an airplane.  The chief instructor
at the airborne battalion, Master Sergeant D. W. Fischer, described Fraser as
". . . physically strong, a bit above average, with lots of esprit de corps."
Her platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Thomas Rowe, said of her, "We don't
often get women through here who are in such good physical shape or have her
'can do' attitude.  She is definitely representative of what I think a Marine
stands for."  Private Fraser attributed her success to the Marines of her home
unit of whom she said, "Those guys really helped.  They had me running,
pulling-up, sitting-up, the works."

     To demonstrate the Corps' pride in her accomplishment, Brigadier General
Jack M. Frisbie, commanding general of the 4th Force Service Support Group,
not only attended Private Fraser's graduation but also promoted her to private
first class.  Additionally, her former drill instructor from Parris Island,
Sergeant Kathy A. Potter, made a special trip to congratulate the first woman
Marine to graduate from Army Airborne School.

     Private First Class Fraser returned to her Reserve unit, the Beach and
Port Operations Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion, 4th Force Service
Support Group in San Jose, California, to serve the remainder of her contract.
Her MOS is an example of the type of rear echelon duty that can be performed
by women, delivering supplies by air.  Since she graduated, several women
Regulars have attended the same school.

     The cited examples, Major Humphrey, commanding officer of a truck
company; Private First Class Fraser, assigned to air delivery; and the number
of WMs serving in organized units along with male Marines, testify to a more
total integration of women into the Marine Corps Reserve and the recognition
of their potential value as a source of trained Marines in the event of war or
national emergency.