It's Your War Too

Kids were still saying this when I was a child. This confused me no end, because my mother was in the Navy -- a WAVE assigned to Indianapolis, either in recruiting, procurement or possibly to guard the city in case the Canadians took the opportunity to seek revenge for the War of 1812. The picture my father kept of her in his office was always of her in her navy uniform. Still, I'm sure that WACs were helpful.

Still, there was a lot of resistance to women in uniform back then and bits of it still linger. This picture makes the point early on that they could still wear make-up and keep their nice hair-dos. Earlier, a couple of men in their fifties sneer at women in uniform. All that is washed away in the manner in which women were serving in non-combatant roles, and movie ends with a promise that women will serve in Germany and Tokyo after our soldiers take those, and General Marshall promises that the women of the armed forces will march in the victory parades after the war.

Although films like these concern themselves with the matters of the moments, the speed with which they are produced give a perfect image of the moment -- not just the message that they mean to offer, but the attitudes of that moment. It gives a fine image of a time of transition that seemed to vanish in the 1950s, only to reappear in the 1960s and later.

Nice little War Department short from 1944 trying to encourage women to join the military, and get men to appreciate women's contribution to the war effort. Women could quite readily do many noncombat jobs held by men, thus freeing them to grab a gun and shoot at their enemy of choice.

All sorts of jobs, from mechanics, equipment testing, giving eye tests, and air traffic controllers, among others, were being given to women to free up combat soldiers.

This was mainly meant for women, as it spent time combating rumors that women could not do their hair the way they wanted, wear makeup, or wear nylons in the military. Since women have never been subject to the draft in the U.S., some PR was obviously necessary, and patriotism to the country was a big club used here. General Marshall made a short sales pitch here as well.

At just nine and a half minutes, this short goes by without boring you too badly. This was made by The Signal Corps, and they were pretty good at the technical aspects of filming, but creativity wasn't always their best thing. I would say this was one of their better efforts.