MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Many American women had moved from the homefront to full involvement at the warfront by January 1943 when the first WAAC unit landed in North Africa at the headquarters of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces, where its members served the combat troops fighting the Axis powers. These women, as Ruth Millet pointed out in her editorial of February 9, 1943, WAACs were not merely “playing soldier,” but were fully exposed to the dangers of war. Concerned about how the American public would react to women “in harm’s way”, the military made sure it presented positive images of women near war zones. Local newspapers printed photographs of military women in various war zones around the world such as Army nurse Alice Roth of Swedesboro, New Jersey, who was shown washing her clothes in a helmet while she served behind the lines south of Tunisia. Marguerite Carter of New York was photographed hanging her clothes on the line to dry and Rosella Myers of Roaring Springs, Pennsylvania, was photographed “rinsing her canteen at a ‘Lister’ bag-used for purifying water. These images demonstrated to Americans that military women were in relatively safe surroundings, even if this was not the reality. This paper examines the experiences of several women who served in the Women’s Army Corps and found themselves face to face with the enemy, and discusses ways in which the propaganda attempted to make them appear to be “playing soldier.”