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In the process, certain strong convictions about women were shattered. The Appendix to Captain Hancock's book lists 44 ratings held by enlisted WAVES. A single one of those ratings that of seaman, involved women in 44 billets. In the 102 billets filled by women officers the author lists aviation, civil engineering, communications, supply corps, intelligence, legal, medical, general line, dental, engineering, and electronics. This record suggests that women showed a versatility not always associated with them. They accepted responsibility in a way which commended them to commanding officers as worthy replacements for men "released to fight at sea."

One of the difficulties encountered in the first months of WAVE history was the literal interpretation of congressional instructions to admit women only as replacements for men. I suspect this was part of the difficulty in supplying the Bureau of Aeronautics with the large numbers of women requested by them. It certainly restrained the Bureau of Naval Personnel from increasing the number of WAVES drastically until the law was finally interpreted to permit women to be assigned directly to new billets, created by the need for vast expansion of the Navy.

Every historian sees events from his own perspective and Joy Hancock's point of reference has long been the Bureau of Aeronautics. She knew it long before the war began. She suffered with its ranking officers because legislation admitting women was so long delayed. She looked across at the Bureau of Naval Personnel, charged with recruiting and training both men and women, and saw it moving with glacial slowness to accomplish what the Bureau of Aeronautics had wanted for months.

To unindoctrinated newcomers in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, however, things sometimes seemed to move at break-neck speed. Anyone familiar with the pace of the academic world must have marveled that in less than one month after legislation authorized the admission of women, the Navy had a Reserve Midshipman's School ready for business with a class ready to enter. Three specialist schools for enlisted women were ready to admit classes in little more than two months. Within six months, one whole campus of Hunter College had been preempted and adapted to the needs of a recruit training school. Aviation training schools moved fast to admit women. At the end of the first year 27,000 women were on duty. The Navy taught its newcomers that it is an impressively adaptable organization.

This book is the story of a wartime adaptation of major proportions; the invasion of a man's world by thousands of women invited to invade. The story is told by an active participant in that adaptation an officer who served "above and beyond the call of duty," devoted both to the Navy and to the women whose capacity she never doubted. 

As an autobiography it is fascinating. Captain Hancock tells of her childhood, her trips to many parts of the world, on an off the beaten track. She describes encounters with famous men and women and the anonymous enlisted women at barracks meetings. She reports dramatic moments when she christened ships, took reviews, received honors of many kinds, and experienced the satisfaction of achievement.

This is a memorable story, told by a woman memorable in naval history.

Mildred McAfee HORTON
Captain, U.S. Naval Reserve