Viewing page 41 of 124

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

a list of "incomplete WAAC companies" which included about 50 for which only the cadre (about 12 women to run the WAAC company itself) had been supplied. The command pointed out that maintaining separate companies when they were so small was uneconomical, said that Waacs were badly needed, and asked to have the companies "brought up to strength."

Cumbersome System

Although the exact manning tables were an improvement over the tables of organization in that they allowed each base to ask for the type and number of personnel actually needed, both systems were cumbersome. The earlier system had provided "weather sections" for every WAAC post headquarters company, and sooner were a few companies assigned to the field than letters began arriving at AAF Headquarters stating that two companies had been assigned to one base, and obviously only one "weather section" was needed; or saying that, since Waacs and their grades were under the direct control of a command, whereas male weather personnel occupied grades controlled by AAF's Weather Wing, the command had decided to use its weather Waacs for some other job for which the command had to provide the personnel and grades! The radio operators and mechanics provided for all post headquarters companies were also needed at some bases, and superfluous at others. While Army Airways Communications System, an independent AAF activity, was in genuine need of hundreds of radio operators, WAAC radio operators were in some cases

-38-