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its male personnel, provided the appropriate theatre commander concurred and provided there were other Wacs or nurses stationed at the base in question. This ruling, which made it possible for ATC to send its own Wacs overseas to its own stations, opened the way for the ATC recruiting campaign under which ATC in effect promised recruits a chance for overseas assignments. (2) Army Airways Communications System, in great need of good radio operators, control tower operators, and clerical personnel, asked for and received a quota for 1450 Wacs in November; and on 13 December the Weather Wing, in equal need of weather observers and forecasters, received a quota for 500 Wacs. (3)

On 7 December 1943 the first Wacs were imported into Washington for duty in AAF Headquarters, when 20 arrived to act as messengers to carry secret and confidential papers between the headquarters offices. The group, first to be brought into Washington by AAF under the War Department ruling that Wacs might be used in the Military District of Washington


2. Cf. p. 60.

3. The reception of Wacs into these two commands resulted in a new problem in WAC administration, since AACS and Weather Wing personnel was scattered by two's and three's around the country and was not organized into large units. The problem was solved by sending AACS and Weather Wing Wacs to work only at bases which had WAC units assigned to the bases, and by attaching AACS and Weather Wing Wacs to the WAC squadron for all administrative purposes. Cooperation between WAC staff directors of the AACS and Weather Wing and of the other commands, and between AACS and Weather Wing detachment commanders and WAC squadron commanders, worked out most actual problems in the field.

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