two great-aunts

[franksolich]

Family lore alleges that one of my great-aunts was the first woman commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy during the mid-1920s, but as I have no way of proving that, I let it pass.  Before 1928, she was in fact a captain, and so while one cannot allege she was the first, it appears probably she had been one of the first.

And her older sister (by two years), before 1928, was a major in the U.S. Army.

The two were the 12th and 14th children of my great-grandfather, a farmer and coal-miner in northeastern Pennsylvania circa 1880-1938.  It was the custom at the time that the older children in a large family went to work so as to bring the younger children up in the world, which is why younger halves of large families tended to be better educated and more prosperous than their older siblings.

While their older brothers and sisters labored in the coal mines, on the farms, and in the boarding-houses, the two youngest girls of the family were sent to, of all, places, the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania, to nursing school there.

I have no idea what inspired the older one to join the Army, or the younger one the Navy.

The boys in the family, with the exception of one remarkably-talented farmer and a great-uncle with a withered leg, all served in the Army, but this was either before the first world war (i.e., before 1917) or afterwards, during the 1920s, and so while they managed to see a great deal of the world, they were never in combat.

The two great-aunts however were a different story.

Very little of what I know came directly from them; I had maintained a close correspondence with the younger of the two (the one in the Navy) since grade school until college, but by the time I met her in person, after college, she was slipping rapidly into senility.  The older one (the one in the Army), I had met several times as a child, but of course myself being young, there were many questions I forgot to ask her, and she died about the time I began thinking of those things.

When I first starting writing the younger one, I had been cautioned by my parents that it was bad taste to inquire of her Naval experiences during the second world war, although I had no idea why.  I did, however, inquire from time to time, but while her letters to me ultimately filled a big box, full of reminescences of her family, growing up in northeastern Pennsylvania, and her life on an antebellum estate in North Carolina, she omitted anything about the second world war.

There was one half-sentence reference, one time, to the coldness of winter in Manchuria, but in those hundreds of letters (we were after all both prolific correspondents), that was the only suggestion that she had spent four years as a prisoner of the Japanese.

She joined the Navy, as a registered nurse, before her older sister joined the Army (also as a registered nurse), and from 1925 until 1941, remained based in American Samoa in the remote Pacific.  Most of the photographs I have of her, were taken during that time and place.

Months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American military sensing a threat, began withdrawing personnel from vulnerable places, and in July of 1941, my great-aunt ended up in Manila, the Philippines.

After which the family heard from her no more.

The bulk of American forces in the Philippines were of course withdrawn to Corregidor by Christmas Day 1941, but in the general panic and disorder and confusion, some were overlooked, stranded in the capital as the Japanese came in.

Including this great-aunt. 

There were a miscellany of Americans and other non-Philippinos captured in Manila, who were shipped to Hong Kong, which had recently fallen, joining other miscellany of Americans and other westerners, and half the then-Canadian Army, and a then-prominent American newspaper columnist.  The newspaper columnist was ultimately exchanged with the Japanese, but all others were abandoned to their fates, whatever their fates might be.

It appears that after being kept in Hong Kong for a while, the prisoners were gradually moved up along the coast of China, into Manchuria, and then over to Japan.

After which the curtain descends.

to be continued   

[franksolich]

From my mother, and aunts and uncles, I was told this great-aunt was liberated in Japan in late September 1945, some weeks after the war had ended, but before the existence of still-surviving western prisoners was known.  The last days of the war, about 200 of them had been kept in a cave, and discovery of them by inquisitive military authorities had been a random, by chance, thing.

None of them had been in any condition to advertise their presence; my great-aunt, for example, weighed 80 pounds when freed, and one reasonably assumes the conditions of others were scarcely better, as many of those found lived only a few days or weeks after liberation.

They were aware of these strange people, and saw the Stars-and-Stripes, but so insensate such sights meant nothing to them.  Kept for almost four years under Great Brutality and ignorance of what was going on, they actually believed that the United States of America, along with the mighty British Empire, had succumbed to victorious Japan, and so they themselves were as good as dead.

It was not until some days afterwards, when a GI orderly was changing something on my great-aunt in bed, mentioning that he was 19 years old and from Ohio, that my great-aunt finally grasped that these other people were Americans, and that she was going home.

In early 1946, she was sent to a military sanitarium, a "rest home," in Alabama.

She met a banker in Alabama, a middle-aged gentleman, a widower, and they soon thereafter married.  As both were middle-aged, there were no children.  After the banker retired, the couple moved to a large estate in North Carolina, where they lived some years, before he died.

A few years passed, and then my great-aunt suddenly felt the "need" to go "home," northeastern Pennsylvania.  Her older sister, the great-aunt who had been in the Army, was not doing well, and of course there was a great many family up there yet.

This happened a year or so before I met her in person, where I got confused about things.  She had moved back to the old family farm so as to take care of her older sister, but senility was showing, and her crippled older sister was actually taking care of things for her. 

[franksolich]

The older sister, the other great-aunt, the one in the Army, had only the usual and standard and customary experiences of those serving in the Army during the peaceful 1920s and 1930s, and the second world war, spent mostly in the Pacific, although it appears not at one particular place for too long of a time; just everywhere from Australia and New Zealand up to, ultimately, Japan.

In June 1950, she was in Seoul, South Korea.  This was 1950; she had been in the Army for more than 30 years by then, and because of "downsizing" of the then-military, was pretty much redundant, although she was still in the Army, and still an officer.

Along with other redundancies (surplus about-to-retire officers and other military), she was with the UNRRA (the United Nations Relief and Recovery Administration).

Well, we all know what happened in June 1950.

As the North Korean socialists overran the capital, she was in command of a train evacuating orphans and other refugees to the south.  Even though the train was clearly and repeated marked with the Red Cross, the North Koreans stopped it, and massacred all of the Korean inhabitants therein, shooting men, women, and children in cold messy blood.

(As an aside, one of the older brothers of this great-aunt told me bitterly about the disorder and confusion of the time and place, in which an Army general was supposed to be in charge of things; apparently the minute the North Koreans reached the city limits, he commandeered a very large airplane, with plenty of room for others, and rode in it, its sole passenger, all the way to Tokyo, where he was decorated by Douglas MacArthur for his "heroism".)

The non-Koreans, which consisted of my great-aunt and four U.S. Marines, were spared being shot, and instead packed into an ox-cart and moved north.

After which the curtain descends again.

In late 1953, some months after the armistice in Korea, my great-aunt was located and returned.  The North Korean socialists had broken her back so thoroughly that for the rest of her life, she resembled nothing more than an upright upside-down capital "L".

She returned to the family farm in northeastern Pennsylvania, to live with an older brother (the one such a good farmer that he had never joined the military), in utter seclusion and isolation.

Actually, it was not that bad of a deal; the family farm was located in the heart of a Pennsylvania state forest (the farm had existed before Pennsylvania made the woods surrounding it state property); trees, streams, ponds, meadows, all sorts of wild- and domestic animal life, big house, barns, lush gardens (there were three).

But she never left it, for twenty-five years, until she died.  Family of course visited her, and if there was a compelling reason for a priest, physician, banker, or attorney, they went to her, not she to them.

As a small child, I saw her much, this upright upside-down "L," feeding the birds and beasts, working the garden, pouring tea for guests.  She was bent, but apparently not utterly arthritic, and of all my great-aunts and great-uncles, she was the only one to die with a clear mind, uncorroded by senility.

She was of a special tranquil, serene religious nature, and prayed often, from an old Slovak prayer-book.  One time, when still a child, I asked her what she was praying for.

Thinking of the four Marines who had been on that ox-cart with her, she reminded me that one should always think of those whom only God remembers.

[FGL]

wow. there is really nothing one can say. That is SOME story, Frank.

[franksolich]

An excerpt of this cross-posted at

http://www.freerepublic.c...scor/2355619/posts?page=3

in case anyone's interested in further comments, if any gotten.

[GOBUCKS]

Great story, coach.

[IassaFTots]

Wow.  Great Story.  I feel it is such a shame that the stories we should listen are the ones we never hear.  Thousands of stories from my grandparents I never listened to, and I sure would love to have a re-do on that. 

[Bad Company]

Amazing story Frank.

[Thor]

After a twenty-three-year absence, women returned to general Navy service in early August 1942, when Mildred McAfee was sworn in as a Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander, the first female commissioned officer in U.S. Navy history, and the first Director of the WAVES, or "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service". In the decades since the last of the Yeomen (F) left active duty, only a relatively small corps of Navy Nurses represented their gender in the Naval service, and they had never had formal officer status.

http://www.history.navy.m...tpic/females/wave-ww2.htm

I realize that this doesn't go back to 1928, but it is all I could find at the moment.

[Thor]

Family lore is often that. I had been told for years that John Wayne was my cousin, albeit a distant one. A few years ago, I researched my side of the Morrison family tree. I found no direct connection with John Wayne.

[franksolich]

http://www.history.navy.m...tpic/females/wave-ww2.htm

I realize that this doesn't go back to 1928, but it is all I could find at the moment.

Yeah, if you ever do find anything, I'd appreciate the illumination.

There are references to the great-aunt as "commander" (no other word, just that one), but I always ignored that, not recognizing it as an official title like lieutenant or colonel or major or captain or something.

I recall a 60 Minutes segment during the very late 1970s, in which an 80-year-old-looking woman was interviewed, who had been an officer in the U.S. Navy during the 1930s, and coincidentally a registered nurse.

I dunno much military, and am wondering if all this "officership" among women was not quite parallel to officership among men; i.e., maybe a male officer could command women, but women couldn't command men.  Or something like that.

But even in her old age and utter senility, she was Navy, and wonder of wonders, monthly received a rather large pension from the Navy.

Any illumination would be useful.  The family was large, and sentimentalities and papers widely scattered.  I have a lot of stuff on long-dead relatives, but in her case, simply photographs, and of course the letters we exchanged when I was in grade- and high-school and the earlier part of college; nothing more than that.

[FGL]

Family lore is often that. I had been told for years that John Wayne was my cousin, albeit a distant one. A few years ago, I researched my side of the Morrison family tree. I found no direct connection with John Wayne.

for some reason its Loretta Lynn and Jesse & Frank James in my family. lol.

[Thor]

Frank, "Commander" is an official rank/ paygrade for the Navy. That would be an O-5.

Ensign= O-1
Lt(JG)= O-2
LT= O-3
LtCdr= O-4
Commander= O-5
Captain= O-6
Rear Admiral (Lower Half)= O-7
Rear Admiral(Upper Half)= 0-8
Vice Admiral= O-9
Admiral= O-10

I dunno much military, and am wondering if all this "officership" among women was not quite parallel to officership among men; i.e., maybe a male officer could command women, but women couldn't command men.  Or something like that.

What is true is that women couldn't be Unrestricted Line Officers for a long while (Eligible for Command At Sea). That provided a superiority complex for the men. In the late 70s, the Navy finally allowed women to be permanently assigned to Non-Combatant Ships. It wasn't until the 1980s that this slowly changed. I never saw any women assigned to the ships I was able to be deployed on until AFTER my tour on recruiting, even though I always had women in the squadrons I was in. In 1988, the first woman was selected for Command At Sea.

For more reading: http://www.onceawave.org/...nds.archive.0205/273.html

[franksolich]

This is all murky, and I'm appreciating everyone's attempting to clarify things; please keep it up, because I'd like to know.

I have the military serial number (U.S. Army) of the older of the two great-aunts, and once thought that was the "key" to getting into files of hers (she's been dead more than 30 years now).  It hasn't proven a "key" to a damned thing.

As for the younger of the two great-aunts, the one in the U.S. Navy, I have no military documentation, relying only on her own sporadic comments about her service in her letters to me when I was a lad; she was the one who referred to herself as having been a "commander," while the ancients (my other great-aunts and great-uncles) described her as having been a "captain."

That always threw me, because I was not aware that "commander" was an official rank; I thought it just described duties one did.  To be blunt, until I went to the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants with free medical care for all in the mid-1990s, I had never paid attention to military rankings.  (While I was over there, though, I had to learn, and learned, like, real quick.)  A colonel was an officer, a corporal was an officer, and as far as I knew, a lieutenant outranked a major, and so on and on and on.

You'd be surprised at what I don't know.

Anyway, besides the letters from forty years ago up until twenty years ago, there are the photographs of the naval great-aunt in American Samoa, where she was, apparently, from the mid-1920s until 1941, as a nurse.

These are not official military documents, these photographs, but on the backs of some of them, in someone's long-ago handwriting, the great-aunt is described as "captain."

Most of the photographs are of she herself alone, but there's three showing her with what were obviously high-ranking Navy officials in Samoa (I don't imagine, though, that any of them were famous, Samoa being kind of a backwater).  I'm guessing no admirals, but probably moderately-sized brass.

Now, why would she have been with all this brass if she hadn't been one of them?

Another clue would be that both great-aunts signed official papers (taxes and stuff) in their older ages with their names, and the appendage "U.S.A. (ret.)" or "U.S.N. (ret.)".  Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't only commissioned officers use such appendages?

[Thor]

No. I use the title I earned while USN because I'm allowed to do so. I don't use it often. It's considered proper for anybody that is retired from the military, on active duty or in the reserves. If there were some way to post the pictures, we could probably help a little more.