War Department News Release
S-2794
1943
Marie Ramona Espinosa, an American girl of Spanish
descent, "deems it a privilege to be a woman in a man's Navy." Now in uniform
as a recruitment officer in the WAVES — Women Appointed to Voluntary Emergency
Service — her entrance into the armed forces of the United Nations is perhaps
typical of the experiences of thousands of other American women.
Miss Espinosa, formerly employed in the U.S. Office
of Strategic Services at Washington, D.C., joined because she felt she
could be of more direct wartime service, the same factor that has caused
many other women to enroll.
Has Traveled Widely
Daughter of a Spanish-born U.S. Justice Department
official, Miss Espinosa has traveled a great deal abroad as well as in
the United States and came into contact with many different peoples. This
experience, she felt, qualified her for recruiting duties.
Miss Espinosa received most of her secondary education
in New York City, where she attended the Convent of St. Saviour and the
Academy of St. Francis Xavier. She entered George Washington University
in Washington, D. C., in 1940 and left after two years to work for the
Office of Strategic Services. At the university she studied public speaking
and during summer vacations appeared in dramatic presentations.
This background she outlined to recruiting officers
in a "fitness" interview which took place after she had appeared at the
WAVES recruiting office and signed an application for enlistment. The interview
brought out the fact that she speaks Spanish and French fluently. She ranked
high in an aptitude test given to all candidates. All these factors made
her well fitted for service, if she could pass the exacting physical tests.
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Applying at the recruiting office in Washington,
D.C., Miss Maria Ramona Espinosa signs her application for the WAVES (Women's
Naval Reserve) and immediately starts concentrating on the aptitude test.
(Collection Shelby Stanton) |
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| All WAVE applicants must pass exacting physical
tests. Here Miss Espinosa is being examined by a Navy doctor, Lieutenant
Stanley L. Edmunds, who finds her up to standard. (Collection Shelby Stanton) |
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Found up to standard by an examining Navy doctor,
she was fingerprinted — for Navy records — and then was ready to be inducted.
The oath was administered by a WAVE officer.
.
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Having passed all tests, Miss Espinosa becomes
a member of the WAVES as she takes the service oath. (Collection Shelby
Stanton) |
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Sent To Training Station
Miss Espinosa was sent to the Naval Training Station
at Hunter College, New York City, for a four-week period of indoctrination
and specialized training in recruiting. Between classes she visited
a battleship, cruiser and patrol torpedo boat, and inspected an airfield.
Undergoing intensive training preparatory
to assuming their duties as members of the Women’s Naval Reserve, these
young women respond with alacrity to their drill commands at the Naval
Training Station at Hunter College, New York City, where Miss Espinosa
was sent for indoctrination training. She is at left in the front
rank.
(Collection Shelby Stanton) |
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"The idea was to get a good picture of the Navy
so we would know what we were talking about," she said. Assigned to the
recruiting office where she had enlisted, Miss Espinosa, 20 years old,
lives with her mother and four sisters in their Washington home.
Their father is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as chief of the investigating
section of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization in the Department
of Justice.
Miss Espinosa admits she was a bit lonely the
first few days of her Navy career. "But I met so many different people
with so many different interests at the Naval Training Station that quickly
felt right at home," she said.
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The transformation from civilian life completed,
Miss Espinosa leaves the Naval Training School for active duty with the
WAVES.
(Collection Shelby Stanton) |
Many Opportunities Open
A career in the WAVES offers many opportunities
to young women. There are special fields in which they can make use
of previous training as chemical engineers, architects, astronomers, cartographers,
accountants, meteorologists, librarians, teachers, saleswomen, stenographers,
radio operators, lawyers and metallurgists; those familiar with the fields
of finance, transportation business, administration /may continue in those
activities in the Navy.
Jobs to which women may be assigned in the Navy
include telephone and telegraph operation, map-reading, clerical and stenographic
work, message center duties and photographic and testing laboratory detail.
All such positions filled by WAVES result in releasing men for service
at sea.
Young women without special training, on joining
the WAVES, are trained to do a job and thus help, along with the specialists,
to bring victory.
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