Books

New Book Includes Women in World War II U.S. Military History

Reviewed by Rochelle G. Saidel, PhD

An image of a woman in military uniform on the cover of True to My God and Country: How Jewish Americans Fought in World War II attracted me to Françoise Ouzan’s history of the subject. Although the vast majority of some 500,000 Jewish military personnel were men, Ouzan includes information about a sampling of the 10,000 Jewish women who enlisted in the WACs (Women’s Army Corps), part of the military, and the WASPs (Women Air Force Service Pilots), whose military service was only recognized in 1977. She also mentions Jewish women in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) and SPARS, an arm of the U.S. Coast Guard. She gives these brave pioneering nurses, ferry pilots, and other women their place in history, integrating their stories into the larger one that she documents about Jewish American military personnel during the war. Covering antisemitism, religious observances, camaraderie, gender issues, and interactions with local Jewish communities in North Africa and elsewhere, the first-hand information in Ouzan’s book helps readers understand the accomplishments and struggles of these women and men during the war. The book was published by Indiana University Press ( Feb. 2024).

While this is not a book specifically about Jewish women in the U. S. military, it weaves their stories into the narrative of Jews in combat. One chapter, entitled “Heroines Took to the Skies,” focuses on the Jewish WASP pilots and WAC flying evacuation nurses. Women are also mentioned throughout some of the other chapters. The WACs, the Women’s Army Corps, included nurses, mainly flight nurses for evacuation of wounded servicemen: Lillian Krell, Yetta Moskowitz, Beatrice Memler, Anita Gold, Gertrude Shapiro, Jeanne Zamaloff, Belle Goldman, and Belle G. Naimer in the Pacific theater, as well as Frances Slanger and Ruth Karsevar in the European theater. These Jewish WACs, each with her unique story and contribution to the war effort, were considered military personnel. One Jewish woman mentioned, Miranda Bloch, was a mechanic in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve.

Unlike the WACs, WASPs, Women Air Force Service Pilots, were not considered part of the military. These female pilots, including Selma Kantor Cronan, Elizabeth Haas Pfister, and Bernice Falk Haydu, whose stories are told, trained in Sweetwater, Texas. They performed the important service of ferrying planes across the country so that male pilots could be in combat. They didn’t receive GI benefits after the war and their service was not officially recognized until more than thirty years later.

Jewish women were also in the WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, mostly performing secretarial and clerical duties, as well as SPARS, Semper Paratus-Always Ready, an arm of the U.S. Coast Guard. While the book mentions these two categories, the focus on individual stories is for the WACs and WASPs. In contrast to today, when women are serving in all branches of the military and doing the same jobs as men, this book looks back to a time when the U. S. military was patriarchal and gender segregated. Nevertheless, as this well-documented book demonstrates, Jewish women made an important contribution to the war effort.

Author Dr. Françoise S. Ouzan, a Senior Research Associate at the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University, has authored seven books and co-edited four volumes in French and in English.