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WWII "Airborne" WAC


howardl
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post-8019-1344549384.jpgI recently acquired a uniform group belonging to an identified member of the Women's Army Corps who was assigned to the Airborne Training Command. She got out in 1946 and joined by one source in 1942 and by another in 1943. The curtain of her garrison cap is unusual in that it has an Parachute Infantry Patch sewn on it. Her coat is interesting to in that it is cut down and similar to an Ike jacket. I am interested in knowing if other collectors have seen similar items?

HOWARD LANHAM

(I have attached a photo of the cap)

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Very interesting cap. Were these patches authorized since she worked for the Airborne Training Command?

 

Congrats on a great cap! I would love to see more of her items. Have you posted them in the women's section?

 

....Kat

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Here is a photo of a hat like yours being worn.

 

I thinks I have the hat as well but have no idea where it is.

post-51189-1344563864.jpg

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Wow! So, when I went through jump school they told us that the first two females graduated from there in the late 1970's / early 1980's as chute riggers. This would seem to change all of that "official history". Any more details on their training or location during the war?

 

Very nice hat!

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They were worn by WAC Parachute Riggers at Fort Benning in WW II. These female parachute riggers were not airborne qualified but some, like Marie McMillin, who's photo is posted above were champion parachute jumpers in civilian life.

 

Here is a great article I found a few years back that explains their role.

 

They Wear Wings of Paratroopers

by Mary Chute, The Christian Science Monitor, January 20, 1945

 

Stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, are the only women in the world who wear the shoulder patch and wings of the American Army paratroopers. They are 140 members of the Women’s Army Corps detachment assigned to the Parachute School.

 

Half are parachute riggers and packers who hold at their fingertips the success of daring paratroopers in advanced training. Others work in a “special troops” section (motor pool, post office, mess hall) or in company management and supply.

 

Today the parachute WACs watch the news at the fighting front with a special sort of pride.

 

“Airborne troops land behind enemy lines,” they read.

 

“Look! That’s us,” they say.

 

One woman in the company feels very much at home wearing wings and has firsthand knowledge of the importance of her job as a rigger. She is Private Marie McMillin, 3516 34th Street, New York, champion parachute jumper. Private McMillin in civilian life set the women’s international altitude record of 24,800 feet. She made 3996 jumps, one from one plane to another at 2,000 feet. At one time a member of the Curtis Wright Flying Circus, this member of the paratroop WACs is the youthful, dark-haired mother of two sons in service, First Lieut. H. W. McMillin, Hunter Field, Savannah, Ga., and Seaman First Class R.B. McMillin of the Merchant Marine. “Grounded” by the war, she is happy to let the men do the jumping these days while she serves as a section leader in the parachute riggers’ division at Fort Benning.

 

To become a rigger and packer, Private McMillin and her co-workers attended the riggers’ school at the post, from which the last six women were graduated October 1. In the five-week course they learn how to dry the chutes, inspect them, run the harness machines, and roll and pack their precious 35-pound bundles. They graduate to the exacting work of the light maintenance department or the packing department. Here the WACs assist soldiers working on the green mottled (camouflage) nylon chutes, or white silk chutes, used by men in training jumps, also with the larger “tower” chutes, and gaily colored red, blue, or yellow cotton supply chutes.

 

These women can stow a suspension webbing, sew a fine seam for a “zig-zag stitch” that attaches lines to the canopy, or roll an aerial delivery container with weapons including a light machine gun for a squad. The work is hard and the responsibility great, but the WACs love it.

 

Most of the group of 60 serving as riggers and packers enlisted for that special assignment. They took basic training together, studied together in the riggers’ school, and now work side by side. Still together in the company are three sets of sisters, Privates Mattie Lee and Rachel Turner, Dorothy and Mildred Bullard, and Edna Stone and Mary Powers. Many joined from the South with a chance to serve at Fort Benning, “not too far from home.” Almost half of the women are from Georgia, Alabama, North or South Carolina. Some joined because of brothers or sweethearts in the parachute troops. Others because, “. . . Well, I don’t know. I just always liked paratroopers.” One WAC who was not quite sure why she picked the outfit is no longer uncertain. She was Private Willie Boswell when she came to Fort Benning. Now she is Private Willie Purdy, married to Technician Fifth Class Benjamin V. Purdy, paratrooper. She “married the teacher,” having met him as her section chief in riggers’ school.

 

Company life among the parachute school WACs is very much “G.I.,” with its inspections, orientation classes, drill, KP, and bed check at midnight, but the WACs’ social life has all the scope of the city-like Fort Benning. They are happy WACs . . . proud of their unique insignia with the “R” on their silver parachute wings . . .proud of their barracks overlooking an army airfield, where planes take off and land practically in their front yard . . . proud of the company mess hall with venetian blinds. The mascot of the company is a baby squirrel, who has to be hidden in the boiler room during inspections, but who is a parachute jumper in his own right, having made the leap in the pocket of a paratrooper!

 

The men whose fame the company of WACs share are a sturdy lot, strong, confident, but not the least daring, according to their own description.

 

“The last place for a dare-devil is in our outfit,” any paratrooper will protest. Yet the reputation lingers, that they are “tough . . . and wonderful!”

 

In training at Fort Benning, at the largest parachute school of its kind in the world, the paratroopers pass the A, B, C, and D stages in four weeks. A is the physical training period, which is “plenty rugged,” as the G.I. would put it. During the B period trainees jump from a 34-foot “mark up tower,” learning how to jump and land, with a score marked up on the performance. In the C stage come the 250-foot towers, first the “buddy seats” to “get the feel of it” then raised under umbrella-like frames and released, with the parachute flowering out overhead. In the last week the paratrooper makes five jumps from airplanes, four in daylight, one at night. (When a training parachutist tells you with a serious look in his eyes that he “is going over tomorrow,” he does not mean AWOL, or even overseas. He means his first jump.) At the end of the training he earns his wings and his furlough. He’s a paratrooper.

 

Fort Benning, near Columbus, Ga., is one of the nation’s largest infantry training centers, and is the home of the famed Infantry School. Among the thousands stationed there are men attending Officer Candidate School, and advanced training schools. There are shoulder patches of the Army air forces, Army ground forces, and Army service forces, designating troops of the Infantry School, 71st Division, Second Army, Lawson Field, Fourth Service Command, and others, mixed with the insignia of the parachutists. There is even K-9 dog training and pigeon training!

 

The post rambles over 220,000 acres of Georgia hills.

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Wow! So, when I went through jump school they told us that the first two females graduated from there in the late 1970's / early 1980's as chute riggers. This would seem to change all of that "official history". Any more details on their training or location during the war?

 

Very nice hat!

 

Women did not go to Jump school tell the 70s as stated in a few differant articals about WWII Female riggers as stated in the above post by ehrentile were not jump qualified, W for Whiskey's did start in the 70s, 1973 I believe is when the first ones went.

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Wow! So, when I went through jump school they told us that the first two females graduated from there in the late 1970's / early 1980's as chute riggers. This would seem to change all of that "official history". Any more details on their training or location during the war?

 

Very nice hat!

 

Nope, no change to official history. WAC parachute riggers in WWII did not attend Airborne School and were not required to jump. Marie McMillin and a few others had been sports parachutist in civilian life. The first two females who officially qualified for the Parachutist Badge graduated together from airborne school on 14 Dec 1973. They attended rigger training at Fort Lee earning the Parachute Rigger wings on 1 April 1974 and then were assigned to Fort Bragg as riggers.

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Here is a photo of WAC Parachute Riggers packing parachutes at Fort Benning during WWII:

 

7750694944_0d1b4450da_o.jpg

 

And here is a photo of one of the first female soldiers going though Airborne School in the 1970s:

 

7750707042_fa2c648368.jpg

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And here is a rare 1944 photo from the library archives of Georgia State College showing McMillin wearing the Parachute Badge with an applied "R". Although they were not airborne qualified, WWII WAC Riggers at Benning were allowed to wear the Parachute Badge with an "R" to designate them as Riggers:

 

7750755082_f144d41479_o.jpg

 

Another article on McMillin from the University of Iowa Library Archives:

 

http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm4/item_vie...BOX=1&REC=4

 

Marines Mother WAC Parachutist Mrs Marie McMillin of St. Joan of Arc parish, Jackson Heights, N. Y., lives up to the deeds of her parish's patron. A widow and mother of two sons in the armed service, she holds the world's altitude parachute jumping record for women. Now she has enlisted in the Women's Army Corps, taking basic training at the Third WAC Training Center at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. Mrs McMillin set her record at the International Air Races in Cleveland in 1932, jumping 24,800 feet. For the last 13 years she has been making parachute jumps at public events, having 396 jumps to her credit. She also has a private pilot's license, which she received in 1932. One of her sons is with a parachute battalion of the Marines and another is training to become a bombardier. Mrs McMillin is an active member of the Auxiliary of the Brooklyn Diocesan Convert Apostolate.

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And here is a rare 1944 photo from the library archives of Georgia State College showing McMillin wearing the Parachute Badge with an applied "R". Although they were not airborne qualified, WWII WAC Riggers at Benning were allowed to wear the Parachute Badge with an "R" to designate them as Riggers:

 

7750755082_f144d41479_o.jpg

 

http://lenny1.gsu.edu/cdm/singleitem/colle...ajc/id/52/rec/9

 

 

Those Jump wings McMillian wears, where did she get them ? is this a the badge with an R on them, surely she was not arbitrarily awarded a Parachute Badge because she made parachute jumps as a civilian.

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Those Jump wings McMillian wears, where did she get them ? is this a the badge with an R on them, surely she was not arbitrarily awarded a Parachute Badge because she made parachute jumps as a civilian.

 

McMillin was a media darling at the time because of her civilian sports parachute experience and world record jump, but that's not why she is wearing the Parachute Badge with the applied "R". WWII WAC Parachute Riggers took a 5 week course to learn how to pack, repair and inspect parachutes. I believe that upon completion of the course, at least at Benning, WAC Riggers were awarded the parachute badge with the applied "R" ONLY to signify their qualification as a parachute rigger. But they did not jump and were not considered qualified parachutists by the Army. One article I have says they went up in an Army transport plane and watched men jump with the parachutes they had packed.

 

Around 1,500 parachutes were packed at Benning every week to meet the demands of the Parachute School. WAC Women were employed as parachute riggers at Benning to free up men to do other jobs.

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McMillin was a media darling at the time because of her civilian sports parachute experience and world record jump, but that's not why she is wearing the Parachute Badge with the applied "R". WWII WAC Parachute Riggers took a 5 week course to learn how to pack, repair and inspect parachutes. I believe that upon completion of the course, at least at Benning, WAC Riggers were awarded the parachute badge with the applied "R" ONLY to signify their qualification as a parachute rigger. But they did not jump and were not considered qualified parachutists by the Army. One article I have says they went up in an Army transport plane and watched men jump with the parachutes they had packed.

 

Around 1,500 parachutes were packed at Benning every week to meet the demands of the Parachute School. WAC Women were employed as parachute riggers at Benning to free up men to do other jobs.

 

Thank you for thorough reply.

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No problem. One more period article before I call it a night. From the Geneva, New York Daily Times 1944, it's the same US Army released photo as above, however the parachute badge is identified as "Expert Rigger Wings".

 

7751004826_c1ecd9f287_b.jpg

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Ok, I found one more article on McMillin from 1947 that proves that the Army didn't train WAC Riggers to jump or consider them qualified parachutists. She claims to have stowed away on an Army plane to make an unauthorized jump:

 

7751058834_66aa76b07e_o.jpg

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OK, as I look closer at the picture, it does look like a device is attached as stated. Just that upon seeing the wings, one would think they were awarded under the same provisions as stated in the regulations: Went through the school (usually 5 jumps..but varies due to weather sometimes), or 1 combat jump (which is impossible in this case). Learn something new every day! Anyone got a set of the "R" wings they can post in the wings forum?

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OK, as I look closer at the picture, it does look like a device is attached as stated. Just that upon seeing the wings, one would think they were awarded under the same provisions as stated in the regulations: Went through the school (usually 5 jumps..but varies due to weather sometimes), or 1 combat jump (which is impossible in this case). Learn something new every day! Anyone got a set of the "R" wings they can post in the wings forum?

 

Well even today not everything is done in accordance to Army regulation. I suspect it was a local policy to award the parachute badge with an "R" at Fort Benning. I have another article somewhere that relates a talk that McMillin had with a group of paratroopers who laughted at her when she said she was parachute qualified. She went on to describe her exensive civilian experience as a sports parachute jumper. So I don't think there was any question back then that the parachute wing with the "R" stood for Parachute Rigger and not airborne qualified.

 

If you do a forum search there are several previous threads on the parachute badge with the applied "R'. However this badge has been heavily faked for decades so copies abound. Collectors who own original badges generally don't like to post them for fear they will help the fakers make more accurate copies.

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I was very pleased to get all the information. Here is the jacket that when with the original cap that I started with.

HOWARD LANHAM

 

That's a very nice uniform Dr. Lanham, is it named to anyone? Kevin

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Small nit: One of the first two female jump school graduates was a RESERVIST, Spec Dina Laue, from Hq Co, 11th SF Gp at Ft Meade MD. Further, though she may have done the rigger course, she did not stay a rigger. A year or so later, she was in the Gp S-3 shop as IIRC an Air Ops planner and maybe a SGT. She was IIRC an experienced skydiver.

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Well even today not everything is done in accordance to Army regulation. I suspect it was a local policy to award the parachute badge with an "R" at Fort Benning. I have another article somewhere that relates a talk that McMillin had with a group of paratroopers who laughted at her when she said she was parachute qualified. She went on to describe her exensive civilian experience as a sports parachute jumper. So I don't think there was any question back then that the parachute wing with the "R" stood for Parachute Rigger and not airborne qualified.

 

If you do a forum search there are several previous threads on the parachute badge with the applied "R'. However this badge has been heavily faked for decades so copies abound. Collectors who own original badges generally don't like to post them for fear they will help the fakers make more accurate copies.

 

;) I know how local regs work and that folks during this period had a lot of say in authorizing things (and thats great because it makes collecting WWII that much more interesting). Today, individual skill badges are controlled at DA level (AR-670-1). Commanders can authorize certain uniform items, but not an individual skill badge like that.

 

Good point about posting pics of originals, sad that it gets to that point, but it is what it is. I'll search the wings forum and see if there are any pictures.

Thanks! Learn something new every day.

 

-Still an excellent uniform!

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Small nit: One of the first two female jump school graduates was a RESERVIST, Spec Dina Laue, from Hq Co, 11th SF Gp at Ft Meade MD. Further, though she may have done the rigger course, she did not stay a rigger. A year or so later, she was in the Gp S-3 shop as IIRC an Air Ops planner and maybe a SGT. She was IIRC an experienced skydiver.

 

That's incorrect, she may have been the first US Army Reserve female to graduate from Airborne School, but she was not one of first two. They were Privates Joyce Kooch and Rita Johnson.

 

See this CBS News broadcast video clip summary:

http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=226646

 

See also this inspring video from Ft. Benning where the Airborne School conducted an all female jump last Fall to commemorate these first two female paratroopers:

 

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Many thanks for the information, including that regarding the more modern jump qualified women soldiers. With respect to wearing the old parachute infantry cap patch to indicate the wearer being a rigger, were male riggers also doing that as well? I assume that not all of the riggers were female. Would there have been any kind of formal orders authorizing this or just an unofficial local practice?

HOWARD LANHAM

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