The U.S. Navy’s basic requirements for female officers were a college degree or two years of college plus two years of work. Regular enlisted women, who made up the bulk of WAVES recruits, could get by with a high school degree. This opened up opportunity to women who had not had the advantage of college. Once again, more women than expected answered the call: While naval officials had anticipated there might be ten thousand WAVES in total, by the time all was said and done, more than one hundred thousand women would serve. Women joined up for all sorts of reasons—because they didn’t have any
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