San Diego's women during World War II

“WOMEN DURING WAR: RESPONSES TO SITUATIONS IN SAN DIEGO, 1941-1945” — KIMBERLY A. HALL, MASTER’S THESIS, SDSU, 1993

When historians write about war, says Kimberly Hall, they usually write about battles, politicians, diplomats, “even military inventors and manufacturers.” When they write about women, they talk about generalized hardships or statistics. Hall, by contrast, uses oral history to take a personal look at 16 women’s experiences during World War II: the problems they' encountered, how they coped.

During WWII, San Diego faced the constant threat of Japanese attack. The city ordered air-raid drills and frequent blackouts and camouflaged the aircraft industries with netting and dummy trees on the rooftops and roads. Most likely targets: “the downtown and Pacific Highway areas.”

When word spread a Japanese submarine was spotted near Point Loma, or aircraft carriers reported off the coast, the threat intensified, but San Diegans lived daily amid signs of a potential invasion. People walked under camouflage netting, and women “were responsible for purchasing, producing, or mending blackout curtains and for having sand and water available in preparation for attack.”

A woman Hall interviewed, called “Jane Doe” to protect her privacy, described other reminders of war she knew of “ammunition set up on Shelter Island and an antisubmarine net across San Diego Bay,” plus “newly produced B-24 bombers flying test flights over her house every 30 minutes constantly reminded her of a possible attack.”

The war increased San Diego’s population by 162,000, which caused problems with housing, food-rationing, child-rearing, health-care availability, and transportation.

Some of the women Hall interviewed experienced few changes. One saved tin cans for the war effort, but that was all. Jane Doe, by contrast, consumed gas illegally “to take ski trips.” Harriet Daum thrived. The war enabled her, a recent high school graduate, to "get out of the house...and meet a variety of new people” doing volunteer service. “I had a lot more responsibility then,” she recalled.

Although the rationing system curtailed the availability of meat, sugar, butter, and coffee (one pound per person every five weeks), one of the most remembered shortages was shoes. You had to buy shoes with a coupon. Without one, you could get shoes with cardboard soles, which ruined once they became wet One woman recalled she “never took off [her children’s] shoes, regardless of their discomfort, for she knew if the shoes were lost she would be unable to replace them.”

“Shoes were the biggest problem,” a woman named Hales remembers. “People could go to Tijuana for shoes, but sometimes [the Border Patrol] took them away.”

Ruth Martin migrated from Lowell, Massachusetts, as a military wife. She couldn’t find an apartment to rent and lived in a converted hen coop, with only one room and no plumbing. The shack cost $200 a month. “It housed her family of five, including a toddler and two infants,” and she had to lie about her religion. “When they found out I was Catholic, they wanted to oust us.... They wouldn’t let me have yards for those children; they had to sit on stoops.”

That Martin’s husband was in the military also proved discriminatory. “Although the status of military men rose during the war, some civilians adhered to stereotypes and referred to them as ’white caps’ or ’tight pants.’ ”

San Diego became known as “the Port of Navy Wives.” The city viewed these women as a “nuisance” because they used up space needed for workers. An article in Collier’s magazine reported that “San Diego wishes heartily that they’d all go back to where they came from.... They sleep everywhere." Mary Brown, a native San Diegan, lived in a garage after her marriage in 1942. Other women slept in “hotel lobbies, parks, cars, and theaters.... The city failed to recognize their needs.” And “the negative attitude toward the women intensified the problems they had to overcome.”

MASTER'S THESIS EXCERPTS:

1. Only months before the United States entered the war, the San Diego Union published an article entitled "Four Babies Needed in Each Family " That number was needed, the Union argued, to maintain the population.
2. "...he came back — all of a sudden he had his ideas telling me how it was going to be.... It was devastating, we had a terrible time adjusting to each other.... He didn't want a working wife, particularly one that worked at the telephone company where he was going back to work, and by that time I'd become a supervisor. I didn't think that was fair."
3. Much propaganda influenced young women to date servicemen and soothe their loneliness or homesickness. Known as "Victory Girls," women who befriended military men were common in San Diego. The Union detailed instructions for women to abide when visiting servicemen in articles such as "If You're a Girl at Camp." Good Housekeeping published an article entitled "Nice Girls Go on Military Weekends".... The media also connected patriotism [in women] with presenting an attractive appearance.
4. Published by the city of San Francisco and approved by the San Diego Fire Department, "Bombs: What to do and When to do it: Information for the Householder" detailed the effects of bombs and informed the public how to deal with them. The document dictated to homemakers to have safe, clean equipment available at all times for protection from fire and chemicals.
5. A loud clap of thunder boomed through the sky one afternoon. Jane Doe recalls, "Everybody in the store, including me, looked [at each other] and thought, 'Hey! Is this it?' "