Wave stories

By Mary Alice Carhart

This story originally appeared August 27, 1960 in The Ledger-Star of Norfolk, Virginia.

World War II ended 15 years ago this month and thousands of women as well as men left military service to return to civilian life. Ever wonder whatever happened to them?

Many married servicemen they had met during the war and became homemakers, while others adopted temporary or permenent careers.

Three interviewed by Mary Alice Carhart revealed their military training was "no bed of roses" and their social life "not as great as everyoen thought."

Instead Mrs. Herman J Kossler, the former Ursula Breher; Mrs. Anthony Dombroski, nee Ellen McSweeney, and Bess Whitworth reported they joined out of deference to their country.

Read their tales of concentrated course study and grueling calisthenics below.

She felt family should be represented

By Mary Alice Carhart

"In the Waves, we marched to everything but to the bathroom," said Mrs. Anthony Dombrowski, a former Wave officer during World War II.

Now the wife of a lieutenant commander at Little Creek Amphibious Base, the Summerville, Mass., native is typical of thousands of women who left military service after the war to return to civilian life.

Mrs. Dombrowski taught physical education in high school before entering the Naval Reserve Midshipmen School for Women at Smith College in April 1943.

"I know people laugh when I say this but I had no brothers or sisters and I felt our family should be represented in the service," reported the mother of six.

"But don't ask me why the Waves instead of the Wacs."

"We had very intensive training at the school. It was no bed of roses. We were seaman apprentices and after four and one-half weeks we became midshipmen. After completion of the course we were ensigns."

The future Wave officers arrived at Smith with long page boy hairdos which were soon shortened to collar length.

They were indoctrinated in platoon marching the same day they arrived and also underwent physicals and uniform fitting.

Daily classes consisted of naval history, personnel and organization, ships and aircraft.

Even mock court martials were witnessed distinguishing fine points of naval law from those of civil law.

"Exams were given every week and if you didn't pass them, you couldn't go off campus that weekend," explained Mrs. Dombrowski.

Gymnastics, termed tortuous, probably caused many a female to long for her former and softer civilian job.

Food was sumptuous with a noted hotel chain as caterer but even so was eaten from aluminum, not china.

"As I was the shortest of my platoon I was always the last in line and had to eat in 20 minutes," Mrs. Dombrowski related.

Many did not successfully complete the rigorous nine week school at Northampton, Mass., as did Ens. Ellen McSweeney. The ones who did however were sent to naval shore establishments to replace men sent overseas.

"Plenty of girls became grease monkeys, parachute riggers, machinist's mates and tower control operators, said Mrs. Dombrowski who went to Corpus Christi, Tex., for additional training.

From there, she was sent to her first and only duty station, Dallas Naval Air Station, where she worked primary flight training.

One flight student she worked with there was movie star Robert Taylor whom she described as "one of the most wonderful, unassuming persons I've ever known."

It was at the mess hall in Dallas that Ellen met Anthony Dombrowski, whom she married six months after getting out of the service.

"I said goodbye to one career and started a new one," she winked, gazing at her six offspring, ranging in age from three to 12.

Stationed here, she stayed

Miss Bess Whitworth, head librarian of Norfolk-Portsmouth Newspapers Inc., is a graduate of the first Wave enlisted school. She later however transferred to the Spars (women in the Coast Guard).

Born in Richmond, she attended Richmond Professional Institute and worked in that city's social service bureau before entering the Wave school at Oklahoma A&M College in Sept. 1942.

The former Wave yeoman switched to the Spars shortly after finishing the enlisted school and was one of the first Spars to be placed in the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. There she was special assistant to the Commandant of the Coast Guard.

After being promoted to Spar yeoman first class, she gained the opportunity to attend the Coast Guard Academy Officers Training School for Women.

Ens. Whitworth was then sent to Norfolk as assistant director of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

"We had some real interesting people in our officers' class - even a dean of women from a college.

"And we had to stand watches at midnight at both schools.

"In Washington we lived in a hotel and later at American University.

"Many movie stars came there to do shows. I saw Cesar Romero, Victor Mature (both Coast Guard recruits at the time) and Madeline Carroll."

And Miss Whitworth was drafted for a movie role herself, this one being about the Spars.

"When I left the Coast Guard in 1945, I was offered a job at the paper."

Starting as a combination librarian and secretary to the Ledger-Dispatch managing editor, she later became head librarian, discontinuing the secretarial duties.

Residing on W 51st St., she made her first trip to Europe in the fall of 1958 which she hopes "was not the last."

No sidelines stand for her

"It was wartime. Everybody was getting into the middle of things and I didn't want to stand on the sidelines," explained Mrs. Herman J. Kossler of her decision to join the Waves.

The former Ursula Breher of Martin, N.D., she is another Smith College officer graduate with six children.

So enthused was she over her World War II experiences she was seriously thinking of becoming a Navy regular before hre marriage to Capt. Kossler, just recently selected for admiral.

An alumna of St. Cloud, Minn., Teachers College, she enrolled at Smith in the fall of 1943.

"I had considered joining the Red Cross, but I wasn't old enough to go into the part of it I wanted to," said the attractive brunette.

She remembers the officers' school as a stiff one where "everyone really worked."

One incident she still recalls was "being campused because my hair was too long at inspection time." This she blamed on her "very low hairline."

A three-month communication school at Mount Holyoke College followed graduation from Smith.

After this, came Seattle, Wash.; Tillamook, Ore., and then the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Getting out of the Waves in 1946 as a lieutenant junior grade, she took a civil service job in Washington and enrolled in the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.

It would have been either the regular Navy or the Foreign Service she claims if she had not met her Naval Academy-graduate husband.

Now residing in Poplar Halls, the Kosslers have one son and five daughters.

And Mrs. Kossler would advocate a Wave career for her daughters.

"I think it is a very good career for a girl on either the enlisted or officer level," she concluded.