GIRLS IN GREEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 230, 28 September 1943, Page 2

GIRLS IN GREEN

WE'RE HERE FROM U.S.

WAACS ARRIVE IN BRITAIN

LONDON. Passengers on the platform of a big northern railway junction recently were puzzled to hear the strains of "Yankee Doodle" excitedly relayed by English voices through the station loud-speaker. Almost immediately a long troop train drew into the station —a troop train of shouting, singing young women in olive green uniforms, peaked pill-box caps and real silk stockings. They were the Waacs, 650 of them, and America's largest expeditionary force of women yet sent to any theatre of operations. After the long sea trip, and 12 hours in the train they stepped on to the platform as fresh as though they had come straight from the tailor and the hairdresser. There were no creased skirts or dusty shoes. There were no tired eyes, drooping shoulders, or mussed hair. Colonel Harvey Holland, 26 years a soldier and Commandant of the Eighth Army Air Corps, to which the Waacs are assigned, told a Daily Mail reporter: "I have had thousands of troops through my hands, but none of them has ever arrived looking as fresh as these girls." To Release Their Menfolk With coat-hangers protruding from their haversacks, and some of them carrying typewriters, brief cases and hat boxes labelled "Saks of Fifth Avenue," the girls formed up in threes and marched two miles to their camp to the strains of "Colonel Bogey," played by the Eighth Army Air Corps band. Three Wellington bombers flew to welcome them, and dipped low over the sunlit fields to greet the column marching along the country lanes. The girls are here to release American soldiers for combatant service. They will act as plotters, telephonists, signallers, and clerks. Each unit of 50 is completely self administered, with its own cooks, drivers, and supply officers. They are young—the average age is '26. All have left good civilian jobs behind them; jobs as schoolteachers, X-ray technicians, cafeteria managers, dress designers, and Government •employees. The girls left America with other troops by night. They had no embarkation leave, their families did not know they had gone. Their only luggage was kitbag and haversack. Each Waac has brought a year's supply of soap—43 4oz tablets—fiat irons, matches and lighters.

Military Kit Only There are no civilian clothes in the kitbags, for uniform only is the rule. And lisle stockings must be worn on duty, the four pairs of flesh-coloured silk being kept for leave as they will not be replaced and must last for the duration. Among the 650 are several young war widows. Tall, grey-eyed, darkhaired Captain Pauline Abell is one. Her husband, a Regular Army officer, was killed at Pearl Harbour. So she joined the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, "so that I could get to England and release another man to fight in his place," she said. After ten clays' "acclimatisation" in camp the Waacs will be drafted in units of 50 to begin their work. And their first reaction to England was: "Gee, it's like a stage setup. No one ever told us it was so beautiful."

PERSONAL Mr. J. C. Fletcher leaves for Wellington to-night. Mr. G. C. W. Reid will leave for Wellington to-night. Mr. Roy M. Jackson, portrait photographer, of Auckland, has received advice from London of his election to a fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts, London. Mr. J. E. Allan, Auckland district secretary and deputy grand master for New Zealand of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, leaves to-night for Dunedin on business connected with the Order.