Jack and Jill go to sea in U.S. Navy

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 21

Jack and Jill go to sea in U.S. Navy

The United States Navy has set sail on potentially the most troublesome voyage in its 203-year history — the first use of woman sailors on all but its fighting ships. Eight young woman ensigns have broken Navy tradition by reporting for duty aboard vessels in the Atlantic and Pacific. They were among 430 women scheduled to join the fleet over the next year. By 1984 the Navy said it planned to have female officers and enlisted women assigned as full-

time, crew reolacements fo? men on 55 support chL Woman sailors will also serve up to 180 days on warships not expected to he in combat. Until recentlv women had only been assigned to sea duty aboard hospital chins or transnorts The Navy said ?he use 1 of women on other vessels would heln it meet a shortage of available mannewer resulting from lower birth rates of the iqfiOs But the move also comes at a time when fe-

minists have been demanding more responsible roles for women throughout the United States. The mingling of women among men on ships sent to sea for long periods raised questions in the minds of many senior Navy officers - not to mention wives of the crewmen. A personnel expert, Captain Paul Butcher, said Navy wives were “concerned about the isolation of their husbands at sea with members of the opposite sex.” But the majority of the

wives, he said, have a wait-and-see attitude. The Navy has prepared special rules of conduct to guide skippers m dealing with shipboard relations among males and females. Captain Butcher would only say the rules concerned what he called “professional manners aboard the ships. Crewmen aboard the first ships boarded by the first woman sailors were admonished to watch their | anEUaoe _ and DUt their lan B ua » e ana P« n sex magazines out ot sight.

Despite the misgivings of some Navy wives the Navy said it intended to go full speed ahead with the replacement programme between now and 1984. The Navy does not at all consider the next five years as an experiment, Captain Butcher said. He said he felt that the question of behaviour would eventually be overshadowed by another important problem — getting womt r" interested in trad.tionally male jobs m the engine room and in electronics repair. J

Already one of the new woman sailors has been made an electronics materials office in charge of nine men on the guidedmissile ship, U.S.S. Norton Sound, at Long Beach, California. . , Charlene Albright, aged 26, acknowledged when she boarded the Norton Sound that the working relationship might at first be strained. “But I think u will wear off quickiy, she said. “Just because this hasn't been done before, doesn’t mean it cant be done.” — Walter Andrews, Reuter.