United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve (USMCWR) was the World War II women's branch of the United States Marine Corps Reserve. It was authorized by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on July 30, 1942. Its purpose was to release officers and men for combat, and to replace them with women in U.S. shore stations for the duration of the war plus six months. Ruth Cheney Streeter was appointed the first director. The USMCWR did not have an official nickname as did the other World WarII women's military services.

Young women were keen on serving in the military during World War II, and the Marine Corps desired only the best. The standards set for women who wished to volunteer for the Reserve were demanding. However, the Reserve did not accept African American or Japanese American women during World WarII, but they did accept Native American women. The officer candidates first trained at the Navy's Midshipmen School for women officers at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The initial training site for the enlisted women was at the Naval Training School at Hunter College in the Bronx, New York City. In due course, the Marine Corps discovered the advantages of having its own training centers. Following this, on July 1, 1943, all Reserve training was shifted to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The members served at shore and air stations across the continental United States. The incorporated territory of Hawaii was the only overseas duty station where members were assigned. They served in occupations classified as professional, semi-professional, clerical, skilled trades, services, and sales. The peak strength of the Reserve was about 19,000. With the end of World War II in sight, the corps began to demobilize the members. By December 1945, the Reserve was down to 12,300, and by August 1946 it had about 300 members.

Early on, the male members of the Marine Corps subjected the women to a degree of resentment and crude language. The women overcame these indignities with their accomplishments in the workplace and the poise with which they performed. In time, most of their detractors became their supporters. For her stewardship of the Reserve, the Marine Corps presented Ruth Cheney Streeter with the Legion of Merit. On the occasion of the first anniversary of its establishment, the Reserve received a message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in which he observed, "You have quickly and efficiently taken over scores of different kinds of duties that not long ago were considered strictly masculine assignments, and in doing so, you have freed a large number of well trained, battle ready men of the corps for action." Initially, General Thomas Holcomb, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, had been opposed to having women serve in the Marine Corps. Before the end of 1943, however, he reversed himself, saying, "Like most Marines, when the matter first came up I didn't believe women could serve any useful purpose in the Marine Corps ... Since then I've changed my mind."

Background

At the outbreak of World War II, the notion of women serving in the Navy or Marine Corps (both under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Navy) was not widely supported by the Congress or by the branches of the military services. Nevertheless, some believed that women would eventually be needed in the military. The most notable was Edith Nourse Rogers, Representative of Massachusetts, and Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the president, who helped pave the way for its reality. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed what would become Public Law689 on July 30, 1942, it established a Women's Reserve as a branch of the Naval Reserve for the Navy and Marine Corps. The idea behind the law was to free up officers and men for combat, with women standing in for them at shore stations on the home front. Women could now serve in the Reserve as an officer or at an enlisted level, with ranks or ratings consistent with those of men. Reserve volunteers could only serve for the duration of the war, plus six months.

The Marine Corps delayed formation of the Reserve untilFebruary 13, 1943. It was the last service branch to accept women into its ranks, and there was considerable unhappiness about making the Marine Corps anything but a club for white men. In fact, General Thomas Holcomb, Commandant of the Marine Corps, was a well-known opponent of women serving in the corps. By the end of 1943, however, he had reversed himself, saying, "there's hardly any work at our Marine stations that women can't do as well as men. They do some work far better than men. ... What is more, they're real Marines. They don't have a nickname, and they don't need one." Holcomb rejected all acronyms or monikers for the Reserve; he did not believe they were compulsory. Despite Holcomb's dislike for nicknames, several of them surfaced for the Reserve, including: Femarines, WAMS, BAMS, Dainty Devil-Dogs, Glamarines, Women's Leatherneck-Aides, MARS, and Sub-Marines. By the summer of 1943, attempts to pressure the Reserve into a nickname had diminished. "WR" was as far as Holcomb would move in that direction.

Leadership

Ruth Cheney Streeter was named the first director of the Reserve; commissioned a major and sworn in by the Secretary of the Navy on January 29, 1943. A year later, Streeter was promoted to colonel. She was not the first woman to see active duty in the Marine Corps during World WarII. Weeks earlier, Mrs. Anne A. Lentz, a civilian clothing expert who had helped design the Reserve uniforms, was commissioned a captain. Lentz came to the corps on a 30-day assignment from the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and stayed on.

Streeter was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1895 and attended Bryn Mawr College for two years. She was the wife of a prominent (Morristown, NJ) lawyer and businessman, and the mother of four children, three sons in the military during World WarII, and one younger daughter. Although Streeter had 20 years' of active civic work, she had never held a paying job. She was selected from a field of twelve outstanding women, all recommended to the corps by Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve of Barnard College, who had earlier recommended Mildred McAfee for the director of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). Streeter was 47 years of age when selected to head the Reserve. In the Free a Marine to Fight publication, Colonel Mary V. Stremlow (Ret. MCWR) described her as confident, spirited, patriotic, and a principled person. In 1940, Streeter believed the United States would be drawn into World WarII. Intending to be part of the war effort, she learned to fly and earned a commercial pilot's license. She then purchased a small airplane, and in the summer of 1941 joined the Civil Air Patrol. Her plane was used to fly missions, Streeter recalled, but she was unhappy, relegated to doing  "all the dirty work". Then, when the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was formed, though Streeter was twelve years over the age limit, she applied five times and was rejected five times. In January 1943, when she inquired about service with the WAVES, she was told that flying was out of the question, but that she could be a ground instructor. Streeter turned it down, and a month later became the director of the Reserve. During her tenure as the director, she sent an open letter to all women recruits, saying, "It is not easy to Free a Marine to Fight (a recruiting slogan of the Reserve). It takes couragethe courage to embark on a new and an alien way of life ... Your spirit is a source of constant inspiration to all who work with you."

Colonel Streeter resigned her commission from the Reserve on December 7, 1945. (She was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Katherine A. Towle.) A few months later, the Marine Corps presented Streeter with the Legion of Merit. It was the highest award ever made to a woman marine as a result of World WarII service. The Marine Corps also dedicated the headquarters building of the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion at Parris Island, South Carolina, to her. Streeter died on September 9, 1990, two days before her 95th birthday.

Recruiting

The qualifications for women who wished to become members of the Reserve were stringent. The eligibility requirements for officer candidates and enlisted women were similar: United States citizenship; not married to a marine; either single or married but with no children under 18; height not less than ; weight not less than ; good vision and good teeth. For enlisted members, the age limits were from 20 to 35, and an applicant was required to have at least two years' of high school. For officer candidates, the age limits were from 20 to 49, and they had to either be a college graduate, or have a combination of two years' of college and two years' of work experience. Later, the wives of enlisted Marines were allowed to join, and enlisted women could marry after boot camp.

By way of agreement, the Navy and the Marine Corps designated the Navy's procurement offices as recruiting centers for both the WAVES and the Reserve. This helped to avoid competition in the recruiting of women for either naval service. Women applicants for either service would go to one office to enlist and to receive physical examinations. (Later on, the Reserve established its own recruiting capability.) When reservations surfaced about whether male Marine recruiters could properly select female applicants for the Reserve, the call went out for women recruiters. Nineteen WAVE officer candidates volunteered; they were transferred and assigned to procurement offices. Still in WAVE uniforms, they began recruiting the first members of the Reserve. Lucile E. McClarren of Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, appears to have been the first enlisted woman recruited on February 13, 1943. The Reserve did not accept African American or Japanese American women. The first Native American woman to enlist in the Reserve was Minnie Spotted-Wolf of Heart Butte, Montana; she did so in July 1943. Early recruiting was brisk, so much so that in some cases women were sworn in and put to work in procurement offices, delaying their training until later.

The slogan "Free a Marine to Fight" proved to be a strong drawing card for the Reserve, stronger than any fashioned by the WAC, WAVES, or SPARS. Young women were eager to serve in the military during World WarII, often in defiance of their family's wishes. Marian Bauer's parents were so upset when she joined the corps that they did not see her off. Jane Taylor's father, a World War I veteran, gave her this advice: "Don't ever complain to me. You're doing this of your own free will. You weren't drafted or forced. Now, golearn, travel, and do your job to the best of your ability." There were those parents who asked for special consideration for daughters who were too young to enlist. The minimum age of 20 years, set by law, remained the same throughout the war for the Reserve. Some parents wondered why 18-year-boys were sent into combat, and 18-year-old girls could not serve. The Corps' recruiting scheme of forming platoons of about 40women each to be recruited from the same area and sending them as a unit to Reserve training together caught on quickly. The first platoon was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, followed by Albany, Buffalo, and Central New York; Johnstown and Fayette County, Pennsylvania; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Green Bay, Wisconsin; the state of Alabama; and northern and southern New England.