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The Trackers´ Treasure Trove: Article Monday, May 31, 2004 Remembering the WAACS in DaytonaBy AUDREY PARENTE |
 Sharon Hill, left, and her mother, Adelaide, hold a picture of Adelaide and her late husband, Wilfred. Adelaide Hill was a member of the WAACs in Daytona Beach and is featured in a documentary, created by her daughter, detailing several women´s accounts. (Photo: News-Journal/Audrey Parente) |
It was the early 1940s, and her life had just been devastated by a tragedy, when Hill became one of the first of 150,000 women to join the the Women´s Auxiliary Army Corps.
Destination: Daytona Beach, home to one of five WAAC training sites, where women gained desperately needed skills to assist their male counterparts and make a major contribution to the World War II effort.
Hill´s boyfriend had died after his car skidded off a slick Ohio roadway during a freezing winter rainstorm.
“My father found him the next morning in the creek,” said 83-year-old Hill of her long-ago love. That left Hill with an uncertain future. “I thought I might go into nursing, but then I saw the poster: ‘Women´s Army Auxiliary Corps.’”
Hill signed up and soon boarded a crowded train, chugging south.
“A lot of this is obscure and, in general, the history of women in the Army is not known to a lot of people,” said Amy Hill, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Women´s Museum at Fort Lee, Va., who is not related to the former WAAC.
But Adelaide Hill´s daughter, Sharon, may make the WAAC history better-known as a result of a video documentary project she completed for a visual arts class this year at Daytona Beach Community College.
Sharon Hill, 44, interviewed her mother and other former WAACs living in the area who were members of the Halifax Area Chapter 91 Daytona Beach Women´s Army Corps Veterans Association.
Mary Lou Tieder, president of the veterans group, said when Sharon Hill called looking for women who served in Daytona Beach, she gave her the names of two.
“She went to Audrey Sewell´s home and talked to Audrey and Pat Breslin, who has since passed away,” Tieder said. “And Audrey has moved to Arizona.
“I have seen the (video) and I think it´s worthwhile. She captured the pictures of Daytona Beach and different things that took place here. I think it would be a good thing for people to see. A lot of people are not even aware of this.”
Sharon Hill traveled to the Fort Lee museum in Virginia. She found stacks of photos and memorabilia, which she used to help create the 15-minute documentary to pass her class.
The project may extend into future video work for the younger Hill, including broadcast possibilities for her documentary.
“She started digitizing the archives we have from Daytona Beach,” said Amy Hill, spokeswoman for the Fort Lee museum. “We are hoping to get Sharon back up here on a grant to continue the project. The director is doing the paperwork for it right now.”
John Wilton, visual arts instructor at DBCC, said the project by Sharon Hill is a great starting point for a television documentary.
“She was under severe time limitations because it was for class but, from the initial view, she was able to get feedback on how to go back and redo it,” Wilton said. “Projects like this often take a year and a lot of tweaking to be broadcast quality.”
Sharon Hill, a graduate with a bachelor´s degree in communications from the University of Alabama, said the project resulted from her attempt to continue her education.
“I wanted to stay current in digital education and had to do projects,” she said. “I had a built-in interview in my mother.”
Adelaide Hill said she was glad to oblige. She recalled her life in the military, from the time she stepped off the train in Daytona Beach.
“We got into trucks at the train station and went to Tent City,” said the Deltona resident.
Tent City, she explained, was a cluster of Army canvas tents along the east bank of the Intracoastal Waterway -- although Hill no longer is sure exactly where they were situated.
“The city complained it wasn´t right,” for women to be living in tents, she said. So, the WAACs moved into several beachside hotels. Among them were: the Clarendon Hotel (now the Plaza Resort & Spa at 600 N. Atlantic Ave.); the Princess Issena Hotel (which burned in the early 1980s and now is the site of Wachovia Bank at 441 Seabreeze Blvd.); and the 45-room Streamline Hotel at 140 S. Atlantic Ave.
Hill stayed at the Streamline, which she described as “a brand new hotel with heat and air conditioning.” The hotel was packed with hundreds of women, she said.
“We would get up and go to the church behind the Streamline for breakfast in a mess hall in the basement,” she said. “We had calisthenics on the beach. I wore big old clunky oxfords that didn´t fit well. And, when the tide was out, we marched on the beach.”
They attended classes in empty stores.
But it wasn´t all work.
“I didn´t like to carouse and drink, but some of the women liked to,” Hill said. “With a weekend pass, you could go 100 miles -- you could go to St. Augustine, and people were waiting at the bus station to take them to their homes.”
While Hill was training, Army leaders asked Congress for the authority to convert the Women´s Army Auxiliary Corps into the Women´s Army Corps, which would be part of the Army, not just an auxiliary. The women were needed overseas, but the Army could not offer protection, if captured, or benefits, if injured, while they were WAACs and not regular Army.
On July 3, 1943, the WAC bill was signed into law.
“We had the option of staying in or getting out, but I chose to stay in,” Hill said. She was with the majority -- only 25 percent decided to leave the service at the time of conversion.
Most of the trainees shipped out to Africa under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower “to work with the troops,” Hill said. “I was taught how to make morning reports and entries into service records -- administrative work. They kept me around to take charge of another hotel.”
After about three years, a cantonment area was built where Daytona Beach Community College now stands on International Speedway Boulevard.
“Not long after they gave the hotels back to the people and I was at the cantonment area, I was sent to Camp Hale in Colorado,” she said.
Hill married a soldier, Wilfred Hill, and remained in the service until she became pregnant. After that, she accompanied her husband throughout his 30-year military career and during his job with Lockeed company in California, until his retirement to Denver, Colo., and later to Deltona.
“We did our jobs and worked hard,” she said. “But pregnant women weren´t allowed in the WACs.”
Hill´s daughter said the video project raised her awareness of the importance of her mother´s military service.
“When I started this, it was just a convenient thing because of mom being there for me to interview,” Sharon Hill said. “But as I got into this project, a light bulb went off -- my mom was a pioneer among a group of women who opened a door for the women in the military today.”
The younger Hill plans to continue her research.
“My hope is to try to find grant funding to expand this project more, into other significant periods for women in the military, and to do a series of documentaries to be broadcast.”
About the WACs
Although sometimes overlooked, members of the Women´s Army Corps played an important role during World War II. They were nurses, mechanics, pilots, and communication facilitators, to name just a few roles.
More than 150,000 American women served in the WAC during World War II.
Oveta Culp Hobby, who was the first WAC director, was also the first woman to hold the position of Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. In 1945, Hobby became the first woman to receive the U.S. Army´s Distinguished Service Medal.
Lt. Annie G. Fox, an Army nurse serving during the attack on Pearl Harbor, became the first woman to receive the Purple Heart after being injured during the attack.
Lt. Cordelia E. Cook, who served as an Army nurse in Italy during WWII, became the first woman to receive the Bronze Star. She also was given the Purple Heart, becoming the first woman to receive two awards.
Compiled by News Researcher Tom Rabeno
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