Video
Touring the 3rd Women's Army Corps Training Facility
Transcript
Hello my name is Brian Autry, I'm one of the rangers here at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Did you know that when you come to the Chickamauga Battlefield, you're actually coming to a place where a lot more happened than just a American Civil War battle? There is much more military history that happens here on this ground.
With the establishment of this park in 1890, this was used, this park is used for a study ground basically and part of the enabling legislation to make this a military park it said it was used for the purpose of preserving and suitably marking for historical and professional study the fields of some of the most remarkable maneuvers and the most brilliant fighting in the War of Rebellion. So, the War Department then, which is as we know today as our Department of Defense, they are the ones that's going to set this thing up and then with this legislation the the park will actually be able to be used during other conflicts such as the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II as a training facility for these soldiers. So, today we're basically going to
concentrate more on the World War II aspect of this thing. The park was used in World War II as a training facility for the 3rd WAC unit. This you know, as we were drawn into the World War II through the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the WAC (Women's Army Corps) was established and this gave the women an opportunity to serve their country because their motto was basically "It's Your War Too". So this allowed the women to come in and serve and allowed the men that were stationed here in the states doing clerical work and other things mechanical whatever, the ladies would train for those jobs and allow those men to be able to be transferred over to the European Theater and the Pacific to fight in those places. So, today, we are going to go down to the ruins of this 3rd WAC Training Facility. Much of those ruins are still here. This gives us a very tangible, something that we can touch, you know as part of this nation's history. We still have it here on this Civil War battlefield. So, today when you come into the Visitor Center, you'll be able to see a temporary exhibit here honoring those women that trained here at Chickamauga and Fort Oglethorpe. This exhibit here contains a uniform that one of the WAC's would have worn also some other stuff here. Really want to pay attention here to the foot locker. We'll see a little bit more about the foot locker a little bit later in the program. But it gives you a little bit information plus over here we have a exhibit that shows some of the personal effects the women would have carried in their purse. We also we have a little film here that you're able to see. Not only is it actually used as a training or not a training but a recruitment film because like I said the name of it "It's Your War Too", this was used to get those ladies interested in maybe wanting to serve in the service. So, that film can actually be seen through the National Archives. It's a very, very good little film and it does a lot for our nation's women's military history, or the very start of it. So, if you come along with me today, we'll go down to those ruins and we'll talk about what some of those buildings were used for and see where these women actually trained.
All right, so where I'm standing at now is the entrance to Tour Stop 1. This was the main entrance into the 3rd WAC Training Facility and you can see here three soldiers sitting on the entrance sign for the 3rd WAC Training Facility. It was located just right here behind me and you can also see here on the La Fayette Road there's a car going by and just much the same as it is today. But, just bear in mind now that this entrance here is where 50,000 or a little over 50,000 WAC soldiers came in to basically train to serve their country; to turn those men loose and let them go to the different theaters. So, come with me now, we're going to go into the interior of the 3rd WAC Training Facility and look at some of those buildings and talk about what they were used for so come with me.
Okay so now I have moved on into the interior of the 3rd WAC Training Facility and this was a very large complex. You can tell here by this map that we have that shows you now over 700 acres of this major complex. Many, many buildings were out here and we are fortunate to have a map of this place along with a grid that we can tell what each of the buildings were. They're numbered just like where I'm standing at here right now. I'm standing in front of T1620. According to this picture here that we have which again we're very fortunate to have of these four WAC soldiers standing here in front of this building. So, the thing about it is today as we travel these trails here, these trails today were not actually trails back then, they were actually streets. The green trail was actually First Street and so now if we pan back down the First Street here or our green trail you see some of the buildings that line both of the streets here. This probably is not particularly First Street but looked very much like this and barracks would have been sitting along those streets. So again, here's a picture of the what the barracks would have looked like and if you'll notice here in this picture, of the ladies barracks the foot locker you know and we have the foot locker that we saw earlier up at the Visitor Center. You know but the thing about it is you look at the barracks, look just how neat those barracks are. These ladies, they are having to be soldiers so you know we see the bunk; just everything is immaculate everything is in its place. So now, you know these ladies are here, they are training for their specific job that they're going to do. A lot of that training, the things that they do from a motor pool a mechanic down to clerical work, a lot of this training is going to be done in the classroom. We are going to move now to the classrooms where these ladies would have done their book study and such and heard lectures and everything else. So if you will come with me now we're going to go over to those classrooms.
So, as I had mentioned at our last stop, these soldiers had jobs as you know as bakers and then they had jobs as mechanics, but a lot of those jobs required classroom study so where I am standing at right here at this moment is in one of the five classrooms. As you can see here on the map, those five diagonal place settings this is them, so these ladies would come to these classrooms and study seminars and stuff like that. But, this class or this particular pad today is being used by the Boy Scouts and this whole area here is the Boy Scout campground. You can see here behind me that it's being used kind of as an amphitheater with the fire pit there and this is where the Boy Scouts will actually do their flag burnings and and do the ceremonies where they're going up in the ranks all the way up there to the Eagle Scout and such. Those ceremonies are actually done here on this pad. So, one of the things I think about when I see these pads is, during World War II there was actually a movie made starring Lana Turner and the name of that film was "Keep Your Powder Dry" and during one of those scenes in that movie Lana is in one of these classrooms and they're studying the silhouettes of allied and enemy aircraft. Lana is answering each one of the questions about each plane correctly and one of the girls made mention to her that you must really know your aircraft getting these each one of these right, she said "No, actually I know my pilots." I thought that was very funny but I think that's really cool to have a movie that's actually filmed in some of these buildings that were here on the 3rd WAC Training Facility and some of the buildings up in Fort Oglethorpe or the North Post. So, a lot of these ladies with their jobs they'll also need to get into the books real hard and we'll go to that place where you get into those books and doing all that study at our next stop.
So, here we are now in this special place here so "shh" be very, very quiet because we are actually standing inside of the library. Now these ladies would have used this library like I said with their book study. Also, I guess if they had some down time maybe they would come here to read just a recreational book, or to maybe sit down and write a letter home. This was the library and just by the way you can see the foundation here and you can see it on the map too, the library was a kindly, it had a specific design to it. As you see here on the map, it looked like a plus sign. You can see there's part of these structures, these foundation blocks are gone but you can make out part of the plus sign. But as the girls had that free time this would be a place that maybe they would use or utilize the pastime and if any other spare time was given our next place we'll show you what would be going on at that point.
With that free time that I was mentioning back in the library another other things that these ladies could have done was maybe actually got to call home. You can see in this picture here of these ladies sitting at the switchboards, that is one of the jobs that actually the ladies would train to do. But, this particular building here is the telephone/ telegraph office. You can tell that by looking here at the map itself. And one thing that really gives it away is these holes in the in the concrete here, those would be where the lines came up into the switchboard. As I look at these holes you know, I just kind of think and wonder just how many conversations went through those lines. These girls maybe calling back home sending telegraphs back home and seeing what's happening at home because that would be a real morale boost to these ladies because you know they were missing home. This would have been a time when a lot of these women you know had been the first time they've been away from home. But back then it's not like it was you know it is now. I can actually just reach here into my back pocket and pull out my cell phone. You know, it's and there's situations with my son being in the National Guard, I've actually been able to talk to him as he's been deployed and it wasn't like that during World War II. So, these ladies were very, very fortunate to be able to get to call home and send telegraphs and just see what's happening back and forth. So, along with that downtime, there was one more thing here on the 3rd WAC Training Facility the ladies could attend and get their minds maybe off of what was going on and just refresh their minds. So if you will let's go to our last stop.
So here we are now at our last stop and to me this is probably one of my favorite ruins that has been uncovered here on the battlefield and simply because if you look at this particular building here, you'll notice over here on the pylons used as the foundation, they get taller as they go down. That reason being that the floor is sloping. Now if you have been up to the Visitor Center today and went into this particular room you would have noticed the floor was doing the same thing. So if you remember what room was. It was the theater. So this is the 3rd WAC Training Facility theater. The ladies would have come here and seen the the latest big Hollywood movies and seen some of the biggest actors and actresses of the time out of Hollywood. So, as these ladies come here one of the things that they would have seen was the news reels; the things that were telling them of what was going on over in the European Theater and the Pacific Theater. So, this would have gave them an idea of what contribution that they were contributing to our country by letting those men go over there and fight. And like I said before, hopefully get this war over with. These ladies they, you know, they done their deed because this was their war too. They did serve and it just opened up the path for them to continue in the American military. You know today we have female combat soldiers. So this was the beginning of all that. I want to take the opportunity to thank our volunteers, the park's Resource Division, and some of the Eagle Scouts that came out here and uncovered these ruins. We really appreciate that and we wouldn't be able to do that without them. They uncovered a great, great part of this nation's history here that's on this Civil War battlefield, but it being a part of World War II. So, I want to thank you for watching this video. I thank you for your attendance and I hope you will come out and see some of these ruins. I also want to invite you to watch our social media platforms. We'll have some more of these type programs on it and study some of the WAC a little bit more in depth. I want to just invite you to come and learn.
Description
Most visitors to Chickamauga Battlefield do not realize how much history has unfolded on the grounds of the nation’s first national military park. This park’s history spans from the Trail of Tears to World War II. Because of the legislation creating the national military park, Chickamauga Battlefield was used to train thousands of soldiers involved in the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. During World War II, the park was home to the 3rd Women’s Army Corps Training Center.
Duration
16 minutes, 34 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
05/01/2021
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