At right, WAAC unit working in Antiaircraft Artillery Command, Washington D.C. area, 1942.
The women's immediate supervisor Colonel Edward W. Timberlake found the
women learned their duties more quickly than men, concluding, "WAAC personnel were found to be superior in efficiency to men in all functions involving delicacy of manual dexterity."
Timberlake believed women could capably take over sixty percent of the anti-aircraft positions.
Marshall had worried about possible scandal with the men and women
working together, but Timberlake reported no sexual harassment or misconduct, instead, "A mutual understanding and appreciation appears to exist."
Army brass believed the secret experiment "demonstrated conclusively the practicability of using members of the WAAC in this role," but believed the risk was too great. They believed WAAC recruitment would suffer if the
American public knew that women served in combat.
General Marshall had plans to end the Women's Auxiliary Army Corp, and allow women to actually join the army. He feared conservative congressmen would block his plan.
Many like Congressman Andrew Somers of New York had already argued against women even taking non-combat roles in the military."Think of the
humiliation. What has become of the manhood of America, that we have to call on our women to do what has ever been the duty of men? The thing is so revolting to me, to my sense of decency.”
And so the anti-aircraft women were sent back to noncombat roles and the results of Marshall's experiment kept secret until many years after the war ended.
It would take another 70 years before American women would be officially assigned to military combat roles, but they have served with courage and distinction under fire in all U.S. wars.
![Antiaircraft Artillery Command, later identified as the 89th Coast Artillery, AntiAircraft, Military District of Washington, Eastern Defense Command, 1942.]](https://hostedimages-cdn.aweber-static.com/ODEyMDgw/original/9a368f5ab3504aff804c6ce6334aa817.jpeg)
