Review: Are women STRONG enough for typing and filing?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 27, 2014
In today's controversy over women serving in combat units, it's instructive to remember that once people were appalled at the idea of a female  in uniform pounding a typewriter or filing reports! Wanda Renn and others answered Uncle Sam's call to duty and joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1941.  Like male soldiers, they had sore feet, sagging cots, too many shots, and bouts of homesickness. Unlike the men, they got no overseas pay, no pensions, and no Geneva Convention protections.Wanda Renn was the oldest of two daughters and her letters home show an unusually mature young woman with a strong sense of responsibility to her mother and sister.  She was also intelligent, independent, humorous, and had the upbeat, no-whiners-wanted attitude that (with some exceptions) characterized those whose childhoods were marked by the Great Depression.  Her description  of state-side training and shipping out to North Africa is a valuable first-person account of the WWII era.  It must have been quite an experience for a Grand Rapids native to be transplanted to Algiers where perfume was cheaper than soap and water.  I wish there were more letters, but Wanda's granddaughter performed a public service by digging these out and publishing them.