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[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 160 (Thursday, October 2, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10482-S10483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

               HONORING ALVINA ELIZABETH SCHWAB PETTIGREW

 Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, out of a sense of pride and 
gratitude, I wish to recognize the remarkable yet unheralded work of a 
group of women who quite literally saved innumerable lives and made a 
notable contribution to the Allied victory during World War II. One 
might wonder what has taken us so long to honor a group of women whose 
efforts date back over 65 years. The reason is that the nature of their 
work was so secret, the women were warned that they could be shot for 
treason if they ever revealed their activities. And so they didn't. As 
a result, they never received the recognition they deserved.
  I am speaking of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency 
Service), who played an instrumental role in cracking the complex codes 
that the Germans used to radio instructions from German headquarters to 
the submarines that were sinking Allied ships. And when I said I was 
speaking out of a sense of pride, it is because Alvina Elizabeth Schwab 
Pettigrew from my home State of South Dakota was among this determined 
group of heroes.
  Alvina was born in 1919 on a farm near Mina, SD. She completed grades 
1-8 in a one-room schoolhouse and graduated from Mina High School. She 
received a scholarship to Grand Island Business College in Nebraska in 
1936. But in 1942, this everyday American embarked on a journey that 
would call her to do extraordinary things in the service of our Nation.
  Alvina enlisted in the WAVES in October 1942 and was sent to 
Stillwater, OK, for 3 months of training. Following graduation, orders 
arrived for her to report to the Naval Communications Annex in 
Washington, DC. In nondescript buildings now housing the U.S. 
Department of Homeland Security, more than 600 WAVES labored secretly 
in support of the war effort. German U-boats had been sinking Allied 
ships at alarming rates. Between January and March 1942, the Germans 
sank 216 ships off the east coast alone. But the Americans, improving 
on cryptological breakthroughs by the Poles and the British, finally 
cracked the German codes. The WAVES were the ones who actually operated 
the machines that deciphered the codes. They had the German U-boat 
fleet fighting for its life. The WAVES ran the machines around the 
clock. The noise was head-splitting, the summer heat sweltering. But 
they forged ahead, knowing that American lives were at stake.

[[Page S10483]]

  Although one could argue that the honor does not begin to match the 
magnitude of the achievement, Alvina and the other WAVES are being 
recognized through a public arts project in the Cathedral Heights 
neighborhood of Washington, DC. A turn-of-the-century ``call box'' that 
once housed fire emergency equipment will contain a portrait of Alvina 
Schwab Pettigrew and a description of what the WAVES did in the Navy 
Annex just 200 yards away. It is a lasting tribute to the women who 
turned the tide on the Germans and helped the Allied forces win the 
war. I am proud that a South Dakotan is being honored in this way and 
that I am able to convey to Alvina and the WAVES a belated thank-you 
from a most grateful Nation.

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