WAVES Unbound

The Senate last week finally passed a bill allowing WAVES to go overseas--as far as Hawaii, Alaska and the Caribbean. A long battle against one man had been partially won.

The battle began more than two years ago, when the Senate Naval Affairs Committee's bumbling, lumbering isolationist chairman, David Ignatius Walsh of Massachusetts, inserted a no-overseas-duty amendment to the bill creating the women's reserve. (WACs have long been overseas.) Whenever Navy brass hats appeared asking for WAVES overseas, Senator Walsh demurred, even after the House passed such a bill twice. By last week not even Dave Walsh could offer any valid reason for keeping all of the 77,000 WAVES, 19,000 Women Marines, and 9,000 SPARS from completely safe spots overseas. Admiral Nimitz wrote that he could send 332 officers and 4,906 enlisted men from Hawaii to sea if he had that many WAVES to replace them; furthermore, barracks were ready for the WAVES's occupancy.

Under the new bill, whose prompt passage by the House was assured, only volunteers may be sent overseas. This worried the Navy Department not at all--many more WAVES want to go than can possibly be sent.

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