ships and more than 200 combatants. Those vesselsrepresented 55 percent of the total Japanese tonnagesunk in the war. For an island nation such as Japan, thosefigures represented a fatal impact.Radar and sonar came into full use during WorldWar II. The English used them initially to combatGerman U-boats, but they were also incorporated intothe submarine as an attack aid. Sonar has become them o s t i m p o r t a n t o f t h e s u b m a r i n e ’s s e n s e s .Hydrophones listen for sounds from other ships and theechoes of sound waves transmitted from the submarineitself.Women in the NavyTwenty-one years after the Yeomanette era,women were needed to fill an acute shortage ofpersonnel caused by rapid expansion of the Navy forWorld War II. On July 30, 1942, Congress authorizedestablishment of the Women’s Reserve, with anestimated goal of 10,000 enlisted women and 1,000o ffi c e r s . T h i s n ew o rg a n i z a t i o n h a d c e r t a i ncongressional limitations. Women could not serve atsea or outside the continental United States and couldnot exercise military command over men. They couldnot go beyond lieutenant commander on the pro-motion ladder. On August 4, 1942, Mildred HelenMcAfee was sworn in as Lieutenant Commander, U.S.Naval Reserve, to become Commander of theWomen’s Reserve.A boot camp for women volunteers was establishedat Hunter College in New York City. It was promptlydubbed USS Hunter. Since basic training lasted from 6to 8 weeks, every other week some 1,680 womenseamen had to be housed, fed, and uniformed. (Thehousing was provided in 17 apartment buildings nearthe college taken over by the Navy.)At about the same time, three other schools werecommissioned in the Middle West to train enlisted5-22Student Notes:Figure 5-12.—V-J Day aboard USSMissouri. Fleet Admiral Nimitz signs the Japanese surrender document on2 September 1945.
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