Artifact Friday: Melva King and the WAVES

Women have been an overlooked part of military history for as long as there has been military history. Women have served in many honorable positions that have often been overlooked, that women's history month allows us to commemorate. In honor of the first week of this special month, we are talking about Melva H. King and the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).

Melva H. King was born in Propherton, Illinois, and World War II was in full swing when she was just 19 years old. King wanted to join the Navy, which became open to women in 1942, and she decided to join in 1943, just after her 20th birthday. She was eligible to join WAVES, which required her to be between the ages of 20 and 35 years old and have finished high school.

The WAVES would serve in the United States as nurses, corpsmen, mechanics, clerks, and storekeepers on US Marine and Naval bases. Women in WAVES were not just limited to these positions but ended up filling roles as aircraft mechanics, navigators, radar operators, and pilots.

King started through WAVE boot camp in February of 1943 and went through relentless physical education, classes, and studying. Melva was then sent to Corpsmen school in Maryland after graduation, where she had relentless education with a focus in medicine. King's training was completed in 1944, and she served stateside in Florida, Louisiana, and California.

She continued to serve throughout World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. By the end of World War II itself, 23,000 WAVES served in the air branch of the US Navy.

A unique standard of WAVES was that, unlike WACS or WASPS, WAVES were required to serve throughout the war plus six months, just like men in the Navy. WAVES remained a service branch for the next twenty years, where King continued to serve after she married her Navy husband, Alexander King, in the early 1950s.

Melva and Alexander moved to Fairfield Bay, Arkansas, where they settled and became heavily involved in the community. Melva H. King is one example of the extraordinary sacrifices and service that women gave to America before the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, which established women in permanent positions within the US military rather than just voluntary or auxiliary positions.