November 23 – SPARs Established

November 23, 1942

The Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard was established by an act of Congress signed into law on 23 November 1942.

Today marks the anniversary of the creation of the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, better known as the SPARs—a contraction of the Coast Guard motto, “Semper Paratus – Always Ready.” These women could not serve at sea or outside the continental US (though in 1944 they were allowed to be sent to Alaska and Hawaii), and they had no authority over any man regardless of rank. However, they were given the same pay as their counterparts.

Over the course of World War II, between 10,000 and 11,000 women volunteered. The average enlisted applicant was 22 years of age (29 for the average officer) with a high school diploma and a few years of work experience. The Women’s Reserve preferred applicants who had experience on the water, as swimmers of boaters. Once enlisted, the SPARs were trained at Oklahoma A & M, Hunter College, Iowa State Teachers College, and later the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. The Coast Guard was the only one of the US military branches to train its female officers at the branch’s own academy, located in New London, Connecticut.

After a month of training, most SPARs were assigned duties that were clerical in nature, although they also worked on other projects such as rigging parachutes, driving vehicles, cooking, and as radio operators. Perhaps the most unique job for SPARs was as operators of the then brand new—and highly classified—LORAN technology used by the Coast Guard for calculating the precise location of ships and aircraft.

As with the other newly minted women’s units of other branches, SPARs were needed in order to relieve men of office work and send them into the Atlantic to stave off the rising threat of German U-boats. A government recruitment video specified that some of the most highly desired positions were for women with backgrounds as lab techs, dental hygienists, dietitians, engineers or draftsmen.

After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the women’s reserve branches of all the services were disbanded, though the label SPARs continued to be applied informally to female Coast Guardsmen. In 1956, twenty‐one women were serving in the Coast Guard Reserve. Though it continued to accept a few female recruits, the service made no further systematic effort to recruit women until the 1970s when women were admitted into all of the U.S. armed forces.