Military Miscellania

Excerpts from Vladimir Jameson,Red Trident: A History of the WFRN, (Seattle: Longshore Books, 2005)*

The civil war had decimated the American Navy. Already in neglect from the Great Depression, the conflict had led to the loss of seven capital ships, nearly a third of total strength. Similar losses were incurred in the cruiser and destroyer fleets. With so much of the fleet either at the bottom of the ocean, in exile in Cuba, or in need of repair, the WFRN was placed on the back foot against its two main rivals, the British Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Naval strategy is build strategy, and in the period of economic reorganization and recovery the Navy competed with ambitious civil infrastructure projects for funds, materials and labor. The three ex-United States -class battlecruisers, now renamed the Toledo- class after the civil war battle, would be rushed to completion. Additionally, five treaty max battleships would be laid down starting in December 1934. A new class of carriers would fill out the remaining treaty tonnage available.

Realistically, even with the accelerated build schedules it would be three years before the WFRN would return to parity with the BRN. Due to the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, the capitalist powers would have a 3:2 tonnage advantage against them. While the political will for rearmament proved more decisive in the UASR than in Britain, the realities of naval construction time meant that even the major industrial advantage would take years to achieve a decisive numerical advantage over the Anglo-Japanese alliance.
[…]
The Navy’s war planners did not have the luxury of merely waiting for the fleet to be rebuilt. Repeated flashpoints in the Caribbean had made the threat of war with the British Empire all too real, and even as underfunded as the BRN had been for the past decade, it held a decisive upper hand.

Since American naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan had codified it in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History , the notion of the “decisive battle” had dominated naval doctrine. Securing command of the sea was the paramount objective of the naval strategist. Due to the cost in time and resources invested in ships, they were sufficiently precious that splitting the fleet geographically would place the fleet at a disadvantage against an enemy that concentrated his force.

Thus, the key to naval victory was a concentrated fleet of numerous capital ships, manned by well trained and disciplined crews. The fleet would either win in decisive battle against the enemy fleet, and thus attain mastery of the sea, or otherwise force the enemy fleet to remain in port and cede control of the sea without a fight.

There had always been numerous complications to this strategy, but in the 1930s Mahanian doctrine remained the bedrock of naval doctrine. At Jutland in the Great War, the doctrine had proven indecisive, and the Imperial German Navy remained as a fleet-in-being that put a major cost on the BRN and the USN in countering.
[…]
Two areas of the fleet emerged from the Civil War mostly unscathed: carriers and submarines. Both had proven their utility in the short period of intensive naval operations. The experience gleaned by commanders such as William Halsey, Charles A. Lockwood, and Jean-Paul Sanders* provided valuable insights in how to transform the navy into an effective weapon of the world revolution.

Prior to the Civil War, then Lt. Commander (old system) Charles A. Lockwood was assigned as commander of the fleet submarines Bonita (SS-165), attached to the Submarine Force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Radicalized by the MacArthur Putsch, Lockwood led a force of officers and sailors in securing the ships docked at the San Diego Navy Yard from scuttling attempts by the Whites. Lockwood and the Bonita would spend most of the next 9 months at sea leading an ad hoc submarine squadron, performing operations such as ferrying partisans to aid the revolts in Hawai’i, securing the Panama Canal and the loyalty of the Canal Force, intercepting merchant ships bound for ports under the control of the National Salvation regime, and sinking of the heavy cruiser Charleston(CA-19).

Lockwood rose rapidly through the ranks of a navy cleared of deadwood and the politically unreliable. In May 1934 he was promoted to Rear Admiral, and was given command of the Submarine Force of the Atlantic Fleet. With direct access to the Chief of Naval Operations on submarine matters, Lockwood became one of the chief theorists of the new navy.

Lockwood argued in several classified defense papers that the submarine would be a potent weapon against the British Empire in its role as a force multiplier. In Naval Imperialism (1935), he argued that in the capitalist epoch the British Empire’s dominance in industry had been bought through sea power. With the sea being the most efficient means of international trade, the small island nation could have a presence in all markets of the world through its rule of the sea.

British manufacturers could import raw materials on a world scale, securing the most favorable prices. They could also export to the rest of the world. Capital thereby had concentrated in Britain, and whether in peace or in war, the might of the BRN ensured that the economy continued to function while simultaneously maintaining the ability to shut enemies out of the world market.

From this process of commanding the sea, Great Britain had the means to acquire a world-spanning colonial empire, often with the use of very minimal blood and treasure. The British Army could be anywhere in the world it needed to be to fulfill favorable objectives for the state, and all the other nations, particularly those outside the capitalist core, were stuck playing a game with rules stacked in the favor of Britain. Britain acquired the largest land empire in history, not by being a land power, but by being a sea power. Through control of the sea, Britain ruled the land.

This imposing imperial system did however have a single point of failure: the British Royal Navy. Without imports, the British economy would starve figuratively and literally. The value of British capital dependent on the export of manufactured goods, and that meant policing the vast oceans.

The fleet submarine would be the most effective weapon because of its great range. Rather than support the battlefleet, these long range submarines would operate independently, and menace the sea lanes.

Submarines could be countered by destroyers escorting merchant ships in convoy groups. But in turn, these destroyers would then be raided by fast cruisers that would make attacks of opportunity based on the intelligence gathered by the submarine fleet. When British cruisers would sortie to defeat them, they would be ambushed by carrier aviation.

The strategy would subject the BRN to a series of losing trades. So long as cruisers and destroyers could be sunk faster than they could be replaced, the Home Fleet would be effectively immobilised, and unable to sortie due to its screening vessels being placed into convoy protection duty. The combined effort of convoy raiding and air/land attacks by allied powers would choke off the supply of oil to the Royal Navy
[…]
Experience from the Great War had taught naval strategists that the submarine was too crude of an instrument to truly tip the scales of naval power. German unrestricted submarine warfare had made traversing the Atlantic perilous for a time, but the limitations inherent in contemporary submarines had ensured that the proper employment of escort craft with the right sensors and weapons could defeat submarine raiders.

More properly, submarines of this era could more properly be called submersibles. They shared much more in common with surface ships in design and doctrine than modern submarines, and many attacks would be made from the surface, using deck guns.

The last pre-revolution class of submarines, the Porpoise -class, represented the state-of-the-art, and many of its features would be conserved in the succeeding interim classes commissioned by the WFRN in the 30s. This 90 metre long vessel could move at a respectable 18 knots on the surface. But submerged, the boat could only manage 8 knots for a four hour sprint before having to surface and recharge its batteries.

In contested waters, submarines would only be able to surface at night to recharge their batteries and manoeuvre. During daylight hours, they could only crawl along at low speed. Succeeding ship classes being rushed into production would improve on the reliability of diesel-electric propulsion and improve the armament, but could only make few improvements in the basic features of the submarine.
[…]
With the conclusion of Fleet Problem XVII, Lockwood was able to secure Admiral Standley’s support, and with it a funding obligation from the Naval Operations Committee. In October 1935, the Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program was established, with Lockwood as its director. Abbreviated “GUPPY” for pronounceability, the classified program aimed to reinvent the submarine’s naval architecture, propulsion systems, and weaponry.

The above-ground portions of GUPPY secured funding to improve the power and reliability of marine diesel and electrical systems. More secretive programs, in partnership with West Coast universities such as UC Berkeley, researched hydrodynamics and underwater acoustics.

The radical improvements envisioned by GUPPY would take years to bear fruit, even with escalating rearmament budgets. The first GUPPY submarines, the Tang- class, would be laid down in February 1942. Due to competition for the high demand HY-290 steel with capital ships, construction was often delayed, with the lead ship entering commission in January 1943.

Tang and all subsequent submarines would have radically different designs from previous submarines. The new hull form traded surface speed and stability for underwater efficiency. Replacing conning towers with a lower drag sail, and restructuring the bow profile enabled the Tang- class to operate at 18 knots submerged. The improved batteries enabled higher submerged endurance, up to an hour at top speed. Additionally, a snorkel mast allowed the vessel to run submerged on marine diesel power and charge the battery banks.

Radar enabled improved tracking of enemy ships (and was a boon to older submarines, allowing them to operate on the surface in the daylight and detect enemy aircraft from greater ranges).

The higher tensile strength steel construction, while significantly more expensive, also enabled the Tang- class to operate below the thermocline, greatly improving concealment from even active sonar.

Tang- class ships carried no deck guns, and could only engage with less space efficient torpedos. This limited options when attacking undefended targets, and thus operational endurance was limited by the supply of available torpedoes.

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Excerpts from Robert Jordan and Sergei K. Zverev,The Military Revolution 1933 to 1946,(Moscow: M.V. Frunze Academy, 1971)**

…During the sweeping offensives of May and June 1933, allied forces encountered intractable logistical problems. Tank and motor rifle units pushed spearheads deep into the fascist lines, and in the ensuing envelopment and exploitation operations the lines of advance often shifted over twenty kilometers per day. Red troopers often went several days without hot meals, subsisting on whatever food could be foraged.

The advance was subject to the limitations of the logistical train’s ability to provide food, fuel and munitions. Strikingly, the motorisation of the Red Army enabled at least adequate supply of the latter, but utterly failed in the supply of food.

Like most equipment aside from tanks, trucks and planes, the field kitchens of the Army of Work were Great War vintage. The M1916 field kitchen was a wood-fired, horse-drawn cart, capable of producing two twenty-five litre batches of soup, stew or goulash. Wood was plentiful in the Atlantic coast, as were local sources of fresh cereals, vegetables and livestock. The Eastern Combined Army Group suffered no lack of field kitchens, kitchen staff, nor any shortages of raw foodstuffs.

Yet the men at the front were going hungry. The company field kitchens, usually clustered together at a battalion level for logistical convenience, could not keep up with the advance of soldiers, even as soldiers found ingenious ways to motorise the kitchens. Hot food was always too far away from the troops engaged in active combat.

There were premonitions of this in the waning days of the Great War’s western front, when Entente troops began major offensives towards the German border. Command had at least been aware of the possibility of overstretch. In both the Rose Offensive and the Virginia Offensive, Patton had ordered the provisioning of tushonka and other preserved foodstuffs to combat units. But once soldiers had eaten their few tins of meat, stew and biscuits, they were left with forage to sustain themselves. The tank troops, always at the bleeding edge of the fighting, simply went hungry, sometimes for several days at a time.

US Army regulations, which the Red Army had adhered to in the Civil War, prescribed feeding troops two hot meals per day: one at dawn and the other just after dusk. During the daylight hours, soldiers were to be fed lighter foods that didn’t require fires and the accompanying smoke: bread & jam, biscuits, preserved meats, or tushonka, to name a few. This had worked well in the largely immobile western front, but had resulted in major problems in mobile and mechanised warfare.

Army discipline regularly broke down, as soldiers paused the advance to secure food. One story, immortalised in the popular film Song of the South , depicts a scene where hungry and tired soldiers stop to plunder the pantry of an old Virginia gentry mansion, ravenously eating spoonfuls of jam, unable to wait for the sergeant to start a fire to cook some of the bacon they’d found.
[…]
”Iron Rations” had been in use by the US Army since 1907. The M1917 Reserve Ration had remained in procurement by the Army until budget cuts halted production in 1931. Consisting of canned corned beef and hardtack, they had been a substitute for troops out of range of field kitchens in the Great War.

During the Civil War, most of the available stock of Reserve Rations had been depleted before the summer offensives. Troops complained that the food was often disgusting, and the poor nutrient balance of the Reserve Rations and other canned shelf-stable foods resulted in malnourishment and health problems for soldiers on the tip of the sword.

Problems with the care and feeding of soldiers were sufficient that inquiries within the soldiers’ soviets progressed all the way to the parliamentary Committee for Defense, which established a formal commission to study the matter and make policy recommendations for the Defense Secretariat.

Work was delayed by the ongoing restructuring of the military establishment. Hundreds of officers were being investigated and purged by the political commissariat, and this fell most heavily on the Quartermaster and Ordnance departments. While only a handful reached the courts-martial, the forced retirement of deadwood from the WFRA’s logistical backbone caused considerable short-term chaos.

In March 1935, the new Intendance Department established the Subsistence Research Laboratory in Chicagoland. Partnering with the nearby University of Chicago and the Kellogg Institute, the SRL would fund some of the most important research into nutrition and gastronomic science in the 20th Century, with impacts far beyond its assigned mission of military nutrition.

The SRL would pair the organizational innovations of Colonel Harland D. Sanders and the dietary genius of John Harvey Kellogg, resulting in major changes in American agriscience and diet.

Colonel Sanders had been an attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas before being conscripted into the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in February 1915. Sanders came to specialize as a defense attorney, and while deployed in France greatly expanded his palette in the cafes and bistros of Paris. He quickly gained a reputation as a friend to the rank-and-file, and a gourmand who’d treat homesick friends to his own refined style of country cooking.

After the war, Sanders retired as a major in the Regular Army, a disappointing demotion from the full colonel he’d earned in the National Army. The “Colonel”, as his friends knew him, moved into the private sector, variously owning a small shipping company and a Standard Oil affiliated service station.

His business ventures failed in the Great Depression, and he found himself bankrupted. Gathering his family and the remains of his finances, Sanders moved north from Kentucky to Toledo, Ohio, at the invitation of some old military comrades. In Toledo, Sanders put his skills to good use in the volxkuchen of the city, finding ways to stretch the limited relief funds while still providing quality meals. He worked pro bono as a defense attorney for the local branch of the Workers’ Party in exchange for an apartment and generally found fulfillment helping out how he could in the Depression.

During the Civil War, Sanders’ star rose in the Red Army. He quickly rose to the position of chief intendant of the Chicago theater, and played a crucial role in keeping the Red Army supplied and fed during both the pivotal Battle of Chicago as well as the subsequent Mississippi River campaign. Compassionate but hot-headed, Sanders would often physically bully subordinates into accomplishing what they thought was impossible.

Sanders’ main partner in the SRL was his perfect foil. While Sanders’ own tastes fused Southern and country staples like fried chicken with the techniques of French haute cuisine, John Harvey Kellogg was an advocate of simple, wholesome food and vegetarianism.

Kellogg had a long and influential career in medicine and dietary science even before the revolution. As the chief medical officer of the Battle Creek Sanitorium, Kellogg had been a major exponent of the clean living movement. As a pioneer in developing foods like corn flake breakfast cereal, soya bread, peanut butter and soya milk, Kellogg was already a household name, especially once his career parted from the religious mission of Seventh Day Adventism.

Kellogg had worked on a number of business ventures with the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Commune in the 1920s and early 30s, bringing staples of the East Asian Diaspora to white Americans as wholesome health foods. Doufu, made from soya beans, became one of Kellogg’s favored staples as a protein source and meat substitute. Cheap and able to be easily flavored in a variety of ways, it quickly became a staple in the food relief kitchens of the Depression. Aggressive promotion as a health food by the Agriculture Secretariat had spared it and other of Kellogg’s darlings from being remembered as a food of privation.

At the Subsistence Research Laboratory, Sanders and Kellogg would frequently butt heads, but they kept a mutual respect over their shared passion that the American people and the armed forces needed food that was both delicious and nutritious.

With America’s failing agriculture undergoing an extensive, centrally planned reorganization, the SRL’s work played an outsized role in setting national priorities. Fighting the Dust Bowl, overproduction, protectionism and poor food safety had assumed the level of national emergency.

Collectivization would effectively extinguish both the family farm as well as the plantations and cattle barons. The new administrations in the collective farms would implement more ecological farming practices to prevent the exhaustion of the soil, overgrazing and runoff. The more marginal farmland was turned over to rewilding and reforestation. The immediate outcome was that the price of dairy products and beef increased dramatically, while the price of grain increased more modestly. Production targets and prices set by the State Planning Commission ensured that agriculture wholesale prices remained tolerable for the farming collectives while preventing waste from overproduction.

Different balances of crops were planted to maintain soil health. Whole-grain and soya enriched breads were promoted as health foods. Doufu, soy sauce, chili sauces, lo mein and other East Asian staples were being served in Army mess halls and state factory canteens, and were quickly filtering into home-cooking.

The SRL soon stumbled upon another useful tool in its programs: ethnic solidarity. The many ethnic food traditions imported to the US, as well as the cuisines of the native peoples, proved to be a very effective way of promoting Langston Hughes “nation of nations” program. Sharing food and promoting the many different cuisines helped to further humanize many groups that had been otherized in pre-revolutionary America. Sanders in particular took this mission to heart, and took time to meet with soldiers and sailors in garrisons across America to have them share some of the flavors of home.

At these “Sanders’ Potlucks”, the Colonel would learn dishes from enlisted men, or help teach them how to cook. They proved very popular morale boosters, especially as tensions rose and the country was once again marching off to war.
[…]
Field Manual 4.12 (1937) established the basic categorisation of military rations still in use today by Comintern forces. “A-Rations” refer to food prepared in garrison setting, utilizing fresh, refrigerated or frozen ingredients. “B-Rations” are prepared usually in a field kitchen setting, using canned or preserved ingredients in situations where fresher food is not logistically feasible. The most well known, the “C-Rations”, are canned and/or shelf-stable retort foods that are fully prepared and may be eaten hot or cold. “D-Rations” are emergency foodstuffs to sustain troops, sailors or air crew that are cut off from resupply.

Later addendums in 1942 would add “F-Ration” freeze-dried and lightweight foods for special operations, and “K-Ration” lightweight prepared foods.
[…]
The first C-Ration, the M-38, entered limited deployment with the troopers of the 75th Infantry Regiment, deployed to the Spanish Civil War under the nominative camouflage of the 14th International Brigade. Initial feedback was mixed, providing a welcome relief from privation but many soldiers complained about the monotony of the menu, and the bulk.

The improved C-Ration M-40 was developed based on this field experience, as well as testing by troops training in a variety of climates, from the Alaskan tundra, the deserts of Arizona, to the jungles of Nicaragua. The M-40 was a 24-hour daily ration, intended to supply soldiers in combat conditions with 100 percent of their needed calories and nutrients.

The ration is built around three main components: the bread unit, the breakfast unit, and the lunch/dinner C-units. The bread unit consists of six 50 gram foil packets of crackers. The crackers, referred to as “hardtack” colloquially, are made of a mix of wholemeal wheat and soya flour. The foil wrapping proved to be a major weight saver over earlier canned units, and the individual water-tight packages enable consumption to be spread over the course of the day without fear of the food being ruined by water or dirt.

The breakfast unit is a small can of cereal, and may be prepared with hot or cold water. At deployment, there were four different varieties: a wheat farina cereal, rice muesli, rolled oats, and buckwheat kasha. These cereals are mildly sweetened as prepared, and can be “spiced up” to taste with condiments or creative uses of other components (a popular use of the cocoa beverage powder is to combine it with farina to make a sweet, chocolate flavored porridge.

The C-units are a shelf-stable meal unit, and each ration had one unit from each list, C1 and C2, to ensure variety. Later models would increase variety by adding additional lists to draw from, and soldiers often exchanged units based on preference. The C-units represented a broad variety of culinary tastes in the ethnically diverse WFRA. Dishes at launch included a German style beef goulash with vegetables and spirelli noodles, an Italian style spaghetti with meaty tomato sauce, a Midwestern corned beef hash, a Cajun rice with sausage and beans, and a Chinese style garlic doufu with noodles.

Each ration pack would come with a number of supplementals: a can of cheese spread, or paté, peanut butter, jam, a package of cocoa beverage powder, two instant coffee or tea sachets, sugar sachets, napkins and a can opener.

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Excerpts from Lala Sokal,Shared Sacrifice, Shared Destiny: Women in the Red Army(Detroit University, 1981)*

The Civil War opened the question of what role women had in the revolutionary military. The often irregular nature of warfare had blurred the line between soldier and civilian, just as the mass struggle brought thousands of women into a military role.

Women served in every capacity in the Civil War, from cooks to combat pilots. The Red Army turned away no one with conviction in the struggle. Circus trick shooters served as snipers. Seamstresses made uniforms and battle flags. Sex workers served as spies and saboteurs behind White lines.

Doors once opened are difficult to close. In spite of resistance from men, particularly the reconstituted military establishment, it proved politically impossible to push women out of the military in peacetime. The first articles of war passed by the post-war government explicitly opened military service in both the Army and Navy to women.

Initial regulations barred women from serving in the combat branches of the Army, relegating them to rear echelon occupation. The Navy restricted women to shore service in peacetime, and to service on hospital ships in the event of war. This compromise became politically infeasible within months.

A July 1934 directive by the Central Executive Council established the Armed Masses Militia, intended to fulfill the Leninist political program that the defense of the dictatorship of the proletariat would be provided by a bedrock of the armed and drilled working-class itself. All adult citizens were reserve members of this militia, and every citizen upon the age of majority had to give six months service in the standing portion of the militia.

The program’s stated goal was to make every adult a trained rifleman capable of mustering for service whenever needed. Within the WFRA, the pressure to permit women into the combat branches began to mount.
[…]
The first women’s regiment was established in December 1934. The 177th was built from a cadre of women combat veterans from the Civil War and select male officers and NCOs. Recruits were drawn from volunteers who had completed service in the first manpower class of the AMM.

The 177th Infantry Regiment has a long and illustrious history, but at its refoundation it was regarded by most of the WFRA brass as little more than a publicity stunt. Officers regarded it as a dismal posting. It and the other “Amazon Regiments” were often seen, with some justification, as a dumping ground for officers and NCOs considered politically unreliable, such as rehabilitated White officers.

This reputation as being a career low point did not prevent misbehavior. Officers not only treated the women soldiers with contempt, they also engaged in rampant sexual harassment, particularly in soliciting sexual favors from subordinates. Unlike in the rest of the Army, the soldiers’ soviet was effectively impotent, and relations between officers and enlisted most closely resembled the antagonism of the pre-revolutionary period.

Women who resisted this abuse found few allies. Embarrassment and social stigma ensured that many women feared that coming forward would only make the problem worse, even as the social power dynamics were shifting in broader society. The military chain of command made the reporting of a superior officer or NCO often difficult. Men who engaged in sexual harassment often found natural allies to suppress such problematic complaints, and ways to punish those who did make waves. When complaints did break the cordon sanitaire, far too often the chain of command assumed it was a consensual relationship that had gone sour, and punished both parties for “violating military discipline”.

For example, the case of Catherine Stork* began innocently enough. Enlisting in January 1935 following completion of AMM service, Stork went to the short-lived Women’s Infantry School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her record was exemplary, and the instructors recommended her for early promotion. She joined the 177th not long after completion. By happenstance, she ended up in 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion. 3rd Platoon was commanded by Lieutenant John Arnold*.

Arnold was 22, and fresh out of West Point. Not only had Arnold been from the same city as Stork (South Bend, Indiana), they had been acquaintances there. Arnold had been a close friend of Stork’s older brother, Bartholomeu Stork.

When Stork arrived at his platoon, Arnold immediately took her under his wing. As Stork described, “At first, it was good to see a familiar face. He helped me navigate life in the Army. But I soon realized that I was his favorite, and that was a double-edged sword. Other soldiers started noticing discrepancies in the duty roster.”

But then the time came to “play ball”. While Arnold dressed it up as “watching each other’s backs” and “helping out old friends,” what he proposed to her beginning in December 1935 amounted to a quid pro quo arrangement, in which he would help her get the promotion to Corporal she’d been fighting in exchange for sexual favors.

She initially tolerated his advances for a complicated mixture of reasons. As she told the Provost branch investigator, against her better judgment she initially consented due to lingering unresolved romantic feelings she had for Arnold from adolescence, and because she didn’t see any way to extricate herself without causing problems. Arnold quickly became more jealous and controlling of her, and she did not have anyone to even serve as a confidant, let alone any inkling of who to report the matter to.

When she tried to end their relationship in March 1936, Arnold forced himself upon her. While apologetic after the act, he continued to imply there would be consequences for “leaving him”. Nonetheless, Stork made up her mind, and reported the rape to Major Harold Williams*, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, by-passing company commander Chief Lieutenant Graeme Thoreson* because she believed his friendship with Lieutenant Arnold would prevent her from getting justice.

Typical of most incidents in this era, the accusation did not proceed to court-martial even on a lesser charge. Instead, both Stork and Arnold received non-judicial punishment ordered by the regimental soviet for their “inappropriate relationship”. Arnold would lose his command, and be reassigned to rear echelon duty. For all her efforts, Stork gained a reputation within the battalion as a “Jezebel”, a now archaic slur for a “temptress” who would lead men astray through sexual immorality.
[…]
Not all members of the military establishment were callous or opposed to women in the military. There was a loose alliance formed between General Martin Abern’s administration in the Secretariat for Defense and the Women’s Revolutionary Union on the matter of inclusion in the Armed Forces. Then Lieutenant General George Patton, serving as the de facto Chief of the Army Staff from 1934 to 1938, redefined the WFRA’s official stance through a number of military theory publications.

“The coming revolutionary struggle,” he noted, “will be an echo of the Great War: an internationalized armed struggle requiring the total mobilisation of the population, industry and culture. In short, a total war pitting the forces of proletarian emancipation against those of reaction.”

This war would manifest not just as a struggle between nations, but also a civil war within bourgeois states. Victory would be achieved by the successful mobilisation of workers for the revolutionary struggle, a struggle which women had already played a major role. To the rising new order in the military, women did not need to prove their worth in the military, they already had in the Civil War. The best women soldiers were better than the average male conscript, and to that end Abern lobbied to open up the combat arms fully, without segregation by sex, in 1936.

Due to the political resistance this could not fully be realized. While the Selective Service Acts were amended to allow the conscription of women into the Armed Forces, full inclusion remained just out of reach. The Army academies and military secondary schools were opened to women in 1936, and the Navy would follow suit a year later. A small group of promising female NCOs were inducted into the West Point Military Academy as Second Years in the Fall of 1936. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation