Josephine Martin Flynn Collection

Details

Who's responsible?: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
How much has been digitized?: Only a part of this collection has been digitized.
What's in the full collection?: 5 May 2001 oral history transcript; Postcard with photograph of WAAC training, 1942; Military paperwork 1946,1967; The Alumni Review publication from 1944; various newspaper article clippings 1942-1944; book of United States Defense Savings Bonds; Original War Department ID; Official WAC portrait photographs of Josephine Flynn 1942-1946. OS Box 2 Newspaper and Magazine Articles 1942-1943; Look Magazine, 1942; The New York Times, 1942; The Charlotte Observer, 1943.
Full biography: Josephine Martin Flynn (1919-2006) of Henderson, North Carolina, was one of the first officers in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, serving in the army from September 1942 to August 1946. Josephine Martin Flynn was born in Henderson, North Carolina, on 18 February 1919 to Eva Waite Martin, a music teacher, and Joseph Buie Martin. She graduated from Henderson High School and attended Peace Junior College in Raleigh, North Carolina, for two years. Flynn transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her last two years and graduated in 1940. She then taught school for two years. In the summer of 1942, Flynn applied for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) Officer Candidate School (OCS). In September 1942 she became a member of the second class at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. She taught supply courses at the school for one year before becoming a recruiter in Charlotte, North Carolina. Flynn also taught at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and supervised Women's Army Corps (WAC) training all over the country while stationed in the Pentagon. In 1944 Flynn was placed in charge of all civilian personnel at Camp Beale, California, where she remained until her discharge on 13 August 1946. In the fall of 1946 Flynn entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the GI Bill and completed a master's degree in personnel. She married her husband in 1950 and they moved to Greensboro, where Josephine Flynn worked in non-academic personnel at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She became the executive director of the Cancer Society and then worked in the Child Health Program of the Health Department. Josephine Flynn died on 15 September 2006.
Topics: Women's History
Military
Schools and Colleges
Branch of service: Army -- WAAC
Army -- WAC
Conflict: World War II era (1940-1946)
Subject headings: World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Women
Contributing Institution: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries

: Josephine Martin Flynn; Seated portrait of Josephine Martin Flynn, circa 1944, in WAC officers' overcoat, chamois scarf, garrison cap, and gloves.

: Josephine Martin Flynn; Portrait of WAC Josephine Martin Flynn, circa 1944. She wears her winter officer's uniform of a olive drab jacket and light drab (pink) shirt. The jacket has general headquarters service forces patch.

: Oral history interview with Josephine Martin Flynn; Documents Josephine Martin Flynn's early life; her four years of service with the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II; and its relation to her opinions and non-military life. Flynn primarily describes her military service, with an emphasis on her place in the second WAAC class in Officer Candidate School at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Topics include the application process; basic training with male instructors; the olive drab uniforms; being an officer; and the transition from the WAAC to the WAC. She also comments on her friendship with Col. Westray Battle Boyce and how Boyce became the director of the WAC when Col. Oveta Culp Hobby resigned. " Flynn also discusses her supply work; teaching with a black WAC instructor at Fort Des Moines; recruiting in North Carolina; living in Washington, D.C.; the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and her social life and friendships. Flynn remembers tremendous feelings of patriotism and pride in her service and the respect that she received in uniform. She reflects on women being in the military; women in the work force; and how the service affected her life. She also describes Chapel Hill after the war and the affects of the GI Bill on the town and university.