Pauline Palmer Collection

Digitization of this collection is still in progress.

1942-1946 and 1952-1953. Collection includes a scrapbook documenting Palmer's experience in the WAAC and WAC and includes photographs, newspaper clippings and correspondence. Correspondence in the scrapbook includes a letter from the Northern New Jersey Recruiting and Induction District regarding her selection as well as the telegram from Major General T.A. Terry informing her of her acceptance into the first officer candidate class. Ephemera in the scrapbook include WAAC-related invitations as well as a strip of typescript assigning Palmer her squad, bed and wall locker when she arrived at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Other items in the collection include a handwritten poem about her WAC bowling team, her first military ID, and a booklet with no publication data that consists of line drawings of an officer candidate WAAC that show her progress from her arrival at Fort Des Moines to receipt of her commission. Palmer's belt, wallet, change purse, Army Air Force patch and her name tag when she was a lieutenant are also included. The collection also contains 16 letters to Palmer or her son, Covert. Two relate to her service, including a 1944 letter from her first sergeant reminiscing about a group of their trainees that led to her friend's decision to leave the WAC. The rest relate to the last year of her life and include a letter she wrote to her son regarding her struggles since leaving the army. Palmer died in a car accident under suspicious circumstances in December 1952, and the bulk of the letters discuss the accident, her death, and matters of her estate.

Pauline G. Palmer (1901-1952), from Meriden, Connecticut and East Orange, New Jersey at the time of her induction, was a 41 year old music teacher when she joined the WAAC. She was also essentially a single mother, as her husband was a disabled World War I veteran. On July 9, 1942, 47 women were sworn in as the first officer candidates in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Pauline Palmer was one of the 3,515 initial applicants and one of the few selected. Eleven days later she was part of the first group of women to begin training in the WAAC at Fort Des Moines. In November 1942 when she was transferred to the new training facility at Daytona Beach. There she was named company commander in charge of a group of around 200 new recruits. In 1944 Palmer was promoted to Captain and in 1946 she was Commanding Officer for a WAC squadron as part of the 78th Army Air Forces Base Unit. She was also vetted for work in cryptography. Palmer died in a car accident under suspicious circumstances in December 1952.

Women's History
Military

Army -- WAAC
Army -- WAC

World War II era (1940-1946)

World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Women

Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries