She was married for over 61 years to John B. She had been a longtime employee of Long Island University, retiring as executive assistant to the president. The album was full of old photos showing her with other WAVES and some of the many sailors who once served here in the installation’s earliest years, when the nation was embroiled in World War II.Īlice Virginia Benzie Dowden died in Williamsburg, Virginia, Oct. In 2014, a personal photo album of Benzie’s from her time at Pax River surfaced on eBay and was purchased by Mike Smolek, NAS Patuxent River’s cultural resources manager. 4, 1943, at age 21 and was honorably discharged having achieved the rank of chief yeoman. One of those WAVES was Alice Virginia Benzie, originally from Brookville, New York, who served at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, then known as the U.S. Navy history, as well as the first director of the WAVES. In August 1942, Mildred McAfee, president of Wellesley College, was sworn in as a Navy Reserve lieutenant commander and became the first female officer in U.S. Navy would last far beyond the World War II “emergency” for which they had been recruited. Little did anyone know that the resulting influx of women in the U.S. Navy created during World War II to free up male personnel for sea duty. On July 30, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Navy Women’s Reserve Act into law, creating what was commonly known as the WAVES - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service - a division of the U.S.
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