The United States has made it a tradition to honor its veterans on Nov. 11..
But for decades, one group of service members who braved the dangers and diseases of the battlefields on which they served, were not allowed to bask in their country’s thanks despite military commanders calling their service “indispensable.”
These were the “Hello Girls” of World War I – so named because they were in charge of telephonic communications for the Allied troops in France. The somewhat whimsical nickname for this group of women masked the ultra-serious work they performed and the unrelenting hazards they faced.
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When Gen. John Pershing, the U.S. military’s top commander in the First World War arrived in Paris in 1917, he found that he could not make a simple telephone call.
Although telephone communications were still in a nascent stage, Pershing realized the ability to communicate quickly and accurately in this war could mean the difference between victory or defeat.
So, Pershing did the unthinkable.
He contacted the Department of War in Washington D.C. (it would not be called the Department of Defense until 1947) and demanded they put out a call for 100 women who could operate a telephone switchboard and “speak French as easily as they speak English.”
Pershing further insisted these women “were to be in uniform and under the command of military officers.”
At this time, the idea of recruiting women into the army was more than unthinkable at the Pentagon – it was abhorrent.
It is instructive to remember that women were still three years away from securing the right to vote and that Woodrow Wilson, the sitting president and his party (the Democrats), had proclaimed opposition to giving women the right to vote during the presidential campaign.
But Pershing insisted on recruiting women telephone operators and the call went out across the country.
“In that era, the U.S. did not have a standing army,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cobbs, whose 2017 book “The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers” (Harvard University Press) is considered a comprehensive treatment of the Hello Girls and their era.
“Recruiting women was something never done before,” continued Cobbs, “but when people face urgent situations, they will do things they might not otherwise do.”
Despite the military’s visceral reaction, Cobbs said the drive to enlist women as telephone operators went into high gear because testing had shown women were measurably better than men operating a switchboard.
“In multiple tests, men could only connect one call in the time women could connect five,” said Cobbs.
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Although she did not know it, everything that New Jersey’s Grace Banker had learned in life made her perfectly suited for the responsibilities the army was about to drop on her.
Banker, born in Passaic in 1892, was unique for her time. She was a woman with both a college degree and a job.
Banker excelled at Barnard College, graduating with degrees in History and French (at a time when barely 20% of the U.S, population completed high school and women going to college was practically unheard of). Banker worked at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company because they were one of the few businesses that had jobs for women – as telephone operators.
Banker was not on the job long when her supervisors noted her skills and her competence. She was elevated to switchboard instructor, which made her a supervisor of other operators.
When Banker became one of the 7,000 women to respond to the army’s solicitation for telephone operators, not only was she accepted, but the 24-year-old was appointed leader of the first 33 women heading to France – the vanguard of the Hello Girls.
On the trip to France, the first Hello Girls had to cross knowing the Atlantic Ocean was infested with German submarines.
“The passengers were all told to be fully dressed and wear their life vests at all times,” Cobbs said.
Banker and her colleagues arrived in France safely. Over the ensuing months, 200 more women would follow them.
The Hello Girls were part of the U.S. Army’s Signal Corp and officially called the “Signal Corp Female Telephone Operators Unit.”
They became better known as the Hello Girls. They were given this nickname because they began every telephone communication with the word “hello,” which until that time was used more as an expression of surprise rather than as a greeting.
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The work of Banker and her colleagues was extraordinary.
From her research of various Hello Girls’ diaries and accounts from those who served with them, Cobbs says the Hello Girls worked at the switchboards in 12 hour shifts seven days a week. She estimates they connected 150,000 calls each day and 26 million in six months.
But they did much more than just connect calls. They had to translate coded messages and, because the Allies were sharing the network, they had to translate messages from English to French or from French to English quickly, many times under the duress of battle. They also became handy at repairing damaged telephone wires.
The Hello Girls did this work in communications shacks which many times were just behind the front-line trenches. This position put the girls well within range of German artillery, requiring them to keep their helmets and gas masks at the ready. Being close to the front lines also meant their shacks were usually as foul and rat infested as the trenches.
Thirty Hello Girls received commendations for their work during the war.
Grace Banker earned the Distinguished Service Medal for her actions at the Meuse-Argonne and Saint Mihiel offensives. This medal is awarded “to soldiers who have distinguished themselves by performing exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility.”
Banker was one of only 18 members of the Signal Corp to be so recognized in World War I.
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The Hello Girls returned to a nation where they still could not vote.
But Cobbs noted that the spreading stories of the bravery of both the Hello Girls and the military nurses on the battlefields of Europe, and the effectiveness of the women who held down jobs while the men were off to war, eroded most of the remaining resistance to the women’s suffrage movement.
President Woodrow Wilson became an eloquent advocate for it.
“We have made partners of the women in this war,” Wilson said in a speech. “Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to the partnership of privilege and right? This war could not have been fought if it had not been for the services of the women, services rendered in every sphere where men have worked and upon the very skirts of the battle itself.”
The Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote was ratified in 1920.
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With the fight against the Germans over, the Hello Girls now had to take on a new battle – against the U.S. military.
When they enlisted, the Hello Girls were classified as civilians. The military did not see fit to change their status after the war, thereby denying them the status of veterans and the benefits that go with that designation, including medals, bonuses and the right to a military funeral and burial in a national cemetery.
The Hello Girls fight for recognition dragged on for decades. Many of their male comrades in arms spoke in support of them, including Gen. Pershing, but to no avail. The Hello Girls cause was consistently rebuked by the Defense Department; reasons for the denial ranged from “too much time had passed” to “it would be too expensive.”
In 1977, legislation co-sponsored by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana sought to recognize the contributions of women pilots and service members during World War II.
Getting to know the ‘Hello Girls’
Approximately 230 women served in France as Hello Girls. Each of them was extraordinary in their own way but these three had unique stories:
Inez Crittenden of Colorado served bravely through the way only to contract the virulent Spanish Flu. She died on the day of the Armistice – November 11 – and is buried in a military cemetery just outside of Paris. Originally buried as a civilian, her grave now contains a marker for her military service which was added after Congress passed legislation recognizing the Hello Girls as veterans in 1977.
Merle Egan of Montana earned a special commendation for her service. Egan was one of the driving forces in the fight to have the Hello Girls recognized as veterans. When the fight was won and Egan was given her honorable discharge in 1979, she reportedly said “I deserve this medal not for serving in France but for fighting the U.S. Army for sixty years.” She died in 1984 at the age of 91.
Renee Messelin of California was among the first of the Hello Girls. Her work and her bravery was noticed and she was promoted to a supervisory position. She was frequently singled out for praise by her superiors. However, Messelin kept a very dark secret. Though light-skinned, she was an African American. Had that been known, she would have been denied entry into the Signal Corp. Instead, she is now recognized as the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Army.
Under heavy lobbying, the co-sponsors agreed to add recognition of the Hello Girls to the bill. The bill passed and was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.
Only 18 of the Hello Girls were still alive to enjoy their new-found but well-deserved status.
Grance Banker was not one of them. She had died 17 years earlier.
Success on stage
The Hello Girls have enjoyed a renaissance of recognition in the past decade.
The Hello Girls story was developed into a musical play which ran off-Broadway from November through December of 2018. More than 50 productions of the show have been featured in theaters around the world.
Because she died before Congress recognized the Hello Girls as veterans, Banker never received the Victory Medal awarded to all veterans of the First World War. That was corrected in October, when New Hampshire Congressional Representative Chris Pappas presented the medal to Banker’s granddaughter Carolyn Timbie.
For years, there has been a movement to have a Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the Hello Girls. This medal is the oldest and highest civilian award in the nation. The U.S. Senate recently unanimously approved legislation awarding the medal. The legislation is pending in the House of Representatives.
