Booklist: Mother Was A Gunner's Mate

Mother Was A Gunner's Mate: World War II in the WAVES
Josette Dermody Wingo
Naval Institute Press, 1994

Description
In 1944 the U.S. Navy, fighting on two fronts and needing all the hands it could get, said "Welcome Aboard" to Josette Dermody and sent her to boot camp at Hunter College.

Full of naivete and patriotic military brio, the WAVES brought their own outlook to the man's world of the Navy. Dermody and her roomates learned to shoot antiaircraft guns at GReat Lakes and spent the rest of the war teaching sailors of the Armed Guard Center on Treasure Island, California to use the ring gunsights on antiquated Oerlikons.

She digested the Navy "Rocks and Shoals" and kept out of trouble (mostly). She watched GErman prisoners-of-war learn English from the sailors ("hubba, hubba, what a tomato whatcha doin' tonight, sweetheart?). She taught Russian sailors en route to Murmansk how to lead with American ringsights.

She watched the United Nations Confederence prepare for the peace. She celebrated V-J Day on Market Street, protected from the rioting by her handsome, rakehell boatswain's mate. Best of all, she and her shipmates marched in the victory parades with all the others who had fought the good fight and helped win the war.

Recorded here with great clarity and wit, her reminiscences of these experiences presserve for future generations the real world of the enlisted WAVE in World War II.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue: Birthday
1. Goodbye
2. Boot
3. Ripples
4. Waves
5. Impressions
6. Liberty
7. Gunners
8. Parade
9. Home Leave
10. Challenger
11. Treasure Island
12. Survivors
13. Christmas
14. Mutiny
15. Russiand and Rescue
16. Captain's Mast
17. Vodka Victory
18. Springtime
19. Sorrow
20. Fly Away Home
21. True Love
22. Toot, Toot, Tootsie
23. Anniversary
24. War Ending
25. V-J Day
26. Well Done
Epilogue