Women veterans of World War II celebrated

From The Salt Lake Tribune: Women veterans of World War II celebrated
Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Waves of the Wasatch members Eula Kimber, 90, of Grouse Creek, Utah, right, and Marjorie Campbell, of Salt Lake City, listen during the Veterans Adminstration Salt Lake City Health Care System and Salt Lake Community College's celebration of women veterans during a program at Salt Lake Community College in Taylorsville, Utah Tuesday, November 1, 2011. The group was honored during the event. Kimber served from 1944-1946 and Campbell served from 1944-1945.

Taylorsville • Eula Kimber was fresh from the tiny town of Grouse Creek and working as a typist in Salt Lake City when she noticed all the women joining up to serve in World War II.

Figuring she’d always wanted to see New York City, where the Navy trained its Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service — Waves — she went to a recruiting office. “They took me just that quick,” says Kimber.

Then 21, she caught an eastbound train at Lucin, not far from Grouse Creek in Utah’s northwest corner, by waving a handkerchief in the air. “When I got on it was all Waves.”

Now 90, Kimber is president of the veterans group Waves of the Wasatch Unit 93 Region 3, which was honored Tuesday night at a banquet at Salt Lake Community College’s Taylorsville campus.

It was hosted by the Women Veterans Program at the Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Health Care System and SLCC to celebrate all women veterans, especially the Waves, the first women considered veterans of the U.S. Military.

Kimber, who taught school in Grouse Creek for 30 years and still lives there, was a hotel clerk checking officers into their rooms in San Diego from 1944 to 1946.

Others Waves had diverse jobs.

Rosalind Henneman, of Alpine, taught instrumentation to pilots and recalls pilots letting the Waves take turns piloting the planes across the country, only to turn the controls back over to the male pilots for landing.

Ruth Klein, of Sandy, was a gunnery instructor, teaching “the guys” to shoot machine guns and discern whether an aircraft was American, British, German or Japanese in less than a second.

“I just felt like it was a patriotic duty,” said Ruth Messick, of Holladay. “I’m so glad I did.”