100-year-old Mae Warner, from her senior living community in Bryn Mawr, enjoys talking about her service during World War II.
“I was in high school, class of ’42,” Warner said. “When we graduated, everyone wanted to join at first. So I thought: I want to join too.”
Although women were not allowed to serve in combat roles during the war, they could take on military responsibilities in other ways and in all sectors.
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“We had women coming into the service and they had different names,” Warner said. “The WAVES for the Navy, the Army had the WAACS and the Coast Guard had the SPARS.”
An acronym for the Coast Guard motto, “Semper Paratus – Always Ready,” Warner said the women of SPARS “had to replace a man so he could go to war.”
From 1942 to 1946, more than 10,000 women volunteered for service in the SPARS program, including Warner.
“It was intentional at the time,” she explained.
Warner left the Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, for basic training in Palm Beach.
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Eventually, Warner was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, where she and other members of SPARS kept the Coast Guard stations running.
Warner described her time in the service as a “wonderful experience during a terrible time in that century.”
“I’m just glad I could be there,” she said. “Even if I had to wait until I was twenty.”
Warner and a dozen other veterans will be honored Veterans Day at the Mansion at Rosemont senior living home.
