Mary A. Hallaren

American military leader

• Born: May 4, 1907
• Birthplace: Lowell, Massachusetts
• Died: February 13, 2005
• Place of death: McLean, Virginia

The third director of the Women’s Army Corps, Hallaren expanded opportunities for women in the U.S. armed forces during and after World War II. Through her efforts, women moved from auxiliary status to permanent status as regular service members. Furthermore, she was the first woman commissioned an officer in the regular Army.

Early Life

Mary A. Hallaren (HAHL-ehr-ehn), director of the Women’s Army Corps from 1947 until 1953, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to John J. Hallaren and Mary A. (Kenney) Hallaren. Her parents were Irish immigrants who lived in the Pawtucketville section of Lowell. She attended public schools in Lowell, graduating from Lowell High School. She received a teaching degree from Lowell Teachers College in 1927 and taught middle school in Lexington for fifteen years before she entered the military.

Teaching meant that Hallaren had summers free for travel. She hitchhiked and backpacked through the United States and the rest of the world. She started by traveling to national parks in the United States. After seeing most of the country, she toured Canada and Mexico, then traveled through Europe and South America. Hallaren was in Munich, Germany, one summer when she crossed paths with Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader was virtually unknown in the United States, but already was a sensation in Germany. Hallaren remembered that Hitler received a thunderous reception in the Munich town square, but he did not make a strong impression on her. On a hike through Rome, she drew a crowd by wearing pants. (Italians had not seen many women wearing pants.) She was known by her students and her fellow teachers as the Hitchhiking Teacher.

Life’s Work

Hallaren’s adult life can be divided into her military career and her post-retirement service work. Shortly after the United States entered World War II, the U.S. Army created the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). U.S. Representative Edith Nourse Rogers had introduced a bill in Congress that led to the WAAC’s establishment. Oveta Culp Hobby was its first director.

Hallaren followed her brothers into the Army and enlisted in 1942. She had been asked by an Army recruiter about her height. (Hallaren claimed to be five feet tall, but she was likely a few inches shorter.) The recruiter wondered what such a short person could do in the Army, and Hallaren replied, “You don’t have to be six feet tall to have a brain that works.”

In August, 1942, she was selected to be in the first class of the WAAC Officer Candidate School at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Hallaren’s first job was assistant WAAC commandant at the Second WAAC Training Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, and she trained the First WAAC Separate Battalion. Hallaren’s battalion was sent to Europe in July, 1943, the first women’s battalion to receive orders to serve overseas in the European theater of World War II. Hallaren began service in Europe as the WAAC staff director attached to the U.S. Eighth and Ninth Air Forces. Upon arrival in England, her unit was divided into companies for service with several Army Air Corps units. The women initially were assigned to jobs as clerks, telephone operators, cooks, and drivers. By the end of the first year, however, they were filling two hundred different jobs, including cryptographer.

Ironically, Hallaren’s passion for hiking played a small part in the history of her battalion. At one time during the battalion’s tour of duty, the troop ship carrying the WAAC personnel between European ports had been forced to remain docked while Army intelligence officers investigated an alleged tie between one of the WAAC soldiers and the Hitler Youth. Years later, Hallaren learned that she was the one facing investigation. She was under suspicion because the German hiking club she had joined earlier eventually folded into the Hitler Youth.

From June, 1945, to June, 1946, Hallaren served as the WAAC staff director for the European Theater of Operations. Her work and leadership abilities attracted the attention of the Allied supreme commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. When the fighting ended in Europe, General Eisenhower asked Hallaren to oversee the transition of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps to the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), which was to become a permanent part of the military establishment. Hallaren was promoted to colonel in May, 1947, the first woman commissioned in the regular Army. It also was the highest rank that could be held by a woman at the time. Many under Hallaren’s command referred to her as the Little Colonel.

Recalled to Washington, Hallaren worked to encourage Congress to upgrade the official status of women in the military and make them a permanent part of the armed services. Her proposal, which became the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, first met with strong resistance, especially among members of the House Armed Services Committee. The committee tried to rework the legislation so that it would limit women’s status in the service and permit service only in time of national crises (that is, as temporary staff only). Working with former service members, Hallaren indirectly led a lobbying campaign that flooded the offices of members of the Armed Services Committee. The committee eventually agreed that women should become a permanent part of the military, thus forming the Army WACs and the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). Colonel Hallaren, the first woman commissioned an officer in the regular Army, served as WAC director from December, 1948, through May, 1953.

Hallaren retired from the Army in 1960. During her years of service, she received numerous citations including the Bronze Star, the Army Commendation Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion of Honor. Five years after retiring from active military service, Hallaren started a third career. A friend had told her about Women in Community Service (WICS), a national nonprofit organization created by a coalition of five women’s groups: American GI Forum Women, Church Women United, National Council of Catholic Women, National Council of Jewish Women, and National Council of Negro Women. WICS had been seeking an executive director, and Hallaren took the job. She led the organization for fourteen years. She also was instrumental in the creation of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Hallaren died on February 13, 2005, of complications from a stroke.

Significance

Hallaren was a pioneer in expanding the role of women in American society. She engaged apparent obstacles with courage, good humor, and a strong sense of curiosity. U.S. representative Barbara A. Mikulski, a Democrat from Maryland, introduced a bill in 1978 to promote Hallaren to brigadier general on the retired list. In her floor statement, Mikulski summed up Hallaren’s career, indicating that her military career would not have been limited had Hallaren been a man.

In spite of her many successes, Hallaren maintained a sense of humility. On October 5, 1996, she was inducted into the American Women’s Hall of Fame. She accepted the honor with pride and humility, saying that she was a good citizen who had only done a good job in the Women’s Army Corps and with WICS.

Bibliography

Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation. New York: Random House, 1998. A brief profile of Colonel Hallaren, as one of the many Americans who served in the military during World War II. Illustrated.

Dean, Mensah. “Activist’s Army of Victories for Women.” Washington Times, October 10, 1996, p. 8. This profile was written when Hallaren was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. It is an excellent, concise summary of her careers as a schoolteacher, military officer, and social activist.

Morden, Bettie J. The Women’s Army Corps, 1945-1978. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1990. A detailed examination of the development of the Women’s Army Corps from the end of World War II through the end of WAC’s existence. Hallaren reviewed the manuscript of the book and her role as a WAC leader is discussed throughout.

Nathan, Amy. Count on Us: American Women in the Military. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2004. This book, written for elementary and middle school audiences, examines the role of women in the American military from the Revolutionary War through the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Colonel Hallaren’s career is discussed briefly.

Weiner, Josephine. The Story of WICS. Washington, D.C.: Women in Community Service, 1979. A detailed examination of the development of WICS as a nongovernmental organization implementing social policy across the United States.

Witt, Linda.“A Defense Weapon Known to Be a Value”: Servicewomen of the Korean War Era. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2005. This book reviews the role of women in the military during the period immediately before the Korean conflict and during that conflict. A brief sketch of Colonel Hallaren’s career appears in the book.