Women of the 148th WAAC managed secret signals in Miami Beach
By Vera Kessler ·
Moved from Iowa to Florida to serve the Military Intelligence Service, these women lived under strict blackout procedures and dress codes while managing wartime signals.
They were moved from the plains of Iowa to the coast of Florida to handle the hidden currents of wartime intelligence. For the women of the 148th WAAC, this meant trading civilian autonomy for a world of blackout procedures and strict military discipline.
These women were not mere clerks; they were the connective tissue of the American Intelligence Service during a global conflict. According to a catalogue entry from the US National Archives, the records of the WAC Communications Detachment in Miami Beach capture the friction between the high-stakes nature of signals intelligence and the mundane rigors of Army life.
Special Orders No. 11
On January 14, 1943, the transition from trainees to operatives began. An "Extract of Special Orders No. 11," issued by the First Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps Training Center at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, ordered the transfer of the 148th WAAC Communications Company to Miami Beach. Their destination was a specific assignment with the Military Intelligence Service.
Public records establish that the Women's Army Corps began as an auxiliary unit in 1942 before gaining active duty status in July 1943. The women of the 148th arrived in Florida during this volatile transition. By February 20, 1943, the unit had produced an alphabetical listing of its members, a ledger of names now preserved in the archival series as a snapshot of the detachment's composition.
Shoremede Hotel and Blackout Procedures
While the broader mission involved the American Intelligence Service—which the National Archives links to signals intelligence and correspondence with Latin American and Caribbean military attachés—the daily reality for these women was governed by a strict set of administrative constraints.
The file's catalogue entry records a preoccupation with order and conduct. Memos in the series address everything from "reveille formations" and "training schedules" to the more granular details of military life: "Shoremede Hotel passes," "paper recycling," and the "wearing of civilian clothing."
Control extended to the spiritual and the punitive. The records include memorandums regarding "religious services" alongside those detailing "minor offenses and punishments." Even the darkness was regulated; the series contains documentation on "blackout procedures," a necessity for a unit operating in a coastal city vulnerable to enemy observation.
Camp Ritchie and Stark General
The movement of personnel suggests a wide and sensitive network of intelligence hubs. The catalogue notes memorandums regarding the transmittal of service records and "allied papers" of WAC members being sent to a variety of locations across the American South and East Coast.
These destinations included: - Camp Gordon, Georgia - Camp Blanding, Florida - Stark General Hospital, Charleston, South Carolina - Camp Forrest, Tennessee - Camp Croft, South Carolina - Camp Stewart, Georgia - Headquarters, Third Air Force, Tampa, Florida - Camp Ritchie, Maryland - Detachment Second Signal Service Battalion, Miami Beach, Florida
Camp Ritchie, in particular, was known as a primary center for the interrogation of prisoners of war and the training of intelligence agents. The flow of WAC personnel between Miami Beach and such sites indicates the detachment was integrated into a sophisticated intelligence apparatus that spanned the Atlantic coast.
February 24, 1944
Financial and administrative stability was also a point of contention. The series contains a memorandum from February 8, 1943, regarding an interpretation of Army Regulation (AR) 210-50, which governed unit funds, modified to "conform to the needs and uses of the 148th WAAC Communications Company."
As the war progressed, the administrative record shifts from the logistics of deployment to the recognition of service. The series concludes its primary narrative with documentation dated from February 24, 1944, to June 16, 1944, regarding the awarding of the Good Conduct Medal to members of the detachment.