SPARS was the acronym for the women's branch of the United States Coast Guard (USCG) Women's Reserve. The abbreviation was derived from the Coast Guard motto, "—"Always Ready" (SPAR). The branch was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in November 1942 during World War II. This legislation authorized the USCG to accept officer candidates and enlisted personnel into its ranks for the duration of World War II plus six months. Its purpose was to release male personnel for sea duty by filling essential shore-based roles with women; while initially restricted to the continental United States, members were later allowed to serve in some U.S. territories.
Dorothy C. Stratton was appointed director of the program with the rank of lieutenant commander. The recruitment standards for age and education varied depemnding on whether applicants were seeking to be officer candidates or enlisted personnel. African American women were not accepted for service until late 1944. The training for both groups varied in focus and took place at several sites across the U.S., including the United States Coast Guard Academy and Palm Beach, Florida, Training Canter. While most personnel performed in administrative and clerical roles, others filled technical positions; notably, in 1943, the Coast Guard assigned Spars to the top-secret LORAN (Long Range Aid to Navigation) program. By the end of the war, approximately 11,000 women had served in the branch. They were stationed in every Coast Guard district except Puerto Rico, including the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii.
The demobilization of the program began shortly after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, and nearly all members were discharged by mid-1946. The Women's Reserve was officially inactivated in 1947, but was reactivated as the U.S. Coast Guard Women's Volunteer Reserve in November 1949. During the Korean War, the Coast Guard actively recruited former Spars, with approximately 200 women reenlisting for service. On December 5, 1973, Congress passed Public Law 93-174, which ended the separate Women's Volunteer Reserve and officially permitted women to serve in the regular Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Reserve on an integrated basis. The legacy of the program has been honored by the naming of several vessels, including the USCGC Spar (WLB-403), the USCGC Spar (WLB-206), and the USCGC Stratton (WMSL-752).
Background Prior to World War II, the United States Coast Guard functioned as a branch of the United States Department of the Treasury. On November 1, 1941, as international tensions escalated, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8929, which transferred the service to the jurisdiction of the United States Department of the Navy. This transition fundamentally altered the Coast Guard's mission from civilian maritime oversight and law enforcement to active military and combat support. The expansion of the service created an immediate need for additional personnel. As historian Emily Yellin notes in Our Mothers' War, the establishment of a women's reserve was a primary method by which the Coast Guard could manage this rapid growth. By mid-1942, the Coast Guard leadership recognized that to maintain its operational tempo, it would need to follow the precedents established by the Army's WACS and the Navy's WAVES.
Legislation was subsequently sponsored in Congress to grant women Coast Guard status and benefits. It passed as Public Law 773 (77th Congress) and was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 23, 1942. This Act authorized the Coast Guard to accept officer candidates and enlisted personnel into its ranks for the duration of World War II plus six months, with the primary purpose of releasing male personnel for sea duty by filling essential shore-based roles. Although service was initially restricted to the continental United States, later legislative amendments allowed members to serve in the U.S. Territories of Hawaii and Alaska.
Leadership
Before her military service, Dorothy C. Stratton established a career in higher education and psychology. After earning a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Columbia University, she was appointed in 1933 as an assistant professor of psychology and the first full-time Dean of Women at Purdue University. During her nine-year tenure at Purdue, Stratton was responsible for the academic and professional development of the female student body. This extensive administrative experience with large-scale women's programs prepared her as a qualified choice for the leadership of the SPARS.
In 1942, Stratton requested and was granted an extended leave of absence from Purdue University to join the Navy's newly established WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). On August 28, 1942, she reported to the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, joining the first class of 119 female officer candidates for the WAVES. The class consisted of scientists, teachers, administrators, and business professionals. Upon graduation, she was commissioned as a Lieutenant-Senior Grade. Stratton was then assigned to radio operators’ school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which was her first and only assignment for the WAVES.
Shortly afterward, the U.S. Congress established the United States Coast Guard branch of the Women's Reserve under Public Law 773 (Chapter 639), which was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 22, 1942. The following day, Dorothy C. Strattona lieutenant in the WAVESwas appointed the director of the new program and sworn into the Coast Guard as a lieutenant commander by Admiral Russell R. Waesche, the Commandant.
Following her appointment, Stratton faced the immediate challenge of organizing a branch that lacked administrative infrastructure, recruitment pipelines, and personnel. To help resolve this, the Coast Guard relied on the cooperation of the Navy. To assist Stratton in establishing the new service, 15 officers and 153 enlisted WAVES transferred from the Navy's women's reserve to the Coast Guard's women's reserve—becoming the first Spars.
Under Stratton's leadership, the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve experienced rapid growth, expanding from its initial group of transferred WAVES to approximately 11,000 enlisted members and commissioned officers. Beyond establishing policy and recruitment guidelines, Stratton is credited with naming the service. Drawing on the traditional Coast Guard motto "Semper Paratus"("Always Ready"), she derivied the acronym "SPAR" by combining the first letters of the Latin motto with those of its English translation. She attained the rank of captain and served as director from 1942 until 1946. Stratton was awarded the Legion of Merit for her wartime leadership.
Recruitment
Requirements and prohibitions In order to apply for the Women's Reserve, officer candidates and enlisted applicants had to be American citizens who had no children under 18 years of age. Applicants had to present three character references, pass a physical examination, and submit a record of their occupation after leaving school. Officer candidates needed to be age 20–50, and college graduates or to have completed two years of college with at least two years of acceptable business or professional experience. Enlisted applicants had to be age 20–36, and they were required to have completed at least two years of high school. Unmarried women had to agree not to marry until they had completed training. After training, SPARs could marry any man who was not in the USCG. Married women could apply for the Women's Reserve (as either officers or enlisted), provided their husbands were not already serving in the Coast Guard.
General recruitment efforts Early on in the planning process, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the USCG agreed to recruit and train their respective women's reserves together at existing Navy facilities. For recruitment of personnel, the SPARs would utilize the Office of Naval Officer Procurement. Their recruiting efforts began in December 1942, but they were hampered at first by the initial lack of SPAR personnel. After the Navy agreed to allow transfer requests for its WAVES reservists, a total of 15 officers and 153 enlisted women discharged from the Navy reserves, and they became the first SPARs. Eventually, SPAR officers were assigned to most Naval Officer Procurement sites to facilitate USCG recruitment of personnel. SPAR recruitment information was customarily disseminated along with WAVES publicity materials, but it became increasingly apparent that the job of selling the SPARs would include selling the USCG itself.
By June 1943, it was clear that combined SPARs–WAVES recruitment did not favor the Coast Guard's own efforts, so it withdrew from the joint agreement effective July 1. After this point, all USCG applicants would be interviewed and enlisted only at USCG district recruiting stations. The change was met with enthusiasm by SPAR recruiters and yielded positive results overall. But despite this change, competition with the other, better-known women's reserves remained keen. In Three Years Behind the Mast, written by former Women's Reserve officers Lyne and Arthur, they describe some of the difficulties faced by SPAR recruiters: During the day, we made speeches, distributed posters, decorated windows, led parades, manned information booths, interviewed applicants, appeared on radio programs, and gave aptitude tests. By night, we made more speeches, prayed women would be drafted, and went to bed dreaming about our quotas. The primary recruitment phase ended on December 31, 1944. During the two-year effort, over 11,000 women signed enlistment contracts to join the Women's Reserve, though many more women were interviewed. Of those applicants who otherwise met the requirements, one-fourth were rejected for failure to pass the medical exam.
In her 1989 oral history article, "Launching the SPARS", Stratton revisited the recruiting practices during her tenure as director: At first we were going for perfection in our recruiting effort. As we were falling behind in our numbers, modifications to physical requirements were made. It was ridiculous to make the same physical demands of women when they weren't going to be manning ships at sea. If we hadn't been so inflexible in our standards at the beginning—if we'd set more reasonable ones—I'm sure we'd have been better off.
Dorothy Tuttle had the distinction of being the first woman to enlist in the Coast Guard Women's Reserve on December 7, 1942. She later became a Yeoman Third Class (Y3C).
Minority recruitment African American women
The SPARs, like the WAVES, would not open its enlistment door to African American women until October 1944; both reserve branches were under the supervision of the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, who was vehemently opposed to the acceptance of African American women into the naval services. After Knox died in April 1944, he was replaced by James Forrestal. The new secretary proposed that African American women be accepted, but under some apparent discriminatory conditions. President Roosevelt decided to delay any decision on the matter until after the 1944 United States presidential election, which would be held on November 7. Meanwhile, Thomas E. Dewey, Republican candidate for president, during a speech in Chicago criticized the administration for discriminating against African American women. On October 19, 1944, Roosevelt instructed the Secretary of the Navy to accept African American women into naval services.