Correcting the record: Women receive recognition 100 years later
At Suresnes American Cemetery in 2021, the inscription on Inez Ann Murphy Crittenden’s headstone was changed from “Civilian” to “Chief Operator Signal Corps.” The inscription change, requested by a family member, was just one of the ways the “Hello Girls,” as the U.S. Army Signal Corps phone operators were nicknamed, were recognized years after their service to their country.
Mike Knapp, chief historian for the American Battle Monuments Commission and a veteran Signal Corps officer, participated in the recognition of another phone operator, Grace Banker, Oct. 3 at a ceremony in New Hampshire.
During his speech, Knapp shared the importance of the phone operators’ mission during World War I. After three years of war, the French phone system was in shambles. In March 1918, the first women phone operators, recruited and trained from the U.S., headed to France. At the end of the war, 223 operators were working in Europe and had assisted with numerous missions including the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which brought the war to a close.
“Initially, they handled routine calls for supplies, transportation and other minor matters, but soon they handled the entire exchanges including the ‘fighting lines,’ which connected fighting units with commanders and dealt with every order for infantry advances, artillery barrages and all troop movements,” Knapp said. “Their work was conducted in complex codes which changed daily, in two languages, often sounding to the untrained ear like a babble of incoherent words making no sense.”
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The operators took great pride in their service, Knapp said, but when they requested their discharge and Victory Medals, they were told they did not qualify as they had been civilian employees of the Signal Corps, not soldiers. For over 60 years and with more than 50 bills introduced in Congress to give them veteran status, it was eventually granted in 1977, too late for Banker to see. Of the original 223, only 18 remained to receive their discharge certificates.
During the Oct. 3 ceremony, Banker’s granddaughter, Carolyn Timbie, accepted Banker’s Victory Medal for her military service overseas where she served as the chief telephone operator. Timbie continues to work with others pushing to have the Signal Corps women recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal.
Crittenden is the only telephone operator buried at an ABMC site. A native of Oakland, California, Crittenden was bilingual in English and French and had worked as a telephone operator since she was 14. Because of her experience, she was assigned a chief operator in the Signal Corps. She died at age 31 of influenza on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918.
