Direct answer: Approximately 350,000 American women served in the U.S. military during World War II. This figure includes women serving in non-combat roles across the Army, Navy, Navy Nurse Corps, Army Nurse Corps, WAVES, SPARS, and related auxiliaries, rather than frontline combat units.
Details and context:
- Scope: The estimate refers to the United States military and specifically thewomen who enlisted or were commissioned into uniformed service in World War II, spanning multiple branches and auxiliary programs.
- Roles: Women filled a wide range of non-combat duties designed to free men for front-line service, including administrative work, nursing, transportation, maintenance, cryptology, aviation support, and more. Some women did experience frontline exposure in various capacities, and a few were killed or captured.
- Affirming sources: Multiple reputable summaries and museum/archival sources consistently cite the same order of magnitude for U.S. female military service in WWII (roughly three hundred-fifty thousand). This figure is echoed across historical summaries and official histories.
If you’d like, I can break down the 350,000 figure by service branch (Army vs. Navy vs. Coast Guard, etc.), or provide a brief overview of the main women’s units (WAAC/WAC, WAVES, SPARS, Marine Corps Women's Reserve) and their respective roles.
