On November 8, 1917, General John J. Pershing cabled the War Department with a request that would bring American women into a vital wartime role. Facing a shortage of qualified bilingual telephone operators, he asked for “a force of Woman telephone operators all speaking French and English equally well.” The American Expeditionary Forces needed skilled operators who could connect calls quickly and bridge the language barrier between American and French communications networks.
The women who answered became popularly known as the “Hello Girls.” Wearing Army uniforms and subject to military regulations, they operated telephone exchanges linking headquarters and military units in France. Some served near the fighting and came under fire. At the height of the war, the operators collectively connected as many as 150,000 calls a day. Chief Operator Grace Banker (shown above), who led the first contingent overseas, received the Distinguished Service Medal for her wartime service.
Despite their uniforms, discipline, and responsibilities, the Army classified the women as civilian employees rather than soldiers, denying them the military discharges and veterans’ benefits they believed their service had earned. Former operator Merle Egan Anderson helped lead a decades-long campaign to correct that exclusion. On November 23, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that opened the way to recognition; in 1979, the operators received veteran status and official discharge papers.
Banker, who died in 1960, did not live to see that recognition. Her story and those of her fellow operators reveal two struggles: the wartime effort to keep an army connected, and the long campaign to have their own service acknowledged. The November 8 cable marks the beginning of a chapter in which women proved indispensable to military operations long before the government fully recognized their contribution.
