On August 13, 1918, Opha May Johnson became the first woman to enlist in The United States Marine Corps.
Johnson’s historic enlistment at the absolute height of World War I broke an all-male military tradition that had stood firm since the founding of the corps in 1775. With the American Expeditionary Forces suffering staggering casualties on the bloody battlefields of France, the Marine Corps faced a critical clerical manpower shortage at home, prompting the Secretary of the Navy to authorize the enrollment of women for shore duty. Johnson stood at the absolute front of a line of over 300 women who rushed the Washington, D.C., recruitment office on August 13th, successfully passing the rigorous entry exams to assume vital administrative roles that freed up male Marines to deploy directly to the front lines, permanently rewriting the rules of military service.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
