VETERANS DAY
While Memorial Day is reserved for those who died in service, Veterans Day is dedicated to all of the men and women who have served in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
Marking the 80th year since the end of World War II, the Concho Observer looks at an interesting record of service by the men and women of Tom Green County, and the immediate area, published not long after the end of the war:
“The Men and Women in World War II from Tom Green County”
The book opens with a memorial page dedicating the publication to those who fell in the war and two pages of names, but it then goes on to list all the men and women from Tom Green County who served in the war that they could find information for.
Beginning on Page 19, every odd page has photographs and short biographies of service members. (The even numbered pages were left blank, perhaps to allow for autographs.)
The Women of World War II
While most remembrance services tend to focus on the men in uniform, according to government records, more than 350,000 American women served in the Armed Forces during World War II.
Of course, women had been serving as Army and Navy nurses for decades, but the massive mobilization effort following Pearl Harbor inspired young women just the same as it did young men, and the need for personnel soon led to new opportunities for women to enlist in every branch of the service by 1942.
- The Women’s Army Corps or WAC (initially known as Women’s Auxiliary Corps)
- Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES, in support of the Navy.
- The Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and the Coast Guard women’s unit known as SPARS, an acronym for the Marine Corps motto “Semper Paratus, Always Ready”
- And, beginning in 1943, the Women Airforce Service Pilots unit, or WASPs.
According to historical information, women in uniform performed more than 200 different jobs, serving as air-traffic controllers, clerks, drivers, gunnery instructors, mechanics, pilots, translators and weather forecasters.
They served stateside and around the world, and many of them risked their lives.
According to Defense Department information 432 servicewomen died in the war, and 38 were taken prisoner.
While many women received the recognition and respect the deserved during and after the war, many also faced gender discrimination from the public and male colleagues, with women of color facing the double burden of racism and sexism.
Most of the women in service had been discharged by 1946, but many young women still longed to serve their country, and in 1948 Congress passed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, which granted women the right to serve as regular members of the military for the first time.
The first woman listed in the Tom Green County book is Beatrice (Bea) Athanas, from one of San Angelo’s many Greek families.
She served from 1942 to 1946.
According to her obituary, Bea was born in Temple in 1919 and lived there and in Sweetwater before her parents moved to San Angelo, where she attended public schools, graduating in 1936.
In 1941, Bea was among the very first Americans to join the U.S. Women’s Aux. Army Corps, becoming a member of the first WAAC class to attend Officers Candidate School in Des Moines, Iowa.
Beginning as a first lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps , she served at duty stations in California, Georgia and Oregon, before finishing her Army career in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Bea Athanas was also the first WAAC to set foot on Goodfellow Air Force Base.
Leaving the Army with the rank of captain, she came home to San Angelo and took up bookkeeping, first for the Lea Wool Warehouse, and later for Producer’s Livestock Auction Company.
Sgt. Anna R. Byrd attended San Angelo High, and entered the Army Air Corps in 1943, trained in Georgia and served until 1945.
The names sometimes appear out of order, so if you don’t find your person the first time, go ahead and scan through the whole book.
(Due to technical difficulties, we were unable to order these alphabetically.)
A Family Effort
Another interesting aspect of local service in World War II that many readers may have noticed already, was the number of siblings from our county who served.
Of course, San Angelo was not alone in this respect, as participation in the war effort was almost universal, including as it did the elderly and children, with everyone pitching in however they could.
But having a child in the war is nervous business, and for families with three and five sons abroad fighting, it must have been pretty hard on the nerves.
We have included all of the siblings or cousin groups we could identify.
Maj. Ernest Holland Nimitz of San Angelo had a cousin from Fredericksburg who was serving in the Navy. His name was Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Another Greek family who was well represented in service was the Economidis clan, who were the original owners and operators of the Crystal Confectionary in San Angelo.
All Who Served
Being printed in a time when racial segregation was still very much a reality of life in the south, there is a short section in the very back of the book with two pages recording the services of black service members.
We have included all of them.
This book can be viewed online through the Portal to Texas History.
