Women in warfare and the military (1900–1939)

• 1900: Yaa Asantewaa leads the Ashanti in rebellion against the British.
• 1901: The U.S. Army Nurse Corps is established. It is all-female until 1955.
• 1904–1907: Herero and Namaqua Wars take place. Herero warrior women fight against the Germans.
• 1908: The U.S. Navy Nurse Corps is established on May 13th. It is all-female until 1965. The first 20 nurses, who were the first women in the Navy, reported to Washington, DC, in October. By the end of WWI, their numbers had increased to 1,386. The women worked transport duty overseas in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
• 1912: Rayna Kasabova during the Balkan War was the first woman to fly as observer on combat missions in the history of military aviation. She carried out a number of sorties dropping propaganda materials and bombs on Turkish positions during the siege of Adrianople.
• 1913: U.S. Navy nurses (all women) served aboard the transports USS MAYFLOWER and USS DOLPHIN.
• 1916: The Naval Reserve Act of 1916 allowed for enlistment of qualified "persons" for service. Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels asked, "Is there any law that says a Yeoman must be a man?," and was told there was not. \
• In October 1916 during the first battle of Jiu Ecaterina Teodoroiu transfers from the Romanian Army's all-female nurses corp to the Reconnaissances Corps. Serving as a scout she was taken prisoner but managed to escape by killing two, or perhaps three German soldiers. In November, she was wounded and hospitalized, but came back to the front where she was soon decorated, advanced in rank to Sublocotenent (Second Lieutenant) and given the command of a 25-man platoon. For her bravery she was awarded the Military Virtue Medal, 1st Class. On September 3, 1917 (August 22 Old Style), she was killed in the Battle of Mărăşeşti (in Vrancea County), where she was hit in the chest by German machine gun fire. According to some accounts, her last words before dying were: "Forward, men, I'm still with you!"
• World War I (1917-1918): During the course of the war, 21,480 U.S. Army nurses (military nurses were all women then) serve in military hospitals in the United States and overseas. Eighteen African-American Army nurses serve stateside caring for German prisoners of war (POWs) and African-American soldiers. The first female members of the military killed in the line of duty are World War I Army nurses Edith Ayres and Helen Wood. Nurse Ayres and Nurse Wood (nurses held no rank during World War I) are killed on May 20th, 1917, while with Base Hospital #12 aboard the USS Mongolia en route to France. The ship’s crew fired the deck guns during a practice drill, and one of the guns exploded, spewing shell fragments across the deck and killing Nurse Ayres and her friend Nurse Helen Wood. The U.S. Army recruits and trains 233 female bilingual telephone operators to work at switchboards near the front in France and sends 50 skilled stenographers to France to work with the Quartermaster Corps. On 19 March 1917, the U.S. Navy authorizes the enlistment of women. Designated as "Yeoman(F)," they unofficially become known as "Yeomanettes.” The U.S. Navy enlists 11,880 women as Yeomen (F) to serve stateside in shore billets and release sailors for sea duty. On 21 March 1917, YNC Loretta Perfectus Walsh became the first female Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy. More than 1,476 U.S. Navy nurses serve in military hospitals stateside and overseas. The U.S. Marine Corps enlists 305 female Marine Reservists (F) to "free men to fight" by filling positions such as clerks and telephone operators on the home front. More than 400 U.S. military nurses die in the line of duty during World War I. The vast majority of these women die from a highly contagious form of influenza known as the "Spanish Flu," which sweeps through crowded military camps and hospitals and ports of embarkation. In 1918 twin sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker of the Naval Coastal Defense Reserve become the first uniformed women to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard. When the WWI armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, there were 11,275 Yeomanettes in the Naval service, with some 300 female Marines in the Marine Corps. The women were "no longer needed" and were asked to resign. The final pass in review down Pennsylvania Avenue was in July.
• 1920: During the Turkish Independence War, Kara Fatma and her gang carried out operations against the British, Armenian, French, Italian and Greek soldiers. They are well-known for killing those who raped young girls.
• 1920: Army Reorganization Act (1920): A provision of the Army Reorganization Act grants U.S. military nurses the status of officers with "relative rank" from second lieutenant to major (but not full rights and privileges).
• 1920: Nurses (all women) served aboard the first U.S. ship built as a floating hospital, USS RELIEF (AH-1).
• 1924: Lottorna, or The Swedish Women's Voluntary Defence Service, is founded.
• 1937: During the Dersim uprising, Sabiha Gökçen, the first female aviator in Turkey and the first female combat pilot in the world carried out sorties in operations against the guerrillas.
• 1938: The [U.S.] Naval Reserve Act allowed for the enlistment of qualified women as nurses.
• 1942: Public Law 689 (Naval Reserve Act of 1938), which included the Women's Reserve (unofficially known as the "WAVES", Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), was amended on July 30, and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• 1942: Wellesley College President Mildred McAfee was selected to lead the new Women's Reserve and was sworn in as a Lieutenant Commander on August 3, 1942.
• 1942: Training was conducted at Smith College for officers and Hunter College for enlisted women in the U.S. Navy.
• 1943: Authorization was passed for women in the U.S. Navy to hold the rank of Captain and Mildred McAfee was promoted to that rank. (November 8, 1943; Public Law 183.)

See also

• Timeline of women in 19th century warfare
• Women in warfare (1945-1999)