The woman’s branch of the United States Navy was established on 30 July 1942 by President Roosevelt, authorizing the U.S. Navy to accept women into the Naval Reserve as commissioned officers and at the enlisted level for the duration of the war plus six months, in order to release officers and men for sea duty and replace them with women in shore establishments. Mildred McAfee, president of Wellesley College, became the first director of the WAVES after being commissioned a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy on 3 August 1942 and later promoted to captain. Officer candidates were between 20 and 49 and needed a college degree or two years of college and two years of equivalent professional or business experience. Officer indoctrination was held at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and enlisted members were trained at Hunter College in the Bronx, New York. WAVES served at 900 shore stations in the United States, with the Territory of Hawaii as the only overseas station staffed with WAVES on a permanent basis, and women served in fields and jobs ranging from doctors and engineers to administrative, clerical, and parachute rigging work. During the war, the WAVES reached a peak strength of 86,291 members. Over 150,000 American women served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War Two as the first women other than nurses within the ranks of the United States Army. In early 1941, Congress Woman Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts told General George C. Marshal, the Army’s Chief of Staff, that she intended to introduce a bill creating an Army Woman’s Corps separate from the existing Army Nurse Corp. Although the Army did not want to accept women directly into its ranks, the issue was eventually resolved through the original Women’s Auxiliary Corps, later renamed the WAC’s. They served all over the world, and by the end of the war 657 WAC’s had received medals and citations, including three Air Medals, ten Soldiers Medals, sixteen Purple Hearts awarded during the V-1 bombings in London, and 565 Bronze Stars for meritorious service overseas.