Regarded as the “most beautiful woman in the world,” Hedy Lamarr was not only a famous Hollywood actress who sold millions in war bonds during World War II, she was an inventor. Her creations included a frequency-hopping radio communications device for Allied torpedoes during the war.

Marguerite Frances Hunold, a pioneering aerologist in the US Navy’s WAVES program during World War II, became the first woman in her field to serve in Alaska, where she helped shape naval aviation forecasting in one of the world’s most challenging weather environments.

Well before the war ended, President Franklin D. Roosevelt envisioned a plan for veterans to return home and better their lives through the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. But administering the massive welfare program required navigating social and political challenges.

Charity Adams overcame both wartime challenges and racial discrimination to become the first Black woman officer in the Women's Army Corps and commander of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

Despite facing resistance and discrimination, more than 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II, performing vital noncombat roles and paving the way for women's permanent inclusion in the US military.

Despite early challenges to women’s place in the Navy, the WAVES’s establishment as a part of the Navy itself, not a corps or auxiliary like the WAACs, was “precedent-breaking.”

As 1943 turned to 1944, PT-305 departed New Orleans, and she would not be back for more than six decades. 

On July 23, 1944, a celebration marked a milestone in production for Higgins Industries, which had just finished its 10,000th boat for delivery to the US Navy.