Bilingual Wire Experts

In 1914 the first world war began between the French and Germans.  The war created a stalemate that lasted three years.  In 1918, the stalemate was finally broken when twenty five thousands of American soldiers joined the French side.  Among the American troops were two hundred and twenty three volunteer women called the Army Signal Corp.    

These French and English speaking switchboard operators sent messages along radio wires to help maintain contact with troops scattered over hundreds of miles. The Signal Corp decoded and transmitted top secret information directly to the battlefields. The switchboard operators were efficient and courageous working under terrible  conditions.  .       

These soldiers worked twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  It is estimated that one hundred and fifty thousand messages were sent daily and twenty six million messages were sent by the end of the war. 

Merle Egan Anderson was an advocate for the Signal Corp officers after the war. During the war she helped train newly arriving officers while completing her own responsibilities.  After the war she fought for veteran status for all Signal Corp officers. Without veteran status, officers were not entitled to war medals and benefits.  Nearly sixty years later her persistence paid off when the United States  government gave them full veteran status in 1977.