11/10/2025
As we get ready to honor Veternan's on their day and celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII, let me offer a portrait of a rare female WWII vet - Rosemary Shellenberger.
While many Glackin Clan members served in WWII, Rosemary Shellenberger (1923-1973) was one of very few women in the clan to serve in a uniformed service.
In the fall of 1944, Rosemary enlisted in the WAVES — Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service — the branch of the U.S. Navy created during World War II to allow women to serve in critical support roles. Her initial rank was Apprentice Seaman (AS), and she began her training in New York City.
During the war, the Navy used the former campus of Hunter College in the Bronx as a major WAVES training facility. (This was distinct from Hunter’s main campus in Manhattan.) After the war, that Bronx site later became part of Lehman College.
After completing her training, Rosemary was promoted from Seaman Third Class to Seaman Second Class, earning a “Q” rating — a designation indicating her specialization in communications. In April 1945, she was assigned to the Supplementary Radio Station (SRS) at Port Blakely, Washington, where she served through the late spring of 1946.
The SRS at Port Blakely was a top-secret naval signals intelligence and code-breaking station, operating under the broader Naval Radio Station at Bainbridge Island. Its mission focused on monitoring and decoding Japanese communications — vital work that contributed significantly to Allied success in the Pacific. Nearby, at Battle Point, stood a massive 800-foot transmission tower — taller than today’s Seattle Space Needle — which served as the “voice” of the Bainbridge complex, relaying command messages from Fort Ward to the U.S. fleet.
In June 1944, the first class of WAVES had arrived on Bainbridge Island for advanced radio and cryptography training. Known informally as the Navy’s “Code Girls,” these women handled code-breaking, radio intelligence, document security, and cryptographic operations.
Because of the strict secrecy surrounding the station’s activities — secrecy that continued long after the war — the details of Rosemary’s specific assignments remain unknown. What is clear, however, is that she was part of a pioneering group of women whose technical skill and quiet dedication played an essential role in the U.S. war effort.
