Yeoman 3rd Class Clinta Campbell may not have known it then but today we know she was a little-known glass-ceiling breaker. She entered the Navy when women in the armed services were still a novelty and was quickly recognized on base as an expert source.

She was born on February 1, 1921, to James Davis Campbell and Mabel McGregor McClintock Campbell, a former teacher,[i] in San Diego County, California.[ii] The couple married in November of 1920.[iii] At home was Clinta’s older half-brother, James Robert Campbell, age five. James’ mother was Winnifred Hull Campbell, the first wife of James Davis Campbell. They had married in May of 1915. Research did not reveal what happened to Winnifred Campbell.

By 1923, James and Mabel had moved the family to Washington. Following Clinta were siblings Cale Dan Campbell, 1923, Charme Campbell Hughes, 1925 and Creigh Cade Campbell, 1926. Living with them was Mabel’s father, Caleb McClintock.[iv]

James worked as an abstractor, organizing and analyzing data, in Kitsap, Washington. The family lived in a rental home. Caleb, 71, worked as a public-school janitor.[v]

Clinta graduated from South Kitsap High School in Port Orchard.[vi]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

When Clinta was 19, she took a job as a maid in Seattle, Washington. At this time, she was in her second year of college. She was working for C. Frederick Harley family, who had two babies under the age of two.[vii] She was attending the University of Washington.

In the fall of 1941, Clinta had transferred to Western Washington College. She immersed herself in college life and was soon taking the lead in a production of “George Washington Slept Here.”[viii] In the fall, she was again the lead actor in a performance of “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” In that production for the Theater Guild, Clinta was also the director.[ix] At college, she was also a member of the Sigma Tau Alpha sorority.[x}

Clinta graduated in 1942 from Western Washington College in Bellingham with a degree in Education.[xi]

Following graduation, she received a job teaching at McKinley School, part of the Tacoma, WA Public Schools.[xii] A different newspaper mentioned that she taught at Roosevelt School.[xiii] She later resigned her teaching post to join the WAVES.

HER MILITARY STORY

Clinta Campbell followed in her family’s footsteps of her father and one brother, who are both in the service, and her mother who worked in a shipyard.[xiv]

Clinta was Yeoman 3rd Class for the United States Navy Women’s Reserve. Her service number was 7338624.

In the early 1940s, as Clinta was in her early college years, the United States Navy was getting ready to have enlisted women as well as the first female commissioned officers. At this time, there were only Navy women working as nurses. President Roosevelt signed the Navy Women’s Reserve Act, creating the WAVES in 1942. The women who stepped forward to free men for sea duty set the stage for women in the Navy for future decades. WAVES stands for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.[xv]

According to Navy History, men and women with the same rank were paid the same pay. That drew a lot of women to step forward and volunteer. Following an application, an interview, a physical, a business skills test and an oath, women were WAVES. Because Navy protocol insisted yeomen be assigned to ships, the women were assigned to all manner of ships – those that were sunk, docked or unused.[xvi]

With the Navy barracks full of men, the women were on their own for housing, transportation and food from a housing allowance they received. They were trained in navel procedures, policies, ship and plane identification, ranks, culture and customs plus marching and drills after work.[xvii]

Dressed in summer whites or dark navy winter blues, the women worked at everything from deciphering code to operating as lookouts, designing camouflage, being a pharmacist, a baker, an aircraft mechanic and many other job descriptions including all manner of office work.[xviii]

Clinta received her naval training at Iowa State Teachers’ College in Cedar Falls, Iowa beginning February 25, 1943. Clinta and the other volunteers from her area, described as “she sailors” in the newspaper, had a five-week course. After their beginning training, the women were to report to active-duty stations or to a specialization school.

After training, Clinta Campbell worked in the air operations’ office in Fairfax. Her job included checking flight reports and helping make weather information available to provide safety information for flying.

At Fairfax, WAVES lived in private homes and commuted to the base.

Clinta Campbell was considered a very unusual person on the Fairfax base. At her time in history, she was breaking what was later called “the glass ceiling.” She was an expert on weather and flight dispatching. A leader, she’d already been tapped for Officer’s Training School.[xix]

HER LAST DAY – February 26, 1944

On that Saturday, Clinta settled in for a routine flight from the base in Olathe, KS, which was a unit of the naval air primary command, to Fairfax.[xx] She was flying on a 2-engine navy transport plane.[xxi] Amid the crew and other passengers were two other WAVES, Margaret Irene Vajda, Pharmacist’s Mate 3rd Class, of Capitol Heights, Maryland and Mary Kathryn Carr, Seaman 1st Class, of Kansas City, Missouri.[xxii]

It was about 2 p.m. when the pilot took the flight up in what seemed a normal take-off reported witnesses on the ground.[xxiii] However, it only climbed 75 feet.[xxiv] The plane then crashed very quickly, just making it a “short distance from the north boundary of the air base.” Some passengers escaped from the plane.[xxv] A wing had scraped the ground on the way down and then the plane landed flat on its bottom. Then, the fuel burst into flames.[xxvi] The fire corps arrived at the scene but the flames kept them from reaching the passengers. Naval Authorities at Fairfax airport said that there was no engine failure.[xxvii]

After the crash, a survivor, Master Sgt. Robert R. Tomlinson of the Marines said that he was trying to loosen a seat belt on one of the WAVES when they hit the ground.

Eleven were killed that afternoon in the plane crash. That included Clinta and the other two WAVES.[xxviii]

Clinta was 23.

HER GRAVE AND FUNERAL

A military funeral was held March 8, 1944, at Memory Glen, Evergreen Memorial Park for Yeo/3-C Clinta Campbell.[xxix]

MEMORIALS

The Blue Star Mothers of America of Port Orchard, chapter 4, named their chapter after Lt. Clinta Campbell. [xxx]

AFTER THE WAR

Later in 1944, Clinta Campbell’s sister, Charme Campbell, who was attending the University of Washington, left college to join the WAVES. A newspaper article described this as Charme replacing Clinta in the Navy.[1]

During WWII, members of the Campbell family that served their country included Yeoman First Class James Davis Campbell, her father, who served in the South Pacific. Her three brothers served as well with First Lieutenant Cale Campbell, a member of Marin Air Force, Chief Commissary Steward James Campbell, in the Mediterranean theater and Coxswain Craigh Campbell in the South Pacific. Her mother, Mabel, was a member of the Marine cooks in the Navy Yard.[xxxi]

FIND MORE INFORMATION HERE

The Waves of WWII/National Women’s History Museum

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