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Beatrice Stecher
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)/ Women's Army Corps (WAC)
World War II-Post-World War II
When World War II ended in August 1945,
the United States celebrated the Allied victory and immediately
began a massive demobilization. Its armed forces, which had expanded
to record levels during the war, rapidly downsized to near prewar
levels, but the nation understood that some servicemen and women
would have to remain in the military, in part to field large armies
of occupation in the defeated countries.
Beatrice Stecher was one of those who remained.
A member of the eighth officer candidate class to enter the Women's
Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, she had spent
most of World War II working for the Army Air Forces. After the
war she worked in the Army's Civil Affairs Division first at the
Pentagon in Washington, DC and later in Germany.
At the Pentagon Stecher reviewed the affidavits
of American servicemen who had been held prisoner in Japan by the
Japanese. She was the only woman in the office.
The purpose of my reading everybody's affidavit(s)
was to see if they were legally sufficient to submit to the trials
that were being at the Tribunal in Manila.. . .Each week I got
a report of . . .the sentences. . .and I was never happy until
I got a hanging. They used to call me the "hang man" at the Pentagon.
After seven months in this assignment, Stecher
was transferred in 1947 to Frankfurt, Germany where she handled
repatriation of displaced persons for two Allied jails. Life in
postwar Germany was spartan. Food was minimal and bartering---legal
or illegal was a way of life.
You worked by the barter system there, which
the army set up. You brought cans of coffee, cocoa, Crisco and
you bartered with a German who brought in some food. There were
times that we gave them coffee and cocoa and we would get a pocketbook
. . . or a vase . . . Bartering on the black market was a different
story.
Stecher recalls visiting an apartment with several
other WACs and two soldiers.
We had to flash a signal to them that we
were on the street so that they knew and we climbed up to the
third floor. When they opened the door of this apartment you couldn't
see anything but silver—platters, pitchers, tea sets, coffee
sets all over the floors . . . .they would say we want two cans
of coffee and one can of Crisco. . . .We hid [our purchases] in
the Army car that was driving us so we could take [them] through
the MP block where we lived. Then you either carried them with
you [when you left] or you shipped them home with dirty clothes.
. . .
Stecher's repatriation duties brought her into
conflict with representatives from many countries, most of whom
did not abide by the Geneva Conventions. Many of these representatives
would try to persuade Stecher to repatriate the prisoners to their
countries even if they were not citizens. Among the worst perpetrators
were the Soviets who would badger her to release prisoners to their
custody.
The general called me one day and [said].
. .'The Russian Mission is complaining about you. . . . That you
are holding back. You are not giving them the people they are
asking for'. . . . So I said, 'Well. . . General, there's one
Russian that they are asking for. They are trying to get everybody—Greek,
Chinese, anything that wasn't in the Geneva Convention. They say
they want a whole list of these people and I'm not giving it to
them.' He said, 'No, you are absolutely right.' So then he instructed
the guys in the Department to put a tap on. . . my telephone to
prove to the Russian Mission that I was not holding them back.
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