Bill’s blog archive: Daily Posts

WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942
WAC recruits at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, 1942

The Murder of WAC Private Byrl Babcock

Before she was Private Byrl Babcock, she was Byrl Mitchell, part-owner of a jewelry store in Oroville, California. She worked as a buyer for a stationery shop. She ran a beauty parlor out of the Gridley Hotel. Before any of that, she'd put herself through secretarial school and graduated at twenty-nine — not because she was slow, but because she was paying her own way. She'd also been married multiple times. None of them lasted. If there's a pattern in Byrl's life, it's this: She never...