Ilae Mae Tucker

Their Story

Ilae Mae Tucker was born on June 7th, 1909, to Edward and Lottie Key Tucker in Sanborn, North Dakota. She was raised alongside a twin sister, Ione Tucker. She was well educated, having graduated from North Dakota State College during a time when many women did not have the opportunity to pursue a college education.^[1] She likely had a passion for art, as she was employed as an arts and crafts teacher at Great Falls High School in Montana after she graduated from college.^[2] She pursued this career until 1943, when the Army was opened to full women’s service in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). Once this happened, Tucker left the classroom to join her country in the fight against the fascist Axis Powers in World War II.^[3]

Tucker’s service in World War II saw her take on a new role in life, contrary to the traditional gender roles that she was likely raised in. In 1943 she and fellow Great Falls resident Violet Busse were shipped to Des Moines, Iowa, to train to become soldiers.^[4] Tucker excelled during her training, indicated by her inclusion in the 1944 Women’s Army Corps Honor Roll.^[5] Like many of her fellow WAC soldiers, she was sent to join the Army Air Force, where women were taking on traditionally male jobs in great numbers:

Eventually, 40 percent of all WACs went into the AAF, where they worked in an increasing variety of roles. By January 1945, only 50 percent of AAF WACs worked in the assignments traditionally seen as appropriate for women, such as stenography, typing, and filing. Instead, Air WACs served increasingly as weather observers, cryptographers, radio operators, aerial photograph analyzers, control tower operators, parachute riggers, maintenance specialists, and sheet metal workers.^[6]

It is even possible that Tucker took on the role of a pilot during her service in World War II. The World War II enlistment records list her as an aviation cadet, meaning that she would have been training as a pilot.^[7] If she succeeded in her training, she would have become one of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs): a unit of female pilots who flew non-combat missions to ensure as many male pilots as possible could fly combat missions.^[8] If Tucker became a WASP, it would have marked a huge transformation in her life: from schoolteacher into Army pilot. Even if this wasn’t the case, Tucker served in World War II to the end of helping the United States achieve victory over the Axis.

Tucker’s service in the Korean War was influenced by bureaucratic diminishing of women’s opportunities in the newly created Air Force branch. Though President Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Bill that authorized permanent female service in the Armed Forces, women were reduced to just two percent maximum enlistment of the total force.^[9] In addition to this, when the Air Force was made into a distinct entity from the Army, rules changed so that women could no longer become pilots.^[10] WASP or no, this meant that Tucker would be confined to support service in Japan during the Korean War:

The remainder of Women in the Air Force (WAF) carried out various support roles at rear-echelon bases in Japan, including air traffic control, weather observation, radar operation, and photo interpretation. In June 1953, the number of WAFs serving in Japan peaked at 600 while total WAF strength worldwide reached 12,800 female officers and enlisted personnel.^[11]

Whether this did not bother Tucker, or whether she simply gritted her teeth so she could continue to serve her country, is unknown. In either case, Tucker continued to serve throughout the Korean War, retiring six years after its armistice in 1959.^[12]

The remainder of Tucker’s life was seemingly quiet. She spent some time living in California, where she was a Human Needs Volunteer. At some point she moved to Cordova, Illinois, perhaps to live closer to her nieces who resided there. She continued to put her Air Force rank before her name until her death on October 26th, 1997, indicating she had a great deal of pride in her service.^[13] This pride was well-earned; Ilae Mae Tucker leaves the legacy of being a trailblazer in military gender roles, this while simultaneously confronting the United States’ greatest external threat of all time in the Axis Powers.