PDA

View Full Version : Judo for US Women during WWII



Joseph Svinth
17th August 2000, 11:15
Between 1942 and 1944, the US Army taught some judo to 20,000 members of the Women's Army Corps. For a description of the women's training in Florida, see http://www.iglou.com/neters/business/ftwaltonaauw3.shtml .

The National Archives and Records Administration ( http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail.html ) has film footage of women receiving additional training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Try the keyword "judo"; the film's NARA control number is NWDNM(m)-111-ADC-1182.

John Lindsey
27th August 2000, 06:26
<center>http://204.95.207.136/pics/girljudo.jpg</center>
Any idea if this photo might be related to this discussion? Looks to be the right time frame, but I think thats a Navy officer in the right rear.

Neil Hawkins
27th August 2000, 06:53
That's where I'm going wrong, you need to wear bowling shoes when doing Tomoenage!

Neil

Joseph Svinth
27th August 2000, 23:06
Does that Navy officer look Asian to you? If so, then she could be Susan Ahn Cuddy, sister of actor Philip Ahn. She graduated from San Diego State, and joined the Navy in December 1942, age 27. Ms. Ahn (she was still single then; not many eligible Korean men in Southern California in 1942) was rejected from OCS at first (race), but was allowed to enlist and subsequently sent to Navy OCS at Smith College in Massachusetts. She was originally part of the LINK Trainer program in Georgia, and then an aerial gunnery instructor at Okalaka, Florida. (The first female gunnery officer in the USN, actually; she trained at Pensacola and then assigned to Atlantic City Naval Air Station.) She came out of WWII a 2-stripe lieutenant, assigned to what would today be NSA, where she continued working as a civilian after the war. (Her graduate work done in the 1950s was on a place called Vietnam.)

BTW, Mrs. Cuddy says the way to get your relatives to accept your mixed-race marriage is to have kids.

Source: "A Conversation with Susan Cuddy," "Occasional Papers," a publication of the Korean American Historical Society, Vol. 4, 1998-99; URL: http://www.kahs.org

TommyK
28th August 2000, 00:46
Greetings,

Once again Joe shows us he is AMAZING! Where do you get this stuff? My hat is off to you!

Regards,
TommyK

Joseph Svinth
28th August 2000, 10:14
Tommy --

That one was easy -- I had an article in the same issue of "Occasional Papers". :) For an excerpt, see http://www.koreamjournal.com/october1999/han_stories.shtml