The first woman to attain both the rank of master sergeant (E-8) and sergeant major (E-9), Carolyn Hauser James, a daughter of Thomas Jefferson James II and Inez E. Hauser, was born in Adrian, Georgia on January 21, 1910. Her grandfather, Thomas J. “Capt. T.J.” James, founded the town of Adrian in the 1890s. As a divorced mother at the age of 35, Carolyn enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) on March 23, 1945 to join the war effort, but served stateside as a stenographer at the Oliver General Hospital in Augusta, Georgia. It would be after the war in Korea that Carolyn would be the first woman promoted to master sergeant in paygrade E-8 and serve overseas, first in Japan where she cataloged correspondence related to the truce meetings.
By then promoted to master sergeant (paygrade E-7 was at the top of the payscale at the time) in December 1952, the WAC James was assigned as the personal secretary to General James A. Van Fleet, CG of the 8th Army headquarters in Korea. Her assigment in Seoul reportedly put her 35 miles from the front, and besides herself and a WAC corporal, they were the only two women who earned a “battle star” by serving in Korea during the war.
According to James the “Public Information Office and the other publicity media decided it was good material for WAC recruiting purposes, so for one week prior to our departure, we were constantly being photographed - motion and still; televised, and radio interviewed. Then we were flown over in a special mission B-17.”
Relocated stateside, in 1956 James served at the Army Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado as the Chief Clerk of the General Staff office as Administrative Officer of the Training Branch, G-3. While there the Military Pay Bill of 1958 was passed and the pay grades of E-8 and E-9 were created. James was selected for promotion first to E-8, with her becoming the first Women's Army Corps (WAC) promoted to grade E-8 master sergeant. With enough time in grade to be considered, the following year James was promoted to Sergeant Major (E-9) making her the first woman in the history of the United States Army to hold rank.
In 1963, Sergeant Major James was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a second Army Commendation Medal. She was assigned to the Women's Army Corps School at Fort McClellan, Alabama in 1963 and retired in April 1965, she lived for nearly two and one half decades in Colorado Springs following her retirement after twenty years of service to the Army. Sergeant Major Carolyn H. James died on May 8, 1991, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the age of 81
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Dan, an excellent piece and I think there is not enough Soldiers/NCOs capturing our history of the amazing people that serve or have served in outr Army!
Paving the way for so many more amazing SGM and CSM’ in Our Army.