‘Hello Girls’: The female telephone operators who helped win WWI

ALBANY — Less than two miles behind the front lines during World War I, some American women telephone operators sat at switchboards that shook severely from the sounds of the big guns they could hear coming over the wires during the battles fought by the U.S. Army.

Elizabeth Cobbs, historian and author of “The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers”

The 233 women from around the U.S. —  some of whom hailed from the Hudson Valley — were known as the “Hello Girls” as they handled about 26 million calls during six months in 1918 when they were part of the Signal Corps and the American Expeditionary Force effort to win World War I for the Allies.

“They were as close to the front as the important generals were getting,” said Elizabeth Cobbs, author of “The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers.”

A campaign is being waged to get the “Hello Girls” awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award, before the end of the current Congress to recognize their often forgotten, but critical, service to the U.S. war effort when they were considered civilians even though they wore uniforms, handled calls faster than male operators and wanted to show their patriotism.

“They were all considered combatants. They all wore dog tags,” Cobbs said. “They were treated pretty shabbily. They took it.”

Grace Banker of New York City was the chief operator for the “Hello Girls.”  She would be recognized for all of their service with the U.S. Army’s new, highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Medal, which was awarded for bravery in combat.

“She served with exceptional ability as chief operator in the Signal Corps exchange at General Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces, and later in a similar capacity at 1st Army Headquarters. By untiring devotion to her exacting duties under trying conditions she did much to assure the success of the telephone service during the operations of the 1st Army against the St. Mihiel salient and to the north of Verdun,” the citation read for the medal presented Banker.

Two of the operators would die in France from influenza. Many of the operators spoke both French and English. While under army command, the women would not receive honorable discharges, nor the benefits that men were granted for their service in World War I.  It would take decades for recognition to be won.

It wasn’t until 1977 that the “Hello Girls” were finally granted veteran status and World War I victory medals when President Jimmy Carter signed the GI Bill Improvement Act into law. At that time, just 18 the women were still alive. There were 233 shipped out to France, while those still in training and awaiting deployment brought their total numbers to about 350.

There were 52 New Yorkers in the ranks of the “Hello Girls,” including several from the Hudson Valley. The large number of New Yorkers was probably due to AT&T being headquartered in New York City and the resulting operators available, said Cobbs, an emerita professor of history at San Diego State University,