Stratton, Dorothy, Capt., USCGR (Ret.)
Captain Dorothy C. Stratton USCGR (Ret.)
(U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive)
holiday catalog banner - links to pdf

SPARS: The Creation of the U. S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve

An excerpt from Captain Dorothy Stratton's oral history.
By Taira Payne
August 2021
Naval History Magazine
Volume 35, Number 4
Article
View Issue
Comments

Captain Dorothy Stratton was selected as a senior Navy lieutenant at the beginning of World War II to head the U.S. Coast Guard's budding women's program, which she named the Semper Paratus—Always Ready, or simply "SPARS".

Lieutenant Dorothy Stratton Coast Guard Commandant Vice Admiral Russell Waesche. “Loaned” to the Coast Guard, she became the first director of that service’s women’s volunteer SPAR reserve.
(U.S. Coast Guard)

In this excerpt, Captain Stratton discusses her introduction to the U.S. Coast Guard and the initial creation of the SPARS, including the assistance of 12 Navy WAVES officers.

To read more about the Naval Institute Oral History Program, click here.

For the complete Stratton’s Oral History on the website, click here.

Taira Payne

Taira Payne was the Project Manager, Digital Assets & Web for the U.S. Naval Institute until January 2022. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science, specializing in Archives and Digital Curation, from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor’s in History from Washington College.

More Stories From This Author View Biography

Related Articles

Dorothy Stratton

The First SPAR

By Paul Stillwell
January 2012
For about four decades, the top ship commands for Coast Guard captains were “the big white ones,” the high-endurance cutter Hamilton (WHEC-715) and her 11 sisters. Ships of the class ...

Quicklinks