SPARS was the United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

 Women's Reserve, created 23 November 1942 with the signing of Public Law 773 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The name is a contraction of the Coast Guard motto: Semper Paratus and its English translation Always Ready. The name also refers to a spar

Spar

In sailing, a spar is a pole of wood, metal or lightweight materials such as carbon fiber used on a sailing vessel. Spars of all types In sailing, a spar is a pole of wood, metal or lightweight materials such as carbon fiber used on a sailing vessel. Spars of all types In sailing, a spar is a...

 in nautical usage.

Like the other women's reserves such as the Women's Army Corps

Women's Army Corps

The Women's Army Corps was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943...

 and the WAVES

WAVES

The WAVES were a World War II-era division of the U.S. Navy that consisted entirely of women. The name of this group is an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" ; the word "emergency" implied that the acceptance of women was due to the unusual circumstances of the war and...

, it was created to free men from stateside service in order to fight overseas.

Its first director was Captain Dorothy C. Stratton

Dorothy C. Stratton

Dorothy Constance Stratton was the director of the SPARS, the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve during World War II. She is the namesake of the Coast Guard's third National Security Cutter, the USCGC Stratton .-Early life and Coast Guard career:Stratton was born in 1899 in Brookfield,...

, and she is credited with creating the name for the organization. The Coast Guard closely followed the Navy WAVES

WAVES

The WAVES were a World War II-era division of the U.S. Navy that consisted entirely of women. The name of this group is an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" ; the word "emergency" implied that the acceptance of women was due to the unusual circumstances of the war and...

 model, with officer training at the Coast Guard Academy. Their goal was 1000 officers and 10,000 enlisted. 1,914 women were trained in boot camp at Hunter College

Hunter College

Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

's Bronx campus.

The cutter USCGC Spar (WLB-206)

USCGC Spar (WLB-206)

The USCGC Spar is a United States Coast Guard seagoing buoy tender home-ported in Kodiak, Alaska. The ship tends buoys in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and has acquired the nickname Aleutian Keeper...

is named after the SPARS.

External links

• SPARS history and WWII women's uniforms in color — WWII US women's service organizations (WAC, WAVES, ANC, NNC, USMCWR, PHS, SPARS, ARC and WASP)
• Women and the U.S. Coast Guard