RUTH (THOMPSON) PEIRCE, 1911-1994

Ruth Milne (Thompson) Peirce was born in Jamaica Plain, Mass., on June 24, 1911, to Daniel and Mary (Finnerty) Thompson. The fifth of eight daughters, she grew up in Jamaica Plain and Brighton, Mass. She worked in admissions for Brigham Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital (1932-35), and as the assistant manager at the Café Rouge, Statler Hotel, Boston, Mass. (1935-42). In 1941, RTP was recruited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to work as an undercover agent at the Boston Intercept Command, and in other secret operations.

RTP and her younger sister Edith joined the Women's Army Corps (WACs) in August 1942. Both sisters trained at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. In November 1942, they were sent to the Boston Intercept Command, where they became two of the first women intercept operators in the WAC, ordering planes into the air to look at unidentified aircraft that had been sighted. In March 1943 the sisters were transferred Fort Polk, La., for overseas training.

In April 1943, RTP was sent to Dow Field, in Bangor, Me., where she became one of the first female flight dispatchers in the WAC. Later that year she was transferred to Mitchell Air Force Base on Long Island, N.Y., serving there until 1945. According to the Newton Tab, RTP became the first woman corporal T/5, a high-ranking intelligence officer. RTP is a subject of two books regarding the WAC: she appears as "Sue" in Fjeril Hess 's WACs at Work, The Story of the Three B's of the AAF (1945); and as a minor figure in Deborah Lewis 's Duty, A Living Memorial (1992).

Discharged from the military in 1945, Peirce unsuccessfully sought employment as a flight dispatcher with a commercial airline. She worked in various hotels in Boston and Miami; as social secretary for Catherine "Kay" Falvey, a fellow WAC and former Massachusetts state legislator, in Washington, D.C. (1947); and as a manufacturer's representative for Sculpture Curler, a hair product (1947-1948).

Returning to Boston in 1948, RTP married John Peirce, an Air Force officer whom she had met at Mitchell Air Force Base. She was recalled for three months of intelligence work in 1949, after which she studied Hotel Management at Boston University. From 1953 to 1956, the Peirces lived outside Casablanca, Morocco, where John was stationed. Return to the United States, they were at air force bases in New Jersey, Texas, and Massachusetts.

In 1963, the couple settled in Brookline, Mass., and RTP worked in various Boston hospitals and libraries. The Peirces separated in 1970 and were divorced in 1975; they had no children. RTP remained in Brookline until her death in 1994. Throughout her life she retained an avid interest in women in the military, collecting clippings and other documents on the subject.

From the guide to the Papers, 1902-1993, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College)