Esther Blake enlisted in the WAC/Army Air Forces in Miami after both her sons entered military service in WWII.
In March 1944, at the height of the Second World War, Esther McGowin Blake walked into a recruiting station in Miami, Florida, and enlisted in the Women's Army Corps (WAC), attached to the Army Air Forces. She made this decision after learning that her elder son's B-17 bomber had been shot down over Europe, while her younger son was also serving overseas.
At a time when women in uniform were still a novelty and often met with skepticism from the public and military establishment alike, Blake's choice to serve reflected both personal grief and patriotic resolve. Women who joined the WAC during this period took on clerical, communications, maintenance, and support roles that freed men for combat duty, and they endured scrutiny about their capability and propriety in military settings.
Blake's enlistment set the stage for a career that would make her one of the most significant women in United States military history. Her service in the Army Air Forces during the war became the foundation for her later, historic step of becoming the first woman to enlist in the newly independent United States Air Force in 1948. This early wartime commitment demonstrated the vital contributions women made to the American war effort, challenging prevailing assumptions about women's roles in the armed forces.