| United States Navy Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVE) Parachute Rigger 3rd Class Myra Jean Clark (June 22, 1922 – September 2, 2008) poses with a parachute by a recruiting poster display. She is attached to Naval Air Station, Floyd Bennett Field, New York. A member of the 1st class of WAVES to be trained as parachute riggers at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey, Clark received her 3rd Class rating upon completion of her training. Clark lost the Eastern parachute rigging championship title at the Women-in-the-War show in New York in August 1943 to “former chorus girl” Celia Berg (1920 – ????), of New York City, when she rigged a parachute 2/10 of a 2nd slower. However, she did perform faster than an assemblage of WACs, Marines and WAVEs. This was nationally syndicated news that ran with a photograph of Berg. That makes Clark the fastest parachute rigger in the WAVEs. After her discharge, Myra Jean was an administrative secretary for the United States Government for 25 years in Oxnard, California, before moving to Tucson, Arizona to be closer to her family. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1944.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.64 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 4522 x 5746 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Navy |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 1, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | New York |
| State or Province | New York |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | Naval History and Heritage Command |
| Record Number | 80-G-K-3753 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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