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[Retirement ceremony of Elizabeth Ray, 1965]

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[Retirement ceremony of Elizabeth Ray, 1965]

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Title	[Retirement ceremony of Elizabeth Ray, 1965]
Date	1965
Subject headings	Vietnam War, 1961-1975 United States. Army--Women
Era	Vietnam Era (1964-1974)
Service branch	Army--WAAC Army--WAC Air Force--WAF
Item description	Colonel Elizabeth Ray stands in front of a color guard during her retirement ceremony at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, in 1965.
Veteran's name	Ray, Elizabeth Ann
Veteran's biography	Elizabeth “Betty” Ann Ray (1913-2011) served as an officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), Women’s Army Corps (WAC), and Women in the Air Force (WAF) from 1942 to 1965. Ray served as director of WAF from 1961 to 1965. Elizabeth Ann “Betty” Ray was born in 1913 in Winnsboro, Texas, and was raised primarily in Oklahoma. In 1934 she graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism. After graduation Ray worked for a newspaper in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Ray was later recruited by the war department and served in the Public Relations Bureau in Washington D.C . In 1942, Ray joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and completed Officer Training School at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. She had brief assignments at the training center at Daytona Beach and in Washington, D.C. in the WAAC Headquarters in the Pentagon before being transferred overseas. Ray was sent to the headquarters of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in Algiers, Algeria, then appointed commander of a WAC intelligence squadron at 15th Air Force Headquarters in Bari, Italy. She returned to the U.S. in late 1945 and was assigned to the inactive reserve." On May 10, 1949, Ray was reactivated in the Women in the Air Force and sent to Mitchel Field, New York, where she commanded female troops then worked in personnel and public relations. In 1950 she also attended Armed Forces Informational School at Carlisle Barracks. From 1953 to 1955 she served as deputy director of WAF . From 1955 to 1958, Ray served as executive secretary for DACOWITS (Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services). She then became a director at Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. In 1961, Ray was appointed director of WAF, and served in this capacity until her retirement from the military in 1965. After her retirement as assistant dean for academic affairs at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Ray moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina, where she died on 7 December, 2011.
Place	San Antonio (Tex.)
Type	image
Original format	photographs
Original publisher	[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]
Contributing institution	Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries
Source collection	WV0416 Elizabeth Ann Ray Papers
Rights statement	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Additional rights information	IN COPYRIGHT. This item is subject to copyright. Contact the rights holder noted above for permission to reuse.
Object ID	WV0416.6.003
Digital publisher	The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5304 -- http://library.uncg.edu/
OCLC number	900815023

[Retirement ceremony of Elizabeth Ray, 1965]

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