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LTJG Caroline A. Lester Oral History
Publication date: 31 July 2024
File metadata
Dublin Core Metadata
title:
LTJG Caroline A. Lester Oral History
creator:
Lester, Caroline Avery (1902 April 6 - )
subject:
Coast Guard SPARs
description:
Caroline Avery Lester was born in Seneca Fall, New York on April 6, 1902. She attended Cornell University on a scholarship, studying mathematics and graduating in 1924. She returned to Cornell to get a masters degree, which she received in 1927. From there, she taught at what was then the New York State College for Teachers, which is now a part of State University of New York: Albany. She took a leave of absence to get her PhD at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and travel before returning to teaching at Albany. In 1943 she was invited to apply for the Navy WAVES but her physical prevented her from joining, so she applied to the Coast Guard SPARs and was accepted. She went to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut for about three weeks of training in February 1943. By the end of her training, she had been chosen to go into decoding. She was assigned to the code section in Washington, DC, where her group mostly decoded messages from Spain, Portugal, and Northern Africa. She remained at this station until her discharge in August 1945. If she had stayed on for another few weeks she would have gotten a promotion, but her colleagues from the college in Albany were asking if she cold return before the next academic year began. She continued teaching at the university until she retired in 1967. When she left the service Lester had reached the rank of lieutenant junior grade, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.
publisher:
Military Women's Memorial Foundation
contributor:
Wade, Agnes L.
date:
Unknown
type:
Audio
format:
Cassette
identifier:
51.033
source:
NSCD | CLIR - Recordings at Risk
language:
English
relation:
053915
coverage:
World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-45
rights:
Unrestricted