Mildred McAfee Horton; WAVES Director During World War II

Mildred McAfee Horton, 94, director of the WAVES during World War II and the first woman to receive a commission in the Naval Reserve. Mrs. Horton was president of Wellesley College in 1942 when she was asked to run the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, a reserve unit of the Navy whose members performed clerical and secretarial duties so enlisted men could serve at sea. She took a leave of absence from Wellesley and received a commission in the Naval Reserve. She was promoted to captain in November, 1943, and awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945. At the peak of the war, she commanded 82,000 women. Her husband, the Rev. Douglas Horton, who was dean of the Harvard Divinity School, died in 1968. In Randolph, N.H., on Friday.