Florence Maltaghati

Florence Maltaghati was born in Newark, New Jersey in June 1924 and was a high school student at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, where a friend’s brother was stationed. After graduating from high school, she became an office worker and then, in 1945, joined the Army’s Women’s Army Corp (WAC).

Maltaghati received her basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, and was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia and then to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She received no special training after basic training, but her civilian office worker skills stood her in good stead when she was appointed company clerk, maintaining the records of other WAC women. When the war ended, Maltaghati remained in the army, serving for four years at Fort Monroe, Virginia, where she maintained personnel and payroll records as well as prepared policy procedures for an army manual. She recalled that she processed a lot of records for servicemen and women leaving for and returning from Korea, and that interviewing soldiers with combat experience brought home their war experiences to her in a personal way.  WACs were not allowed to serve in combat zones at the time.

Maltaghati fondly recalled her Fort Monroe experience. Though confined to post, she stated that there was a wide variety of recreational opportunity. Maltaghati received leave to come home for Christmas, although her family was not happy that she had stayed in the army. She also served a stint in Germany, where she remembered seeing many interesting places, and said relations with local civilians were still cool in the early postwar period. Promoted to sergeant, Maltaghati found that eighteen-year-old women were difficult to control. 

Maltaghati served a total of six and a half years, from 1945 to 1952, and was discharged as a sergeant first class. She returned to Newark, where she worked as a hospital administrative assistant while attending college at night. After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Maltaghati became an English teacher, retiring in 1987. She was a member of the American Legion and the New Jersey Advisory Committee for Women Veterans. Maltaghati maintained contact with several of the women she served with as well as attended reunions in Nebraska, Kansas and New Mexico. She showed the interviewer photos of the women’s stateside mess hall, the mess hall in Germany where men and women ate alongside each other, and herself in Class A uniform as a staff sergeant.

Maltaghati was awarded a WAC Service Ribbon and Good Conduct Medal for her service.

Florence Maltaghati passed away on January 30, 2008 at the age of 83 and was interred at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery in New Jersey.