Honoring Veterans: Navy Veteran Loretta Walsh

Loretta Perfectus Walsh was born to Irish immigrants in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, in 1896. Walsh graduated from Lackawanna Business College in Scranton, Pennsylvania. While working as a clerk for recruitment in the Philadelphia Naval District, she volunteered with the Women’s Division of the Philadelphia Navy League as a secretary.

In 1917, with the Navy desperately needing more enlistees, the Secretary of the Navy declared that the Naval Reserve Act of 1916’s reference to enlisting “all persons who may be capable of performing special useful service for coastal defense” meant women could be recruited. These women often filled clerical and shore duties in which they already had experience.

Walsh became the Naval Reserve’s first female enlistee as a Yeoman (F) on March 17, 1917. She was sworn in as Chief Yeoman (F), the Navy’s first female petty officer, at the Philadelphia Naval shipyard on March 21, 1917. Then she began work in a clerical position within the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard recruiting office.

Women had often worked with the military in various unofficial capacities, and from 1901 on they were even able to join the nurse corps. However, Walsh was the first to hold a military rank and receive the same pay and benefits as the men she worked alongside. The Navy told reporters around the nation that women were being signed up due to not enough men enlisting. In response, enlistment increased significantly before the declaration of war on April 6, 1917.

While volunteering beyond her assigned recruitment work at the Philadelphia Naval Home during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Walsh contracted the Spanish flu. With her immune system weakened from the deadly flu strain, she came down with tuberculosis and was released from active duty due to disability in 1919 after the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918. She was awarded a World War I Victory Medal.

Walsh remained with the inactive reserve until her four-year enlistment ended in 1921. In June 1922, she married Frederick Bowman, a fellow tuberculosis patient at the White Haven Sanitorium near her hometown of Olyphant. After years fighting tuberculosis, Walsh died from complications of the disease in August 1925. She was buried at the Saint Patrick Cemetery in Olyphant after a full military funeral, beneath a tomb memorializing World War I’s female Navy Veterans.

The Navy Department Historical Center commemorates Walsh’s swearing-in as the first Chief Yeoman (F) through a wreath-laying ceremony every year on March 21. In 2021, that day also marked the renaming of one of the 24-pound long gun replicas of the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. The undefeated Old Ironsides, or USS Constitution, now bears a gun named Perfectus in Walsh’s honor.

While Walsh is commonly written about as Loretta, her first name was likely Loretto, as her enlistment papers and signature refer to her by this name. In 1995, a Pennsylvania historical marker with the name Loretto Perfectus Walsh was placed outside American Legion Post 327 in Olyphant on Veterans Day to honor her.

We honor her service.

Do you want to light up the face of a special Veteran? Have you been wondering how to tell your Veteran they are special to you? VA’s Honoring Veterans social media feature is an opportunity to highlight your Veteran and his/her service.

It’s easy to nominate a Veteran. All it takes is an email to newmedia@va.gov with as much information as you can put together, along with some good photos. Visit our blog post about nominating to learn how to create the best submission.

Writer: Michelle A. Shade

Editors: Kinsey Spratt, Tayler Rairigh

Researchers: Paola Negron, Raphael Romea

Graphic Designer: William Vega