M SGT US, Army Air Corps, Gertrude “Byrnie” M. Byrne

On August 6, 1943, Gertrude M. Byrne enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ¹ She became a swimming instructor at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. ² Later in the War, Byrne was assigned to the Air Transport Command and spent time in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, England, Wales, and Paris. She received the World War II Victory Medal, the American Service Medal, the European/African Middle Eastern Service Medal, the Army of Occupation Medal, the WAAC Service Ribbon, and the Good Conduct Medal. ¹ She was honorably discharged from the military on October 13, 1946. ¹

Gertrude M. Byrne was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1919 to Marcus T. and Grace Byrne. The family moved to New Mexico in 1927 when Byrne was seven years old. ³ She attended Fourth Ward Elementary School and Washington Junior High School in Albuquerque. ⁴ In 1937, Byrne graduated from Albuquerque High School where she was the Vice President of the Girl’s Athletic Association. ⁵ Following high school, she attended the University of New Mexico. In 1938 Byrne and her friends took a 4000-mile “motor trip” to Yellowstone National Park, Idaho, Salt Lake City, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. ^{6, 7} That same year, she played girls’ softball for a local Albuquerque team called the Jensen Beans. ⁸

After the War, Byrne worked for Sandia National Laboratories from 1947 to 1974 supervising the stenographic pool. ⁴ In 1984, She helped organize a reunion of the WACs assigned to the Air Transport Command. ⁹ She was the director of the Albuquerque YMCA Girls Reserve Clubs, and a leader of an all-woman American Legion called The Forty-Niners. ¹⁰ An avid bowler, Byrne won local tournaments and set records. Her nephew, Tom Wagers described her, “She was a very active person in the community. She bowled often and liked to go fly-fishing in her cabin in the Jemez Mountains. During the winter, she fished in the Pacific Ocean off Kino Bay in Mexico.” ⁴ Byrne was affectionately known as “Byrnie” to her many friends. ³ Her sister said of her, “She was flexible and generous to those around her.” ⁴