This Military Service Page was created/owned by
PO1 Jeff Frey (Ace)
to remember
Hancock, Joy, CAPT.
If you knew or served with this Sailor and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Contact Info
Last Address Wildwood
Date of Passing Sep 25, 1986
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
After her retirement from the Navy, she married VADM Ralph A. Ofstie, then Commander, US Sixth Fleet.
Following his death in 1956 Capt Hancock spent time in the Virgin Islands, the Washington D.C. area, and in her home town of Wildwood, NJ, running the family business William H. Bright Real Estate and Insurance Company, along with helping her brother run the Wildwood Yacht Basin, as well as managing family-owned real estate.
Other Comments:
One of a few American Women to earn their wings in the 1920's by obtaining her Private Pilots License.
In 1922, during Capt Hancock's broken service she was hired as a cilivian by the Bureau of Aeronautics, her duties including editing the Bureau's "News Letter", which later evolved into the magizine "Naval Aviation News", being its first Editor in Chief.
She was instumental in getting a reluctant Congress into authorizing the Women's Reserve of the US Naval Reserve, later nicknamed the WAVES.
Capt Hancock served as a liaison to then LCDR Milred McAfee, Director of the WAVES, because McAfee and her adviors came from educational and professional worlds, they knew very little about the Navy. They found Capt Hancock's expertise invaluable. With a background as a Yeoman(F) in WWI, a Navy Wife, and as a civilian in the Bureau of Aeronautics, she was the only WAVE leader with a clear idea of how the Navy operated.
During her tour at the Chief of Naval Operations, she held the position of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations(Air).
In 1946 she became the Assistant Director(Plans) of the Women's Reserve (WAVES) and later promoted to Director of the Women's Reserve.
During WWII women's service in the Military was considered as temporary. When Congress passed legislation in 1948 allowing women permanent standing in the regular Navy, it was largely do to the untiring efforts of one woman - Captian Joy Bright Hancock. Then Secretary of the Navy Robert B. Anderson later acknowledged her role: "More than any one individual," he wrote in a letter to Capt Hancock, "you are responsible for the establishment of the WAVES as a component in the Navy. Your Ideals, energy, and enthusiasm are continually reflected in the intregration of women into the regular Navy."
One of two WAVES eligible to wear the World War I Victory Medal.
Her first two marriages ended with tragady. Following WWI she married LT Charles Gray Little who died in the crash of airship ZR-2 in 1921. Her second marriage ended when husband LCDR Lewis Hancock Jr lost his life in the crash of the USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) in 1925.
Namesake for the Joy Bright Hancock Organization at the US Naval Academy.
