Following Westover AFB, Captain Major Crain faced various types Crain spent four months at Fort Lee, of experiences in London. Arriving Virginia. Next, she went to Groton, there on New Year’s Eve, she went to Connecticut, in an experiment to set Piccadilly Circus in her uniform. In an up a post exchange to sell $21,000 oral interview, she said, “Some of the of merchandise to the reserve forces. English soldiers saw me . . . and they In 1951, after she completed her pulled me away from the nice lady that assignment, Captain Crain spent nine I was staying with and they put me in months in Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, as a circle and they started singing about personnel director. Discrimination the Yanks thought they won the war. . . . cropped up, even in the Arctic. She and The bobbies had to rescue me.” In other the other eight women on the base were instances, Communist sympathizers not permitted to wear slacks in subzero around the U.S. base near Hyde Park weather because slacks made them routinely beat up American soldiers. look too masculine, while men were Two sentries were killed on duty there. issued long underwear. Oleta was the Oleta took steps to increase the safety last woman to leave the base. Next she of the other soldiers. In more pleasant served in Europe. activities, Major Crain enrolled in a Late in 1951, Captain Crain went course in international relations at to Munich to command the first Cambridge, she spent the night in a integrated group there. However, bedroom once occupied by King Henry because of unfavorable post-World the Eighth and served as photography War II conditions in Germany, and officer for Queen Elizabeth’s lawn party her preference to be a staff officer, she honoring Emperor Haile Selassie. She served in London instead as a group always treasured her photograph that Lt. Oleta Lawanda Crain, date unknown. adjutant and a top-secret officer for she took of the three English queens. Courtesy of the Blair-Caldwell African an intelligence group. In 1952, after In 1955, Major Crain returned to American Research Library. being promoted to major, she served in the United States and was stationed July 26, he issued Executive Order 9981, personnel as a test control officer for at Mitchel Field in New York, where ending racial segregation in the military. England until mid-1955. She conducted she spent two years as a manpower After those events, Oleta and other all of the tests for U.S. troops within a management officer, a position usually officers were placed where needed, sixty-mile radius—those who wanted held by her male counterparts. She regardless of race or gender. promotions and those who wanted to traveled all over the base making In 1949, Captain Crain went to attend West Point. manpower surveys in order to advise Westover Air Force Base (AFB) in the general on his staffing needs. To Massachusetts, to work in intelligence, maintain up-to-date skills in her job, she a job usually held by men. Racial also attended manpower management and political problems followed her. officer’s school. Sepia Magazine, which celebrated the Two years after Oleta arrived at achievements of Black Americans, ran Mitchel AFB, her mother had a heart an article about Oleta and her troops. attack in Denver. So that she could be A superior officer, who disliked the closer to her mother, Oleta was given idea of working with Captain Crain, a “compassionate transfer” to the Air saw the article and accused her of Reserve Records Center in Denver, being a Communist. When the military which employed mostly civilians. investigated Captain Crain, she came out Being the first military person, and clean and received top-secret clearance. female, assigned to management, she noted that no civilians spoke to her in the first twelve days. However, during her two years there, she worked to raise the low grade levels of the Capt. Oleta Crain from The Picture Man. civilian employees. In 1959, while Charleston, SC. Arcadia Publishing, 2017 enroute to her next assignment in Norway, Oleta’s orders were changed; 24