Nancy Lynch Castellano was born in January 1924 in Belleville, New Jersey, with three siblings. Her father worked for the Prudential Insurance Company as head of the mortgage department. She learned about foreclosures and mortgages and things like that from her father as a child. All of the children in the family became teachers. They also discussed politics. Two of her siblings supported Socialism and Norman Thomas [Annotator's Note: Norman Mattoon Thomas, American minister and politician] which upset their parents. Castellano remembers her father telling her mother that there was going to be a war. She was still in grammar school [Annotator's Note: elementary school]. Every Friday night at the movie theater, she saw images of marching Nazi soldiers and starving people. She was not fearful because she did not think it would happen here, until shortly thereafter there was widespread fear of enemy planes coming to the United States and blackout orders were put into place. They conducted air raid practices at school and at Montclair State Teachers' College [Annotator's Note: now Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey]. They would sing and tell jokes during these practices, knowing it was serious and that London [Annotator's Note: London, England] was being bombed, to lighten the mood. She and all of her siblings attended Montclair after high school. She never knew there was any job besides teaching and thought it was wonderful. She admired her siblings. Castellano‘s dorm at Montclair had a patio. She was sitting there on a chilly, but sunny Sunday afternoon, listening to a sports game on the radio when the announcement about Pearl Harbor came on [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Many did not know where Pearl Harbor was. Many of the guys said they were enlisting the next day, and they did. Every night the music professor would play the piano while they were having dinner and would see the men off. Some of them never came back. It was very sad. A friend of Castellano's was anxious to join the WAVES [Annotator's Note: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; United States Naval Women's Reserve], and the recruiting posters were appealing. They never went overseas as Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] would not allow it. Enlisting appealed to her sense of patriotism.

Nancy Lynch Castellano was not old enough to join the WAVES [Annotator's Note: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; United States Naval Women's Reserve] right after Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], as the required age was 20. She and her friends talked about it throughout the spring of 1942. She could not wait and went to the recruiting station on her 20th birthday to sign up. She received her orders and was sent to New York. She wanted to be a control tower operator. They learned to use a Link trainer [Annotator's Note: flight simulation and training device]. She was enchanted with working with airplanes. There were female pilots in the WAVES. Her officer suggested that Castellano request placement as Specialist "S", meaning personnel supervisor. Boot camp was six weeks, and she shadowed this officer for two six-week sessions. She taught groups of about 300, a whole company, about Navy regulations and court martial. She was given lesson plans. They marched. She was a real drill master and loved it. They performed for President [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] and Mrs. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] and Chiang Kai-Shek [Annotator's Note: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975] at Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. There were 6,000 new WAVES recruits every six weeks. Every week 2,000 went out and 2,000 came in. The women were needed to do the men's jobs so that they could go overseas as the draft was not enough. The WAVES took over air station communications, built, repaired, and flew planes. Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to send the women overseas, but President Roosevelt was against it. They also trained in gunnery and would then teach gunnery to the sailors. The Link trainer was like a cockpit of a plane, on the ground. They would teach sailors to do blind flying [Annotator's Note: using only instruments for flying an aircraft]. Once she found her place in her job, Castellano no longer wanted to go overseas. The men did not resent them.

Nancy Lynch Castellano [Annotator's Note: in the WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; United States Naval Women's Reserve] wore her uniform just below the knee. They did regimental review every Saturday morning at ten o'clock. When she joined the WAVES, she had had a physical. They were given leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] from time to time, once she became Ship's Company of the USS Hunter [Annotator's Note: The U.S. Naval Training Center (WR) located at Hunter College in the Bronx, New York, New York, was referred to as the USS Hunter]. The WAVES training started out in Iowa, but it did not work, the frigid weather was not conducive to marching and was not helpful for recruiting. Virginia Gildersleeve, the dean of Barnard College [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York], and Elizabeth Reynard [Annotator's Note: a professor at Barnard], were prestigious wealthy women and worked with Mayor La Guardia [Annotator's Note: Fiorello Henry La Guardia, American politician] to move the WAVES training center to New York. They were given 36 acres and four buildings at Hunter College. To house so many recruits, locals in the neighborhood were asked to move and were basically kicked out. Castellano later met a man who was four years old when his family left one of these apartments, but said his family was not angry about it and felt it was something they could do for the war effort. There were 16 girls in a single apartment with bunkbeds, even in the dining room. They shared a single bathroom. There were no men on the campus. Castellano was the youngest of the women, and the other girls would not let her go out with them. New York was full of service people at the time. She sometimes had dates, but most men were overseas. Captain Amsden [Annotator's Note: US Navy Captain William Faulkner Amsden, Commanding Officer of USS Hunter] had a grandson, and his whole family stayed at the station. All of Castellano's officers were women. Commander McAfee was president of Wellesley [Annotator's Note: Mildred H. McAfee, dean of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts from 1936 to 1948]. On one occasion, 3,500 WAVES marched 40 blocks up 5th Avenue.

Nancy Lynch Castellano authored a book entitled "Looking Back at the WAVES: A Chronicle of the 90,000 Navy Women of World War II." She loved writing it. All of her siblings pursued teaching, as did Castellano, who taught English. It was not until she retired that she really appreciated the experience of being in the WAVES. She had served for 22 months beginning in 1944 when she was old enough to join. She had difficulty adjusting to civilian life after the war. She met her husband on a blind date set up by a priest. They had been married 53 years when he died. She took a job teaching fifth grade special ed [Annotator's Note: special education], which was awful because she was not trained for it. She would not do anything different; she has had a wonderful life.