Mattie A Pinette, Dog Tag, Mrs. Jos. Pinette, Guilford, Maine
Guilford Historical Society
MATTIE ANNA PINETTE
Mattie Anna Pinette was born on February 7, 1903 in New Canada, Maine. When Mattie was seven her family relocated to Guilford but Mattie stayed behind and was raised by her Aunt and Uncle who lived in Fort Kent. After graduation she attended Madawaska Training School and later Beals College where she excelled. She went into civil service in 1923 with the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Washington, DC thus beginning service to her country that lasted 40 years. The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 propelled Mattie into military service on August 6, 1942 at the age of 39 and she was commissioned as WAAF 3d officer on October 3, 1942. She quickly rose to 1st officer and on August 31, 1943 she was recommissioned in the WAC where she rose to the rank of Major before her release from active duty on April 26, 1946. Mattie never actually lived in Guilford but claimed it as her home of record during and after her military career.
Captain Mattie Pinette, Eisenhower's secretary, Washington, D.C., 1944
Guilford Historical Society
To say that Mattie had a distinguished career in the military would be a huge understatement. She was one of the first five female officers posted to England in November of 1942. She was in England only a short time before being transferred to North Africa. The trip was anything but routine and the boat she was on was torpedoed and sunk. Mattie and other survivors spent ten hours in a lifeboat before being rescued. She excelled in her work at the Casablanca Conference and became noticed by Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower who appointed her as his personal and confidential secretary. For ten months she worked at his side on Operation Overlord, the planning for the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944.
SEE NOTES Mattie A Pinette - Medals and Achievements
Guilford Historical Society
After the successful landings and the liberation of France, Mattie was assigned to Major General John T. Lewis, Eisenhower’s liaison to France, due to her fluency in French. She personally witnessed the German surrender at Rheims. Mattie was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Army Commendation Medal, European Campaign Medal with two battle stars, plus the French Croix-de-Guerre. She received commendations from Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, John R. Deane, Generals George Patton, Omar Bradley, and W. B. Smith. She rose to the rank of Lt Colonel before her retirement from the reserves in 1962.
The end of the war in 1945 was not the end of Mattie Pinette’s distinguished government career. She was hired as Chief of Employee Development in the newly created Atomic Energy Commission working until her retirement. She remained a close personal friend of General Omar Bradley and the two corresponded for several years.
In August of 1999 Mattie passed on and there being no Catholic cemetery in Guilford, she was buried in the Catholic cemetery at Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, leaving behind a larger than life legacy and who went where few women had gone before.
Some of Mattie’s military records and citations plus personally autographed pictures of Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley are currently housed at the Guilford Historical Society Museum.
