; and (C) were awarded a Defensive Sector Clasp for the Meuse-Argonne operation. (18) The Chief Operator supervising the Hello Girls, Grace Banker of Passaic, New Jersey, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Out of 16,000 eligible Signal Corps officers, Banker was 1 of only 18 individuals so honored. (19) Thirty additional operators received special commendations, many signed by General Pershing himself, for exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services in Advance Sections of the conflict. (20) The war ended on November 11, 1918. As of that date, 223 female operators served in France and had connected 26,000,000 calls for the AEF. (21) The Chief Signal Officer of the Army Signal Corps wrote in his official report 2 days after the date on which the war ended that a large part of the success of the communications of this Army is due to … a competent staff of women operators. . (22) After the war ended, some women were ordered to Coblenz in Germany for the occupation of that country and to Paris for the Paris Peace Treaty of 1919 to continue telephone operations, sometimes in direct support of President Woodrow Wilson. (23) Two operators, Corah Bartlett and Inez Crittenden, died in France in the service of the United States and were buried there in military cemeteries with military ceremonies. Those operators died of the same influenza pandemic that killed more soldiers of the Armed Forces than combat operations. (24) Women of the Army Signal Corps were ineligible for discharge until formal release. Because of their role in logistics, those women were among the last soldiers to come home to the United States. The last Signal Corps operators returned from France in January of 1920. (25) Upon arrival in the United States, the Army informed female veterans that they had performed as civilians, not soldiers, even though operators had served in Army uniform in a theatre of war surrounded by men who were similarly engaged. (26) Despite the objections of General George Squier, the top-ranking officer in the