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Grace Belknap Illman (b. 1923) of Walla Walla, Washington, served in the United States Woman's Army Corps (WAC) in the Army Air Forces and taught army ground school classes from 1942 to 1945. She continued in the teaching profession for twenty-five years at Grimsley High School and Guilford Technical Community College in Greensboro, N.C. Grace Belknap Illman was born in Walla Walla, Washington, in 1923. She was raised in various places in Oregon and Washington, and finished high school in Redmond, Oregon. Illman graduated from Oregon State University in Corvallis in 1942. In the summer of 1942, Illman attended an army technical course at the University of St. Louis in Missouri. She then went as a civilian to Scott Field, now Scott Air Force Base, in Belleville, Illinois, where she taught ground school for the Army Air Corps. In 1943, Illman and the other civilian instructors were commissioned into the army. Illman remained in the army until the fall of 1945, when she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and taught vocational education at Grimsley High School for five years. She then went on to teach at Guilford Technical Community College for twenty years.