Women on subs by 2012

The first US women allowed to serve aboard submarines will be reporting for duty by 2012, the Navy said yesterday as the military ordered an end to one of its few remaining gender barriers.

The cramped quarters and scant privacy aboard submarines, combined with long tours of up to 90 days at sea, kept them off-limits to female sailors for 16 years after the Navy began allowing women to serve on all its surface ships in 1994.