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- Description:
- Lillian Kivela talks about her service in the United States Army Nurse Corps during World War Two including, why she enlisted in June 1943, nurse's training, basic Army training, housing, uniforms, and her duties at the Schick General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa. She says that she was sent to New Jersey in preparation for being shipped to Europe and describes shipboard conditions and being seasick throughout the entire ten-day voyage. She talks about being housed in an unheated Welsh resort hotel, marching, walking a mile to the mess hall for meals, serving in the orthopedic ward at a hospital in Headington, a suburd of Oxford and experiencing an influx of patients following D-Day and the subsequent fighting, and the early use of penicillin to control infection. In her off-time, Kivela says that she often visited London for the theater, rode her bicycle around Oxford, became acquainted with British families and even met the Queen Mother and boxer Joe Louis when they visited the hospital. Back in the States, after the war, she says that she had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life and finally came to Michigan State College to finish her degree in microbiology. Kivela is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-01-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lillian Malloy says that she joined the U.S. Army as soon as the enlistment office in Battle Creek, MI opened after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She says that she was first sent to Des Moines, Iowa for basic training and also received administrative and clerical training before being sent to Eglin Field in Florida as part of the first group of women earmarked for service in the U.S. Army Air Corps. She describes finally shipping to England aboard the Queen Elizabeth, her duties there and traveling around England and Ireland after V-E Day. Malloy also talks about her postwar European duty stations, describes the living conditions and remembers watching General Eisenhower run a staff meeting. She says she might have stayed in the service if she had not had to care for her sick mother.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-10-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project