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- Description:
- Elsie Hornbacher talks about her overseas service as a teacher in Japan, Italy and Austria after World War Two. Hornbacher talks about going to Japan in 1949, her ocean voyage to Yokohama, shipboard life, riding out a typhoon, the destruction still evident in postwar Japan, Japanese culture, and how life for the Japanese gradually began to improve. Hornbacher discusses the school where she worked, the curriculum, her students, visiting Hiroshima and about the Korean War and American dependents evacuating from Korea to Japan. Hornbacher says that she was reassigned to Naples in 1952, and that the city was unsafe and controlled by the mafia. After "enduring" a year in Italy, she says that she was next sent to Austria which she found both colorful and interesting and was finally sent back to the U.S. in 1954.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy M. Harrison reads from the memoir of the late Anna Catherine Corbin, a Louisville Women's Overseas Service League member, who served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. Corbin describes deploying as part of the 300th General Hospital unit out of Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, being shipped to North Africa on a converted ocean liner, landing at Bizerte, Tunisia and later being sent to Naples, Italy. Corbin talks about setting up a hospital in a former TB sanatorium in Naples, treating soldiers with terrible wounds, the enormous number of casualties that came from the Battle of Anzio, working 23 hour shifts and how few patient fatalities the hospital had in the face of such carnage. She says that she was shipped back to the States in August 1945 and was discharged in October 1945.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-10-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Helene Gram Forster talks about her hospital service with the American Red Cross between June 1943 and December 1945. Forster explains why she volunteered and describes her duties as a hospital recreation worker charged with providing activities and entertainment for patients at bases in North Africa, Italy and France. Forster says that the convoy which brought her to Africa was attacked near Oran, Algeria, and describes crossing the Mediterranean to Naples and being based in a convent hospital in Caserta, Italy, living conditions in camps in Algeria and Italy, caring for allied troops from several countries, and setting up a hospital in a French cavalry school. She says she sailed on a hospital ship back to the States for her leave and then returned to unit in France aboard a mail plane which also carried one of General Eisenhower's aides with a top secret set of battle plans. Forster says that her service during the war was a special time in her life. Forster is interviewed by Edna Fonn.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lieutenant Colonel Bernice R. Couzynse (Ret.) talks about her long military career and serving on four continents as a United States Army nurse. Couzynse says she completed nursing school in the fall of 1942 and by March 1943 had enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. She tells of deploying to North Africa with a hospital unit, being under attack by German aircraft, moving up to Naples after the invasion of Italy, setting up a hospital at an agricultural college, moving with the troops as they advanced, being near the front lines and treating extreme battlefield injuries. At the end of the war in Europe, Couzynse says that she did not have enough points to rotate home and was slated to be sent to Japan as part of the U.S. invasion forces. Ironically, she says that she did later serve in Japan during the Korean Conflict. Couzynse recalls her duty in Germany in the early 1960s, the Berlin Wall crisis when all leaves were cancelled, and finally finishing her career as head nurse at William Beaumont Hospital in El Paso, TX in April 1971. She credits the Army with giving her a chance to have an interesting career, to travel, and to make many friends. Couzynse is interviewed by Doris J. Triick.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-03-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Mary J. Ford talks about her childhood and education in Indiana and serving in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. After basic training, Ford says that she was first sent to Casablanca in Morocco in September 1943 and after a month, to Naples, Italy. She says that in Naples, she served in a hospital located in a monastery which had been bombed by the Germans and that she struggled to adjust to life in Italy and treating wounded soldiers and describes her duties and working with nurses who were mainly from Detroit. Ford talks about the feelings she had after returning to the United States and why she chose to go volunteer for second tour of duty in Italy at the end of the war.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Margaret M. Lyon talks about her service as a civilian teacher for the U.S. Army in France and Italy from September 1956 to July 1958 and in Japan from August 1960 to June 1961. Lyon says she taught at an elementary school in Louisville, KY before going overseas with the Army and talks about her pay, her responsibilities teaching the children of military personnel, the diverse backgrounds of her students and adjusting to working in very close quarters. Lyon says that she returned to the states after serving in Europe, but took a similar job with the Navy two years later in Japan teaching American dependents and teaching English to Japanese students on a volunteer basis. She also talks about traveling extensively in Japan and throughout Asia. Lyon is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-02-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Anna Spillman Atteberry talks about her childhood in depression-era Louisiana and her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in Southern France and Italy during World War Two. Atteberry says that after nursing school she heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and immediately enlisted. She says that she was first assigned to the Fort Bliss hospital, volunteered for overseas duty, joined the 56th Evacuation Hospital and was sent to Casablanca in North Africa. She was next moved to Bizerte to treat casualties from the invasion of Sicily, she says and was later sent to Anzio and then north to Naples. She talks about spending the winter in a front line tent hospital, dealing with the dirt floors and trying to keep things sterile, treating battlefield wounds and pneumonia and other cold related cases and working during German shelling and says that she is proud of the care that she and other hospital staff provided. After next being stationed in Rome, Atteberry says that she was transferred to the 10th Field Hospital in France, followed the Army as it moved across France and Germany and says that the lines changed so quickly that they were sometimes forced to leave behind patients who were too critical to be moved. She says that she returned to the States as a patient and received treatment at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver and when she recovered, was sent to Fort Sam Houston where she nursed severely injured casualties. Atteberry is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-04-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lois Kuen Johnson talks about her experiences serving overseas in the American Red Cross rest camps from February 1944 to November 1945. Johnson explains that she volunteered for the opportunity to travel and discusses her duties, housing conditions, her uniforms, being stationed in Italy, and serving coffee and pastries to the troops as they moved from Naples to the front. She describes helping an Italian non-combatant deliver a baby and an incident in which she spotted an enemy intelligence agent. She says that although she did adapt well to working and living overseas, she did sometimes feel lonely. Johnson is interviewed by Gudrun Bodgercln and June Stoltz.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project