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- Description:
- Katie Kerr talks about her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Kerr describes becoming a medical technician, volunteering for the Red Cross in March 1944 and serving as a hospital recreation worker. She talks about her initial duties and training at American University in Washington D.C. and later being shipped to England. She talks about her time in England, how complicated relationships could become, recreation activities the Red Cross organized to entertain the troops, and some of her patients and their injuries. She remembers V-E Day, anticipating being sent to the Pacific Theater, coming back to the States in July 1945, taking a job at Lansing, Michigan's Sparrow Hospital, and meeting her husband, a Michigan State Police Trooper. Kerr talks about how she felt when the atomic bomb was dropped and signs off the interview by reciting her serial number. Kerr is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-08-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Elizabeth "Betty" Brown says she that she wanted to join the Women's Army Corps but failed to pass the physical, applied for the American Red Cross and served in Army and Navy hospitals for four years and then two years as a service club director. She talks about organizing recreational activities for patients in the 65th General Hospital in Europe during World War II and says that after V-J Day she was sent to Guam to work for several general hospitals. Brown describes the variety of uniforms she wore and coming up with creative ways to entertain patients. She says that just being away from home was the biggest wartime adjustment she had to make. Brown also talks about her postwar employment with the YWCA, earning a masters degree and serving in the Peace Corp. Brown is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In the second of two oral history interviews, Virginia Emrich describes her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Emrich says that she was sent to Australia in 1944 and then to Manila in June 1945 where she was quartered in a bombed-out building with indoor toilets and showers, but with little privacy. Emrich remembers regularly hearing gunfire and bombs as U.S. troops tried to dislodge the Japanese, setting up a recreation hall for the 11th Airborne Division and regularly suffering earthquakes and tropical rains. She says that she was never hungry during her time in the Red Cross, but was often homesick, cold and tired and always sustained by the conviction that she was doing something worthwhile. Emerich says that she was sent to Japan in September 1945 to open recreation clubs for U.S. occupation forces and that although she enjoyed her time in Japan, she finally asked to be shipped home to care for her aging mother.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-06-11T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a 1983 oral history interview, Dorothy M. Harrison talks about her childhood in Royal Oak, MI, attending the University of Michigan and her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Harrison says she volunteered for the ARC in late 1942 and after receiving their training, her unit was shipped to Europe as part of a forty-ship convoy which was attacked by a German submarine during the crossing. Harrison also talks about opening a service club with the 93rd Heavy Bombardment Group in Hardwick, England, moving to the 337th General Service Engineers and later to the 363rd Photo Reconnaissance Group as part of the push across Germany as the war ended. She describes her quarters, her duties, celebrating Christmas with the troops during the Battle of the Bulge, struggling to get the equipment and supplies she needed to keep the clubs running, and the sexual harassment she experienced. Harrison says that she returned to the U.S. in September 1945, resumed her career as a librarian and married and moved with her husband to Louisville, KY to raise a family.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In the first of two oral history interviews, Virginia Emrich talks about running Red Cross recreation clubs for U.S. troops during World War Two. Emrich discusses her Red Cross training and says that she was slated to go to Europe, but protested the assignment because she wanted to go to the Pacific and was finally sent to Brisbane, Australia in 1943. Emrich says that her first assignment in Australia was to staff a club which had a beach, golf course, and tennis courts and recalls troops from New Guinea and other front line units rotating through Brisbane for rest before the Philippine invasion in October 1944. Emrich says she was later moved to Darwin on the north coast of Australia to run a recreation club and describes her duties there, the tropical heat and humidity, the rains, mud, and insects and says that the troops were not allowed to swim in the ocean because the stingrays were so fierce. Emrich is interviewed by Virginia Cornett.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-04T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Alice Nordly talks about her nearly four years of service as an officer in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two and being stationed in the Asian Theater of Operations. Nordly explains why she enlisted in Army and discusses her induction and basic training and says that she was recruited from a local California hospital. Nordly talks about her stateside assignments and duties in various surgical wards and says that she finally shipped out to India on an troop ship which had no naval escort and which took forty-five days to cross the Pacific. Nordly describes stops in New Zealand and Australia before landing in India and taking a train to Ledo, India to support the troops trying to recapture the Ledo Road from the Japanese. She describes the scenery, the poverty, her gear and quarters, the torrential rains and intense heat and treating various battlefield wounds and injuries. After her discharge in 1946, Nordly says that she did face a period of adjustment to civilian life and that what she most disliked about the Army was the regimentation and the lack of privacy. Nordly is interviewed by Neola A. Spackman.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy M. Harrison describes the efforts of the Louisville Unit of the Women's Overseas Service League to collect and persevere the histories of its members and then talks about the life of Mildred Stutzenberger who served in the American Red Cross during World War II. Reading from local documents and an interview with Stutzenberger, Harrison talks about Stutzenberger first working in hospitals in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations and then transferring to club work at the Bengal Air Depot in India. According to Harrison, Stutzenberger also served in Guam and Saipan and with the occupation forces in Japan. Harrison also recounts Stutzenberger's retirement and later death from lung cancer.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Florence Bernstein McChesney, from the Women's Overseas Service League Pittsburgh Unit, talks about her service as a flight nurse in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1949. McChesney explains why she volunteered for the Army while working in a TB ward in a Detroit hospital and discusses her training and finally being assigned to the Pacific Theater of Operations. She describes her duties, flying frequently to the States with patients, her quarters in Hawaii and on Guadalcanal, her uniforms, the types of illness and injuries she treated and says that she was the first nurse on Okinawa. McChesney says that she used the G.I. Bill to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees after the war and worked as a nurse until her retirement in 1974. McChesney is interviewed by Amelia Bunder.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-01-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Betty Thompson talks about her service as a physical therapist in the U.S. Army during World War Two. Thompson says that her unit was originally scheduled to be sent to Belgium, but that they were kept in a Paris triage hospital because the causality load became so heavy. She says that she spent sixteen months there and describes some of the most severely injured patients which she treated. After V-E Day, Thompson says her unit was split up and she was sent to the Riviera for duty in a venereal disease hospital and then was finally ordered back to the States in October 1945. She also talks about meeting President Franklin Roosevelt when she worked at Warm Springs, Arkansas after graduating from nursing school, meeting her future husband overseas during the war and using her G.I. Bill money to earn a pilots license.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Linden N. Anderson talks about her long career in the American Red Cross which included service in World War Two and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Anderson reminisces about her childhood, attending the University of Texas, teaching in Texas public schools and finally joining the Red Cross in 1943. Anderson talks about her training with the "doughnut dollies", being stationed at the 91st General Hospital, shipping out to England and being stationed in Wales until her unit could be moved to a hospital at Oxford. Anderson says that her job was to provide entertainment for the wounded and build morale and that she often took patients on bus tours throughout England. After V-E Day, Anderson says that she returned to the States, but was soon recalled by the ARC to serve in Japan and in Korea during that conflict. Anderson also says that she remained in the Red Cross for twenty-years after Korea, discusses her duty stations in Libya, Germany, Korea and the U.S., describes treating casualties in Japan during the Vietnam war and finishing her career in Corpus Christi in 1973. Anderson is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project