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- Description:
- Prudence Burns Burrell talks about enlisting in the the United States Army Nurse Corps as a registered nurse in 1942 and her service during World War Two in medical units in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. She also talks about the racism she experienced while in the Army, and marrying a medical administrator with whom she worked in the Philippines in a wedding dress made from a parachute.
- Date Issued:
- 2002-03-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Ninety-eight year old Elizabeth Phillips talks about her service in the Army Nurse Corps in Europe during World War I. She recalls being assigned to a hospital five miles behind the front near Avignon, France, German planes flying over on their way to bomb Paris, surgeries performed as wounded were brought in from the front, her general duties, the large number of casualties, the catastrophic flu epidemic in 1918 and the many funerals, the regimentation and twelve hour shifts, and that when her unit was first deployed to France in May of 1917, the nurses did not receive rations and were expected to find their own food. Phillips explains that nurses had no rank in World War I and were not treated as equals and says that she lobbied vigorously in World War II to correct that inequality. She also says she tried to volunteer for service during World War II, but was refused and spent the war preparing Red Cross packages for shipment to American POWs in German camps.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-04-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Prudence Burns Burrell talks about enlisting in the the United States Army Nurse Corps as a registered nurse in 1942 and her service during World War Two in medical units in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. She also talks about the racism she experienced while in the Army, and marrying a medical administrator with whom she worked in the Philippines in a wedding dress made from a parachute.
- Date Issued:
- 2002-03-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- 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