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- Description:
- Janet A. Bachmeyer talks about her thirty-year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from July 1944 to June 1974. Bachmeyer says she received her nurse's training at the Evangelical School of Nursing in Chicago and worked her way up the ranks in the military from staff nurse to chief nurse before she retired. She talks about her duty stations in Europe during World War II and others in postwar Germany, Korea and in Vietnam. Bachmeyer describes post housing, her uniforms, and her vivid memories of being in London on V-E Day and celebrating all night. Bachmeyer says that she hadn't intended to make the military a career but decided it was right for her after leaving active service for a couple of years. Bachmeyer also talks about her activities in retirement and her feelings about the WOSL. Bachmeyer is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Betty Vogel describes her youth and education and her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. After graduating from the nursing program at Abbott Hospital in Minneapolis in 1942, Vogel says that she decided to join the Army after seeing Japanese atrocities depicted in a newsreel. She says that she was inducted in September 1943 and after training, was shipped out to Scotland in January 1944 on the USS Brazil. She says that she was later stationed at a hospital in Barford, England and that on D-Day the casualties came in so fast that they had no time to even clean them up. In July of 1944, Vogel says that she was sent to a hospital near Paris and treated American and German casualties from the Battle of the Bulge and actually married her husband Edward during that same battle. When she had earned enough points, Vogel says that she was sent back to the States and was discharged at Fort Sheridan, IL in December 1945. Vogel remembers being scared much of the time that she was in the field during the war and says that she doesn't believe that women belong in combat. Vogel is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Laura Jacquelin "Jackie" Coggin talks about her youth in Georgia and Florida, her education and her 20 years in the Army Nurse Corps. Coggin says that she first graduated from the Macon Hospital School of Nursing in 1953, later earned a a bachelor's degree in nursing education administration and then a master's degree from the University of Alabama in 1963. She says that in 1965, while teaching at University of Southwestern Louisiana, an Army recruiter talked her into joining the Army Nurse Corps as a way of financing a trip to Europe. She talks about her first duty stations and says that she decided to extend her enlistment because she liked the way the Army moved her around. She also talks about living and working in Hawaii and Germany and traveling throughout Europe and says that the military changed the way she thought about peoples' motives and points of view and that she learned to look at problems much differently. Coggin is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-03-26T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy Schroeder talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Schroeder says she graduated from nursing school in 1941 and after working as a civilian in Miami, was inducted into the Army on January 28, 1944. She says that she shipped to Liverpool and Glasgow with the 191st General Hospital in October 1944 and was later stationed in France, just outside of Paris at a former mental hospital. She remembers treating casualties from the Battle of the Bulge, meeting her future husband in an operating room, site-seeing along the Riviera, sailing on the Mediterranean, visiting Lourdes, and attending a memorial service for President Roosevelt in Notre Dame Cathedral in April 1945. Schroeder says that she shipped back to the States in January 1946, was discharged that February, later married, started a family and worked at the Saint Joseph Infirmary in Louisville, KY for many years. Schroeder is interviewed by Jean T. Campbell.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Gladys Welch says she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps because two of her brothers were in the military and she felt she also needed to serve and that she actually served two "hitches" in the Army. She was first stationed in Iran from 1943 to 1946, during World War II and later reenlisted for service in Europe from 1946 to 1958. Welch recalls the heat in Iran and visiting the Holy Land while on leave and traveling extensively throughout Europe. She says that she did not initially plan on an Army career, but found adjusting to military life to be easy decided to reenlist and serve to retirement. Welch also says that after her discharge, she returned to private nursing and taught psychiatric nursing at Mercy Hospital. Welch is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Johanna Butt talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two and the Korean War. Butt says that she graduated from nursing school in 1943 and joined the Army that same year. She talks about treating wounded from Patton's Third Army in Europe, living in miserable conditions, being cold and not having enough to eat, V-E Day and finally being "separated" from the Army in February in 1946. She says that she was called up from the Army Reserves in 1951 for the Korean War and talks about being stationed in Japan with the 382nd General Hospital, the flood of casualties that came in from the fighting in Korea, returning to the States in 1954, teaching nursing, working as an Army recruiter in the Pacific Northwest and being turned down for service in the Vietnam war. Butt says she retired from the Army in 1970 and moved to Tucson, AZ to care for her mother and husband. Butt is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Erna H. "Tommy" Thompson (nee Schmidt) talks about her youth in Ada, Minnesota, her education and her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. After nursing school at St. Johns Hospital in St. Paul, MN and additional course work at the University of Chicago, and after receiving advice directly from Eleanor Roosevelt, Thompson enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. While her husband, who was also in the Army, was sent to Europe, Thompson says that in 1942 she was sent to Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Thompson talks about working at front line aid stations on Guam in the Mariana Islands, Enewetak Atoll, and Iwo Jima and says that she did not like being required to give transfusions from scarce blood supplies to Japanese casualties and was upset that her personal mail was censored. Thompson says she was discharged from the Army in December 1945, went back to active duty in 1948 and worked in hospitals at Fort Sam Houston and in Chicago and then in 1955, resigned from active duty and went into teaching. She says that in 1957 she went back into active duty and served in Hawaii, Fort Bragg, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Berlin and finally retired from the Army in September 1969. Thompson also talks about the tension between practicing nursing and teaching nursing and describes her retirement activities. Thompson is interviewed by Wilda Smith.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Neola Ann Spackman reminisces about her family, her decision to go into nursing, and what motivated her to join the Army Nurse Corps during World War Two, after serving in the Red Cross Disaster Nursing Service. She talks about working in Minnesota, moving to California, and in April 1941, receiving a request to join the Nurse Corps, which she says was almost like being drafted. She describes life at Fort Ord, California, her duties, housing, racial discrimination, and how she spent social time. Spackman recalls almost being transferred to the Philippines just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, shipping out to England aboard a cramped troop ship in 1943 and eight months later transferring to a field hospital which followed the troops into France after D-Day. Spackman says that she joined a field hospital near the front in August 1944 and describes her twelve-hour surgery shifts, being evacuated from Luxembourg as the Battle of the Bulge raged, moving into Germany at Cologne and later witnessing the Russian-U.S. hook-up at the Elbe River. After the war, she says that she was assigned to the Fort Custer hospital in Michigan, was married, worked as a civilian nurse for 35 years and retired in 1982.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-06-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Doris Cobb talks about her life and family and her long service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Cobb discusses her childhood and education and graduating from nursing school in 1941. She says that she enlisted in the Army in 1944, took basic training in Indiana and was shipped over to Scotland April 1945, just as V-E day was announced. Cobb talks about her travels and assignments at various hospitals in England and on the continent in the post-war years and says that she finally decided to leave the military in May 1946 to go back to college. After earning a B.A. in 1950 and working as a civilian nurse, Cobb says that she decided to go back into the Army in February 1956 with the rank of captain. She talks about her various jobs and duty stations through the years, including stints in various places in the U.S., Okinawa, Japan, Thailand, and Heidelberg, Germany. In 1969, Cobb says that she was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and finally retired from the service in the fall of 1974.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired U.S. Army Captain Cecelia G. Mehlick recalls her service in the Army Nurse Corps beginning in World War Two. In this oral history interview, Mehlick describes being inducted into the Army in April 1944, basic training at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin and later being sent to Mayo General Hospital in Galesburg, IL to be trained a a nurse anesthetist. Mehlick talks about her duties at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina and Ft. Belvoir in Virginia before being sent to Texas to help set up a surgical center during Army training maneuvers. Mehlick says that she was finally sent to Europe to treat front-line casualties and at war's end, spent many hours also treating German civilians. After breaking her ankle in Germany, Mehlick says that she was shipped back to the U.S. and lists a number of later assignments she had both in the U.S. and Europe before retiring after 20 years of military service.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project