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- Description:
- Winifred Anne Jacobs Walker talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from February 1943 to October 1945. She discusses her Army training, shipping overseas to a base in Leominster in England, preparations for D-Day in the spring of 1944, treating invasion casualties, landing in Normandy at Utah Beach in July, and bivouacking near Carentan. Walker says her unit followed the advancing forces into Paris by train and later set up a tent hospital near Liege, Belgium. She remembers being on edge during the Battle of the Bulge and preparing to withdraw if necessary and the gory scene she witnessed when her base was hit by a German bomb which killed 25 soldiers. Walker says that she was sent home on a C-47 transport plane after the war, "hitch-hiked" across the U.S. by plane to see her fiance in Washington state and married him soon after her discharge from the Army.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a written memoir read by Marjorie Brown, Ruby Busch recalls her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Busch talks about where she served, her uniforms, her medical care, her housing, her duties in Europe, and her memories of D-Day, V-E Day, and counting American bombers as they returned to England from their missions. Busch says she has enjoyed her experiences in the WOSL and associating with women who had similar experiences.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-30T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Irene Petrie talks about her World War Two service (July 1942 to September 1945) as a mess sergeant in the U.S. Women's Army Corps. Petrie says that she was motivated by patriotism to enlist and talks about being trained to set up field kitchens, her various duty stations, military regulations, running a mess hall, experiencing discrimination based upon her gender, what it was like to date G.I.s, her U.S. and overseas housing, and the poor military diet. Petrie also talks about preparing food in Southampton, England for troops heading for Normandy on D-Day, talking to the young, nervous troops headed to France during the invasion, her mess team landing on Omaha Beach in early August 1944, later being quartered in the Grand Hotel in Paris, and setting up a field kitchen during the Battle of the Bulge. Petrie is interviewed by Neola Ann Spackman.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Rose Stornant talks about her service as a legal secretary in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Stornant recalls her training and her different U.S. assignments before being shipped to England in March 1944. She remembers being in Salisbury England watching the gliders and Airborne troop transports heading for Normandy on D-Day and says that she wasn't sent to France until November 1944. Stornant says that she was in Paris during the Battle of the Bulge at the end of 1944 and also talks about Christmas in Paris, the celebrations on V-E Day, Bastille Day, and V-J Day and finally earning enough points to be sent back to the States. She says that she worked in Chicago for a short time after the war, but finally returned to Lansing, MI to reclaim her old job. Stornant is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-07-11T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy McDonald says that she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps at the age of 36 because of the attack on Pearl Harbor and then goes on to discuss her war experiences in a wide-ranging oral history interview. She talks about her duty stations in France and Germany, sleeping four nurses to a tent, and her uniforms. McDonald says that wading ashore at the Normandy beach made an impression upon that she will never forget. McDonald also says that she did not use the G.I. Bill after war, that her war experiences and training did not help further her career and that she hated Army drilling and calisthenics because she joined "to be a nurse and not a soldier."
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Betty Thompson talks about her service in the U.S. Army during World War Two. Thompson recalls working in Chicago as a physical therapist before she enlisted in October 1943 and was sent to the 48th General Hospital in Memphis, TN. Thompson says she was first shipped overseas to Glasgow, Scotland and later to Stockbridge in England to help set up a hospital. She describes her quarters in Stockbridge, her rations, the weather, and how the nurses were treated. She also remembers the D-Day preparations that were going on around her, the conditions on the Normandy beaches when her unit finally arrived in August, how busy she was with casualties and the chaos of the Battle of the Bulge. Thompson says she returned to the States in October 1945, took a discharge at the end of 1945, was married, continued to work, and raised a family. Thompson also says that her time in the Army Nurse Corps was the highlight of her professional life. Thompson is interviewed by Lilah Ramsey.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project