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- Description:
- Willie recounts his youth in Mississippi, his service in the U.S. Army in Korea, and being hired at Fisher in December 1954. He describes the jobs blacks were placed on, discrimination, and being denied an apprenticeship. He comments on millwright work, family, neighborhood, and retirement.
- Date Issued:
- 2006-01-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Former U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve (SPARS) radio technician Eleanor Jean Bechtel discusses her enlistment, the social environment in wartime America, her basic training in West Palm Beach, FL, and receiving electronics and radio instruction at the Ben Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia. She also talks about the base in Florida where she trained, seeing John Wayne and Robert Montgomery there filming a movie, and moving to post-war Japan to work as a civilian secretary.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-07-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Annis Dimmitt describes her service in the Women's Army Corps. Dimmitt says that she enlisted at age 21 in 1943, inspired by her brother's service at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack. Dimmitt also talks about her work at a 24-hour teletype station, being ordered to ride out a hurricane at her post because teletype operation was deemed a critical duty, meeting her future husband on base, getting married after the war, and working for VA hospitals in Buffalo, NY, Austin, TX, Fort Wayne and Marion, IN, and Bath, NY before retiring in 1982.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-08-19T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Marian Cyberski talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corp during World War Two and says that she was inspired to enlist after seeing the movie "The shores of Tripoli." Cyberski talks about being stationed at field hospitals in Rockhampton, Indooroopilly, and Brisbane, Australia, treating mostly malaria and battle fatigue patients, and originally shipping out to Australia on the luxury liner SS Lurline. She also talks about her daily life in Australia, vacationing in Sydney, leaving Australia on a ship which contained many Australian war brides and crying babies, arriving home in September 1945, and getting married in November to a man whom she had met as a patient.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-07-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Wickert talks about his childhood in Chicago, obtaining a Psychology degree from UCLA in 1933 and a graduate degree form the University of Chicago. He shares work experiences and comments on the Hawthorne experiments at Western Electric. Wickert served as a replacement-training officer during World War II and joined the Psychology Department at MSU in 1947. He joined the Management School in 1960 developing organizational psychology programs around the world in cooperation with the State Department, Peace Corp and MSU international outreach efforts.
- Date Issued:
- 2009-05-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Robert Brenner, former regional director for the Allied Industrial Workers (AIW) Region 7 in west Michigan, talks about his family and early life in Battle Creek, MI, playing professional baseball, enlisting in the Army Air Corps in August 1942 and serving in the Southwest Pacific. He also talks about his union organizing efforts, working his way up in leadership positions, and serving as a labor representative on several state boards and commissions including, the State Board of Canvassers and the Occupational Health and Safety Commission. Ends abruptly. Brenner is interviewed by Labor and Industrial Relations professor John Revitte.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-09-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Rachel Babcock recalls her service as a radio operator with the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during World War Two. Babcock talks about the transition to basic training from teaching in a country school in Ingham County, Michigan, serving on a blimp base in Georgia, the culture shock of color-segregated facilities in the south, hitchhiking to the beach on weekends, and how civilians would frequently pay for meals for service members. She also talks about her post-military life, enrolling at Michigan State University, teaching in Lansing, MI, and the role of women in the American military.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias discusses his experiences during World War II and his opinions on current world politics in an interview. Zacharias says that there is no imminent or inevitable war coming, in his opinion, and argues that if the communist revolution in China succeeds they will not be influenced by Russia. Zacharias also describes his role in softening Japanese attitudes towards surrender through psychological warfare by focusing on the Japanese Navy.
- Date Issued:
- 1949-03-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Elizabeth Crane Anesi talks about enlisting for officer training in the Women's U.S. Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942, establishing an embarkation point in San Francisco as her first major assignment, and how the WAAC was changed to the Women's Army Corps (WAC) within a year of her enlistment. Anesi also talks about being transferred to New York, visiting President Roosevelt's grave, establishing a rest and relaxation post at an unused dorm at Vassar College, and her last assignment which was conducting POW separation interviews in Indiana.
- Date Issued:
- 2002-03-11T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Clare Rounsevell Ellinwood talks about her service in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War One as a civilian secretary and says that she volunteered because her fiance had joined the French Army Ambulance Corp. She talks about working in a hospital in Philadelphia, being shipped to Brest, France on the USS Leviathan, traveling by train to the front, and finally being sent to a base near Vichy. She describes how the hospitals were set up, the constant shortage of food, and the utter devastation of the European battlefields. Ellinwood also recalls Armistice Day and the great celebration, and returning to the U.S. in 1919 to marry the man she had followed to France. Ellinwood says that in spite of the many hardships, her service overseas gave her a chance to do things she otherwise would not have gotten an opportunity to do. Ellinwood is interviewed by Margaret E. Duncan.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-05-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lillian Kivela talks about her service in the United States Army Nurse Corps during World War Two including, why she enlisted in June 1943, nurse's training, basic Army training, housing, uniforms, and her duties at the Schick General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa. She says that she was sent to New Jersey in preparation for being shipped to Europe and describes shipboard conditions and being seasick throughout the entire ten-day voyage. She talks about being housed in an unheated Welsh resort hotel, marching, walking a mile to the mess hall for meals, serving in the orthopedic ward at a hospital in Headington, a suburd of Oxford and experiencing an influx of patients following D-Day and the subsequent fighting, and the early use of penicillin to control infection. In her off-time, Kivela says that she often visited London for the theater, rode her bicycle around Oxford, became acquainted with British families and even met the Queen Mother and boxer Joe Louis when they visited the hospital. Back in the States, after the war, she says that she had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life and finally came to Michigan State College to finish her degree in microbiology. Kivela is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-01-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Alta May Andrews Sharp talks about her service in the American Red Cross and the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War One. Sharp says that she served in the Red Cross for two years at "Military Hospital No. 1" as chief nurse in ward 83, before finally volunteering for the Army. She talks about her basic training, learning to salute, the voyage to England in a convoy escorted by sub-chasers and battle ships, sleeping in her life jacket, and having lifeboat drills daily. She says that she was stationed in France and discusses her duties, her pay, her quarters, her gray chambray uniform with the "butchers apron," and being shelled by the huge German artillery gun known as "Big Bertha." Sharp says that the nurses were treated well but were prohibited from dating enlisted men and that the officers were only interested in French girls. When they learned of the Armistice she says that she and her friends traveled to Paris to celebrate "all day and night." Ends abruptly. Sharp is interviewed by Margaret E. Duncan.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-04-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Mary C. Burnham talks about serving as a dietitian in the U.S. Army Medical Specialist Corps during World War Two and later in occupied Japan and stateside military hospitals, over a twenty-year Army career. Burnham discusses her youth in Milwaukee, her college years, her early work life in Chicago, enlisting in the Army in 1942 soon after Pearl Harbor, training at a base in Texas, shipping out to the Pacific Theater, her initial posting to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands, and her life on the base and her duties as a dietitian. She says that she was later transferred to India and after serving in hospitals there, was sent back to the states via the Middle East and North Africa. During the Korean war, Burnham was again sent overseas and served as part of the U.S. Army of Occupation in Japan. She describes her three years of service in Japan, and says that she was very happy to finally be sent back to the states to serve in a series of military hospitals for the rest of her career. Burnham is interviewed by Jane Piatt.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Laura Lutes Waters talks about volunteering for the American Red Cross during World War I so that she could be near her brother who was a U.S. Marine serving in France. She says that it was very difficult to get into the Red Cross at the time and that it took her two tries before she was finally accepted. She discusses her Red Cross training, being shipped to Europe aboard a troop ship carrying African-American soldiers and laborers and being pressed into service as a nurse to assist the ship's doctor. After Waters ends her interview, Evelyn McHiggins discusses Waters' childhood, post-war life and career as a business woman. McHiggins says Waters was born in Minnesota and spent her childhood in Alaska during the Klondike gold rush and later in life became well known nationally as an innovative and respected travel agent. The recording is introduced by Vivian Peterson.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Patricia Accountius, talks about her nearly thirty years in the U.S. Army Meidcal Specialist Corps, including her service during the Vietnam War. Accountius says that she joined the Army in 1948 and became a dietician after completing an internship program. She discusses her stateside assignments, serving on Okinawa from 1956-1958, being stationed at Walter Reed Army hospital in 1958, earning a graduate degree and finally being sent to Vietnam in 1966 as a captain. She says she spent a great deal of time in Vietnam just trying to get food deliveries made on a regular basis, developing menus for hospitals and dealing with the lack of basic food items. After Vietnam, Accountius became Chief Dietician at Walter Reed Hospital for several years, was later assigned to the Pentagon and was finally sent back to Texas in the 1980s as part of the Panama Command. Accountius is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Kay Wellinger talks about her service in the American Red Cross in 1969 during the Vietnam War. Wellinger says that she graduated from college in 1966 with a degree in Russian and began working for the CIA right out of school. Looking for more excitement, she joined the Red Cross and was sent to Saigon for two weeks of "supplemental recreation activity overseas" training. She talks about living in fire bases and planning recreational activities for the First Division and later the First Air Cavalry, living under enemy fire in bunkers, being housed and fed right with the troops, receiving hazardous duty pay and constantly being afraid for her life. She says she left Vietnam in October 1969, resigned from the Red Cross and was married that November. Welllinger also says she never heard any complaints from the troops about serving while she was in Vietnam and that when she came home she never experienced any negative fallout from people involved in the antiwar movement. Wellinger is interviewed by Virginia E. Emrich.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-02-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- 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:
- 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 an in-depth oral history interview, retired Lieutenant Colonel Therese M. Slone-Baker talks about growing up in New York City, attending business school, taking a civil service job in Washington D.C., joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1944 and working as a secretary, special events coordinator and a recruiter until she leaving active military service in 1946 to join the reserves. Slone-Baker says she was recalled to active service in 1952 and became an officer and discusses the various assignments she had throughout her career, including being the commander of a WASP squadron. She says that she finally retired in 1972 with 25 years of military service and feels that even though she did not have a "dramatic" career she did contribute and did her best to uphold the high standards of the service. Slone-Baker is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lillian Malloy says that she joined the U.S. Army as soon as the enlistment office in Battle Creek, MI opened after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She says that she was first sent to Des Moines, Iowa for basic training and also received administrative and clerical training before being sent to Eglin Field in Florida as part of the first group of women earmarked for service in the U.S. Army Air Corps. She describes finally shipping to England aboard the Queen Elizabeth, her duties there and traveling around England and Ireland after V-E Day. Malloy also talks about her postwar European duty stations, describes the living conditions and remembers watching General Eisenhower run a staff meeting. She says she might have stayed in the service if she had not had to care for her sick mother.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-10-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Former U.S Air Force Major Ruth Rowntree talks about her eleven years of active duty, first in the Women's Army Air Corps and later the U.S. Air Force. Rowntree says that she left her job as a secretary to volunteer when World War II started, was inducted in October 1942, went to Officer Candidate School, and was later assigned to the all male Statistical Control Section. She says that she was in the first group to become regular Air Force officers and later became a Management Analysis officer, Wing Comptroller, and finally Assistant Division Comptroller until her discharge in 1953. She also talks about the Berlin airlift, about the complex record keeping duties she had while serving in Wiesbaden, Germany and finally leaving the service to be with her husband.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lucile Pauline Matignon Crane talks about her service as a surgical nurse in the U.S. Navy during World War One, between April 1917 and February 1919. Crane says that she graduated from nursing school in 1914 and first worked at Stanford Hospital in San Francisco and that she enlisted in the Navy for good pay, and a chance for more education and equal opportunity. She talks about shipping out to Scotland, working in a surgical unit in a hospital which was a former resort hotel, the types of injuries she treated and socializing with enlisted men because the doctors were off limits. She also says that she was one of the first nurses to be sent home as the war wound down, spent her leave in Paris and was shipped home from Brest with ten women and thousands of men. Crane talks about her career after leaving the Navy, marrying and settling in Modesto, CA and notes that she received no special recognition for her service until the state of California paid a veterans bonus. The interviewer is unidentified.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-12-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Matilda Papenhausen talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War One. Papenhausen explains why she volunteered for the Army and says that her unit was deployed to an American staffed British hospital in France in July 1917. She talks about the diseases, injuries and wounds she treated, her uniform, quarters, rations, and social activities. Papenhausen says she returned to the States shortly after the Armistice and worked in a Kansas hospital as an assistant superintendent of nurses, and later as a government hospital inspector in Iowa and South Dakota. Ends abruptly. Papenhausen is interviewed by Dorothy W. Early.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-08-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a speech to the Women's Overseas Service League's Orange County California unit, Mary E. Price talks about her more than thirty-years as a U.S. Navy nurse and her service in three wars. Price says that she started nursing school at the Georgetown University Hospital in 1933, joined the Naval Reserves in 1938 and was first sent to the Panama Canal Zone in early 1940. She talks about her pay and her hospital duties in the Canal Zone and the great anxiety everyone felt after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Price says that she was next assigned to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for thirteen months and later to a hospital ship for the rest of the war. After the war, Price says, she returned to school on the G.I. Bill, but was reactivated for duty in Japan and the Philippines for almost two years during the Korean War. She says that she went back to school after Korea, earned her graduate degree in hospital administration and taught Navy corpsman during the Vietnam War. Price says that her last assignment was at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California. Recorded by Mary Braumer. Vivian Peterson introduces and concludes the recording.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-09-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Edna Penny Rice talks about her twenty-four year military career, first in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and then its successors, the Women's Army Corps, and the Women in the Air Force. Rice says that she enlisted because she thought she "was as good" as her brother and her fiance and felt very patriotic. Rice says that she was inducted in July 1942 and worked in personnel and administration in every military theater of operation. She describes working and living conditions at her various posting, her uniforms and her leadership and administrative responsibilities. Rice says she was was pushed into becoming an officer and never planned on making the service a career. Rice is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Colonel Patricia Silvestre talks about her personal history and education and her career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps which included service in the Vietnam War. Silvestre says she was running short of money for nursing school when she discovered the Army Student Nurse Program and enlisted in 1956. She talks about finishing her classes, doing basic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and then driving to her first assignment at Fort Lewis in Washington. She says that her first overseas assignment was in Korea as head nurse on an orthopedic ward and she describes the living conditions, her clothing, the weather and her social life, and says that she believes that hospital staff was really able to help the Koreans. After Officer's Candidate School, Silvestre says that she was sent to Vietnam as a chief nurse and was stationed at a children's hospital near the DMZ where she dealt with a great variety of tropical diseases and war related wounds. Silvestre says that she ended her career at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver in 1984 after serving at various Army operations around the United States. She says that her experience in Vietnam changed the way she thinks of war because she witnessed its terrible consequences. Silvestre is interviewed by Ruth Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Date Issued:
- 1984-12-27T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Marion E. Marriman talks about her service with the YMCA in Europe during World War One from July 1918 to October 1919. Marriman describes preparations for shipping out including taking a year's supply of toilet paper and and says that she was not worried about German submarines during the voyage because her ship carried German and Swiss mail. She describes her uniform, her quarters in Paris, her duties running a canteen and preparing sandwiches and hot cocoa for soldiers. Marriman also talks about Armistice Day celebrations in Paris and says that she was sent with the occupation forces to Koblenz, Germany where she met her future husband, and that her duties included entertaining the troops and that she danced through 14 pairs of shoes. Marriman also says she had a difficult time re-adjusting to life back in the United States. Marriman is interviewed by Elizabeth Booker and Mary Myers.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a an oral history interview, Mary Duncan Clark talks about her twenty-eight year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She says that her friends persuaded her to enlist during World War II and that she began as a staff nurse, moved up through the ranks and ended her career as a chief nurse. She discusses her duty stations in the U.S. and overseas, including in Vietnam and describes base housing, her uniforms and her travels. She tells a humorous story of going through customs in an unfriendly country and putting her feminine hygiene products on top in her suit case so that it would not be searched. Clark also says she enjoyed working with an adoption board in Japan to find homes for the illegitimate children of American soldiers and that she decided right after D-Day to make the Army her career. Clark is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-26T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Mary Patricia Laughlin talks about her childhood and education and her service as an U.S. Air Force nurse from 1951 to 1954 and as an Army nurse from 1963 to 1980. Laughlin says she was raised in Omaha and went into nursing because she didn't want to be a "teacher or secretary." After graduating from nursing school in 1946, she says that she worked in Seattle and Denver and other locations around the Midwest, before finally joining the Air Force in 1951, during the Korean War. She left the Air Force in 1954 and after working in various hospitals, joined the U.S Army in 1963 and was sent to Korea. Laughlin describes life and work in Korea and says that she was next sent to Japan and later worked in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Fairbanks, Alaska and Monterey, CA, where she retired in February 1980. Laughlin is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a wide-ranging oral history interview, Margaret Canfield talks about her twenty-four year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and serving in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Canfield says that she graduated from nursing school in 1951 and enlisted in the Army that same year. She talks about her basic training in Texas, her first assignment in Colorado, being sent to Japan in 1953 and treating casualties coming in from Korean battlefields. After the Korean War, she says that she was stationed in Utah and Hawaii and again in Asia and was finally sent to Vietnam in February 1967. Canfield discusses her various duty stations in Vietnam, treating Vietnamese civilians and U.S. and Korean troops and says that after becoming Chief Nurse at the 18th Surgical Hospital in Pleiku, she extended her tour of duty for another year. In December 1967, she says that she was transferred to a hospital in the Mekong Delta in support the 9th Infantry Division and that the hospital was shelled and virtually destroyed during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Canfield says that she returned to the U.S. after twenty-one months in Vietnam and finally retired from the Army in August 1975. Canfield is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Laura Smith talks about her service as an Army nurse during the First World War. Smith says she graduated from nursing school in the spring of 1917, was inducted into the Army in February 1918 and was sent with her unit to Liverpool, England that same year. Smith says that she was later assigned to a mobile tent hospital near Chateau-Thierry and recalls the surgeries, the daily hospital routine, her quarters, wood stoves for heat, blackout conditions, and meals. Her unit, Smith says, moved with the troops to the Meuse-Argonne front and she describes the horrors of the battle, treating gas attack victims and the onslaught of the flu epidemic which killed so many. She remembers the feelings she had when the guns fell silent on November 11th and taking a cruise up the Rhine near Koblenz in March 1919, visiting Monaco, and the Alps and finally being sent back to the U.S. in early June 1919.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Rosalie Crosbie talks about joining the American Red Cross in 1945 and serving in post-war Europe. She discusses her duties on trains crossing Europe with children and war brides, assisting people reconnecting with family, the condition of European cities, the lack of food for civilians, the pervasiveness of the black market, running recreation clubs for U.S. servicemen, and entertaining U.S. troops in the fall of 1945 as they clamored to be back shipped home. Crosbie says that she met both General Eisenhower and the Duke of Windsor, attended the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, and was later faced with the task of adjusting to civilian life back in the States and the death of her mother. Crosbie is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-06-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- Erma Flitsch talks about her service as a nurse in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and the Cold War. Flitsch says that she grew up in Milwaukee, joined the Air Force after graduating from nursing school and first served at Bergstrom AFB at Austin, Texas and later at Clark AFB in the Philippines and in Tachikawa in Japan. In Korea, Flitsch says that she worked at MASH units to prepare wounded soldiers for air evacuation and talks about the food, her duties, patient care, flying with casualties, the weather in-country and what she did in her off-duty time. Flitsch also says that she later served in Pakistan, Germany and at other U.S. bases before retiring from the military in 1977. Flitsch is interviewed by Ruth Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-16T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Helen V. Kennard talks about her three years of service in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and its successor, the Women's Army Corps and says that she enlisted because she felt that it was her patriotic duty and that she wanted to travel and meet people. Kennard says that she was managing the parts department at Chevrolet dealership before she enlisted in September 1942, that her first duties were in the motor pool and that she became a typist so that she would be sent overseas. Kennard describes serving in New Guinea and the Philippines, sharing housing, and her uniforms and says that her biggest adjustment to military life was learning how to take orders. After the war, Kennard says that she used the G.I. Bill to get a business degree from the University of Denver and worked in accounting until her retirement. Kennard is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-02-13T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- 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:
- Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alice Pfeiffer talks about her youth in Illinois, her education and her career as an Air Force nurse and administrator. Pfeiffer says that she enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1941, talks about her first duty stations and says that after additional training at Fort Bragg, was sent to England aboard the Queen Mary. Pfeiffer says that she was assigned to the 68th General Hospital which was set up in a cow pasture, worked 12 hour shifts, and lived in very, very basic conditions. After D-Day, Pfeiffer says that she worked in a hospital in France, was finally sent back to the U.S. after the war and was discharged in 1946. She says that she enlisted in the Air Force in 1949, served at various bases and hospitals around the world and retired in 1964 while stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB. Ends abruptly. Pfeiffer is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Helen McPherson Reynolds talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. She says that after her induction in October 1942 and receiving training as an anesthesiologist, she joined the 232nd General Hospital unit and shipped overseas in February 1945. Reynolds says that she first landed in Saipan and was later sent to Iwo Jima to help prepare for the expected invasion of Japan. She says that she was one of the first ten nurses on Iwo Jima and describes the tent hospital in which she worked, the heat and the casualties she was treating from the battle on Okinawa. She says actor Tyrone Power piloted the plane which transported the nurses to Iwo Jima. Reynolds says that she was discharged from the Army in January 1946.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Estelle M. Davis explains why she enlisted as a Red Cross nurse during World War One and describes her experiences. She reminisces about being a public health nurse in Jersey City, her family's reaction to her enlistment, and being shipped across the Atlantic to Calais with 350 fellow nurses. Davis recounts the awful food and the terrible conditions under which staff had to perform surgery, while serving only 50 miles from the front at Verdun. She says that she met her future husband when treating him for a shrapnel wound at her aid station. Davis is interviewed by Lois Collet.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Agnes Elaine Osborn Myers talks about joining the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in September 1917 and serving in World War One. Myers says that she completed nurse's training at Philadelphia General Hospital, joined the Army immediately after the U.S. entered the war and was sent directly to a hospital without ever having basic training. Myers talks about her uniform, slogging through the mud in France, being cold all of the time, working in both hospitals and tents, being assigned to areas where major offensives were taking place, her duties treating injured and ill troops, and being busy every minute of every day. Myers says that she met her future husband, a captain in the 78th Division, in France and married him when they returned to the States. Myers is interviewed by Ruth Banonis.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-11-02T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Retired Air Force Colonel Eleanor M. Carey talks about her youth and education in Pennsylvania, her long U.S. Air Force career and her service in the Vietnam War. After graduating from the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, Cary says that she joined the Air Force on October 19, 1955. She says that after basic and advanced training, she was first stationed in Beirut, Lebanon and later volunteered for duty in Vietnam when that war heated up. Cary talks about treating Vietnamese civilians as part of the military's MEDCAP program, her living conditions at U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay and working as a flight nurse in air-evac and taking causalities to medical care directly from the battlefield. Carey says that as a capstone to her Vietnam service, she escorted future Senator John McCain when he was released from a North Vietnamese prison in 1973. She says that she retired from the Air Force in October 1979 and that she "loved every minute" of her career. Carey is interviewed by Ruth F. 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:
- Mildred Blandford talks about her service as a secretary in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Blandford, who served from August 1944 to November 1945, says that she joined the Red Cross for overseas adventure and spent most of her time stationed at the 194th General Hospital in Paris. She says that she was quartered in a Parisian hotel with maid service, but that service in the hospital was no picnic and meant leaving her secretarial duties often to help care for the onslaught of wounded soldiers. After VE Day, Blandford says that she volunteered for duty in the Pacific and was sent to Okinawa where she found herself living in a tent rather than luxury hotel. She talks about her daily tasks and again helping out with wounded G.I.s. and describes two typhoons that hit the island and how staff tried to protect the patients in the tent hospital from the storm. At war's end, Blandford says that she returned to Louisville to work, but later went back to Paris for school and to work for NATO. Blandford is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-10-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Virginia P. O'Rourke Immerman talks about her service in the Women's Army Air Corps in 1944, during World War Two. Immerman talks about growing up in Boston and enlisting in the WAACs when wartime life became boring, training at Fort Oglethorpe, being assigned to the Air Transport Command (ATC) at Love Field in Dallas, and finally being sent to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic which served as a stopover for aircraft flying between the U.S. and the Pacific Theater of Operations. She describes life on the island, the climate, the natives and their culture, and her duties in the Quartermaster Office. Immerman says that she was later sent to England and France with the ATC after VE-Day and describes being in Paris on VJ-Day, traveling the continent, skiing in Switzerland and finally shipping back to the States, being discharged in June 1946, using the G.I. Bill to get an undergraduate degree in 1950 and later working as a civilian in Europe. Immerman is interviewed by Virginia Emrich.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-03-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lee Gordhammer talks about her service in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and the Women's Army Corps (WAC) from 1942 to 1945. Gordhammer says she chose to work in motor transportation and became both an instructor and a skilled mechanic. She describes dodging "buzz-bombs" while in England, landing at Omaha Beach in July 1944, and ending the war in Paris. Gordhammer also discusses why she enlisted, her pre-war employment, military living conditions, uniforms, using the G.I. Bill to finish her education after the war, and finally working at the U.S. State Department.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Robert Brenner, former regional director for the Allied Industrial Workers (AIW) Region 7 in west Michigan, talks about his family and early life in Battle Creek, MI, playing professional baseball, enlisting in the Army Air Corps in August 1942 and serving in the Southwest Pacific. He also talks about his union organizing efforts, working his way up in leadership positions, and serving as a labor representative on several state boards and commissions including, the State Board of Canvassers and the Occupational Health and Safety Commission. Ends abruptly. Brenner is interviewed by Labor and Industrial Relations professor John Revitte.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-09-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias discusses his experiences during World War II and his opinions on current world politics in an interview. Zacharias says that there is no imminent or inevitable war coming, in his opinion, and argues that if the communist revolution in China succeeds they will not be influenced by Russia. Zacharias also describes his role in softening Japanese attitudes towards surrender through psychological warfare by focusing on the Japanese Navy.
- Date Issued:
- 1949-03-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Rachel Babcock recalls her service as a radio operator with the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during World War Two. Babcock talks about the transition to basic training from teaching in a country school in Ingham County, Michigan, serving on a blimp base in Georgia, the culture shock of color-segregated facilities in the south, hitchhiking to the beach on weekends, and how civilians would frequently pay for meals for service members. She also talks about her post-military life, enrolling at Michigan State University, teaching in Lansing, MI, and the role of women in the American military.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Marion Kern Kennedy talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Kennedy says that she did basic training and advanced military training between May 1942 and January 1943, was first sent to Bombay, India and later north to the Himalayas where her unit took over a muddy hospital cut from the jungle in Assam, India. She describes life in the camp, which was set up to support troops who were trying to open the Burma Road, the food, her quarters, the bugs, tropical diseases, her social life, and using slit trenches. Kennedy says that she was sent home in 1945 and was discharged from the military on new years day, 1946. In 1953, she says that she returned to the service and remained on active duty for the next 18 years. Kennedy is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Elaine Carlton (born Olive Milborne) talks about entering service in the U.S. Army in July 1944 while living with her family in Belfast, Northern Ireland, taking rifle training in Litchfield, England, and disembarking from a ship in rough seas at Omaha Beach in France. She says that she was later stationed in Cherbourg, France and describes enemy sniper fire there, the condition of the housing, her duties, and a shipboard explosion that rocked the Cherbourg harbor. Carlton says that she was assigned to General Eisenhower's headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany after the war, returned to the States in 1947, was married in May 1948 and discharged from the Army later that same year.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Harriet Wise talks about her service in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two and in Asia following the war. Wise discusses her postings at various military bases around the United States during the war and being one of the few women sent to the Army Exchange Service School at Princeton University. Following the war, Wise says that she accepted an assignment in Japan and talks about her time in Yokohama and Tokyo and later being sent to Seoul, South Korea to serve as an assistant PX officer. Wise is interviewed by Geneva Kebler Wiskemann and Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-20T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Kathleen Rheinlander O'Neal says that she decided to become an Army nurse while in high school, graduated from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing in 1970 and went straight into basic training as a staff nurse at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. She talks about her various duty stations and assignments and says that she resigned from active duty in 1975, joined the Army Reserves and worked at the 94th General Hospital unit in San Antonio, Texas. O'Neal describes her activities as a reserve officer and says that in January 1991 she was recalled to active duty for service in Operation Desert Storm, sent to a hospital in Germany and finally returned to the U.S. in April of that year and retired from the service shortly after. She says the military gave her a solid career, an extensive network of friends, and a good education. O'Neal 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
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Margaret Patricia Phillips talks about her thirty-two years of service in the United States Army Nurse Corps. Phillips says that she joined the Army for patriotic reasons in 1944 while working as a nurse in a Detroit hospital. She says that she served as "chief nurse" in military hospitals around the globe and vividly remembers her plane taking enemy fire as it was trying to take off from the Bien Hoa Air Force Base in South Vietnam. Phillips says the biggest adjustment she had to make to military life was the communal living and that she did not expect to make the Army a career when she enlisted. Phillips is interviews by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Katherine Wilson talks about her service in the American Red Cross in Europe during World War Two. Wilson says she joined the Red Cross right after Pearl Harbor, was sent to England in early 1943 aboard the Queen Elizabeth, helped to set up a hospital in a cow pasture and treated casualties coming from the North African campaign. She says that her Red Cross unit was later sent to Omaha Beach, thirteen days after D-Day, to set up another hospital about eight miles from the front. She talks about treating burned tank crewman, dispensing cigarettes, helping patients to write letters home, and coordinating social activities for the troops. She says that her hospital unit was next moved to Belgium where it received a deluge of casualties from the Battle of the Bulge and was forced to pull out in the face of German advances. She talks about celebrating V-E Day on a speeding troop train through Belgium and that she had a chance to site see in Germany before finally being sent back to the States. Wilson is interviewed by Dorothy Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-12-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Mary Myers talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from 1944 to 1950. Myers talks about her nurse's training, why she decided to enlist in the military, basic training and being sent overseas to Marseilles, France in November 1944 to help form the 236th General Hospital. Myers recalls being strafed by German planes in Paris, enjoying a Coca-Cola on Christmas day, her primitive quarters, bathing out of her helmet in cold weather, caring for Allied soldiers and German POWs, and the variety of wounds and diseases she treated. Myers says that officers and enlisted men and women shared the same mess hall and that she was always treated respectfully by U.S. troops and German POWs. Myers also talks about the end of the war in Europe and being shipped to the Pacific just in time for VJ-Day. After the war, she says that she stayed in the Army Reserves and used the G.I. Bill to earn an undergraduate degree and part of a graduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh. Myers is interviewed by Elizabeth Booker.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Sarah Penrose "Penny" Schemmel Edlin discusses her service with the 82nd General Hospital during World War Two. Edlin talks about her childhood, her education as a physical therapist, joining the Army as a commissioned officer in August 1943, her very rigorous basic training, and being shipped to England in February 1944. She also talks about the harsh living conditions in the hospital camps where she served including, the bad food, unsanitary conditions and rodent infestations, and shares a story about a planned German POW prison break near one of the camps and treating the German prisoners who claimed they couldn't speak English. After VE-Day, Edlin says that her unit moved to France to close down hospitals and later to a hospital in England to treat emaciated American POWs who were returning from the German prison camps. She says that romances between U.S. Army officers and nurses was quite common during the war and that she, in fact, married a man from her unit after she returned to the States. Edlin is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Ninety-three year-old Mary Agnes Rust Gruetzman talks about her service as an American Red Cross nurse in France during World War I. Gruetzman says that she, like many other young men and women, felt truly inspired to serve the cause and their country. Gruetzman discusses her nurse's training in Illinois, being sent overseas against the protests of her mother, the hospitals in which she worked, and her duties. She says that she was prohibited from keeping a diary while in France so she had the soldiers she treated write for her. Gruetzman's remarks are interspersed with interviewer Mae-Marie Irons's narration of Gruetzman's memories. Nelva Gillette also reads from Gruetzman's diary entries about being shipped to Brest, France, traveling to Paris, and her trip back to the States. The recording ends with songs from World War One including "Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning" sung by Arthur Fields and a medley sung by Jeffery O'Hara.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Sophie Steffer discusses her twenty year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps, focusing primarily on her service in World War Two. Steffer says that her civilian job was considered "essential" to the war effort and that she was denied enlistment for two years because of it. She says that she was first sent overseas to India near the end of the war and then later to the Philippines, Germany and Japan with the occupation forces. Steffer talks about living in thatched huts in India, Quonset huts in the Philippines, and apartments in Germany and Japan and describes processing soldiers and civilians who had been Japanese prisoners, while she was in Calcutta. She says that her biggest adjustment to military life was learning to salute and accepting the separation of enlisted personnel and officers. Steffer is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-07T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Transcript of interview of Marian Sievert Mosher conducted by Vivian Peterson. In the interview, Mosher describes her time as a nurse during World War II at the 165th Station Hospital in Hawaii and the Philippines. In addition to the general details about living conditions and daily life as a nurse, she particularly details the training she conducted for servicemen who would be out on the front and the American prisoners of war she worked with in the Philippines. Mosher also discusses her time after the war when she traveled to Vietnam, India, Egypt, and Jordan to advise on teaching and teach nursing to locals in those areas.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- First Lieutenant Merriann E. McBride McKillip, in a presentation at the Glendale Federal Savings and Loan in Laguna Hills, CA, discusses her service in the U.S. Army Reserve Ordnance Corp and her deployment for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. McKillip talks about graduating from ROTC in 1986, the job of the Ordinance Corps to deploy transportation and field service units and being sent to Korea, Honduras, and Japan on training exercises. She also talks about the role of women in the service, women in command positions, gender discrimination in the military, and adapting to everyday life in Saudi Arabia. McKillip answers questions from the audience about sexual assault in the military, female soldiers who are pregnant at the time of deployment, how military families deal with childcare during mobilization, and the growing number of women in the military. Ends abruptly. The recording is introduced by Vivian Peterson.
- Date Issued:
- 1991-11-05T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Patricia Young Berri talks about returning to the United States in March 1945 near the end of her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two. She talks about working in Houston as a civilian, being approached to rejoin the Red Cross and what the Women's Overseas Service League has meant to her. Berri is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-05-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Edna Miller talks about her work as a teacher in the city of Baguio, Philippines beginning in August 1941 and being interned as a prisoner of war in a camp in the mountains outside of Manila after the Japanese invasion. Miller discusses the conditions in the camp, the prisoner's diet, holding makeshift church services, the behavior of the Japanese guards and her fellow prisoners. After the camp was liberated in 1944, Miller says that she decided to stay in the Philippines and joined the American Red Cross and then after the war ended, took a job with the U.S. Army teaching soldiers until 1947 when she left Manila for the states. Miller, who later taught in Army schools in occupied Japan, says that she has no regrets about her overseas experiences, despite the hardships and that her greatest thrill was meeting General Douglas MacArthur when her POW camp was liberated. Miller is interviewed by Evelyn McHiggins.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-06-30T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Mary Hall talks about her service as an Air Force officer from 1951 to 1956. Hall says that she enlisted in the Air Force as a Second Lieutenant in November 1951 and discusses her duties in the U.S., being sent to Japan in May 1953 as supply officer, and later to Eglin AFB in Florida with the same assignment. She says that while attending Squadron Officers School in Montgomery, AL, as one of five women in a class of 500 men, she met her husband, married him right after the course finished and left the Air Force in 1956 to start a family. After the Air Force, in addition to raising her family, Hall says that she attend graduate school, did volunteer work, sold real estate and after her husband died in 1991, moved to the Air Force Village in San Antonio and married again. Hall 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
- Description:
- Elizabeth "Betty" Hulings Booker discusses her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Booker, who served with the 19th Field Hospital in the Persian Gulf, recalls her childhood and education at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing prior to enlistment and then shipping out by way of the Mediterranean Sea to a field hospital in Iran. Iran, she says was part of the route used to ship much needed supplies to Russia for use on the Eastern Front. She also talks about the excitement of mail call, the twelve hour shifts she worked caring for injured American and foreign troops, her feelings about army pay and food and feeling threatened by the excessive amount of attention she received as a woman during a rest and recreation trip to the Holy Land and the Caspian Sea. After the war, Booker says that she married and raised a family, used the G.I. Bill to earn a Master Degree and later taught Nursing at the University of Pittsburgh. Booker is interviewed by Mary Meyers.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-09-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Martha Baker talks about her twenty-year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and says that she began as a general duty nurse but spent most of her time as a surgical nurse before moving to central supply and supervision. She recalls her overseas and U.S. assignments, including serving in Okinawa and Vietnam and says that the housing overseas was better than in the States and that she was "disappointed" by the unattractive uniforms she had to wear. Baker also says she had to make few adjustments to military life and found it to be incredibly exciting. She describes her post-retirement jobs, including teaching ROTC for the past eleven years. Baker is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy Haughton talks about joining the American Red Cross as a secretary in 1943 and in 1948 beginning a twenty year career as a physical therapist in the U.S. Army. She says she became intrigued with physical therapy while working for the Red Cross in a hospital unit and decided to get training and pursue an Army career. She discusses her duty stations, her travels, housing conditions, the Korean conflict, and her uniforms and says that adjusting to military life was easy for her. Haughton is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Betty Leiby discusses her experiences during and after World War II while serving in the Red Cross and working as a civilian recruiter for the U.S. Army. Leiby talks about working as a secretary in Detroit before joining the American Red Cross when she was 23 and being sent to Hanley, England to serve in a Red Cross Club. She says that she was transferred to Furth, Germany at the end of the War and eventually left the Red Cross to recruit civilians to work for the U.S. Army's 53rd Quartermaster Company which was stationed there. She talks about her travels around Europe, including many trips to Ireland and Wales and discusses at length the general conduct of American soldiers while serving abroad. Leiby is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-11-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Hildegarde Abbott talks about her service as a "Hello Girl" telephone operator in the U.S. Signal Corps during World War One. Abbott reminisces about her training, other women in the Corps, her duties, life in France, socializing with soldiers, making candy, writing letters for the wounded in the military hospital, dating officers, having the flu during the epidemic and doing things the nurses didn't have time to do, all in addition to her telephone duties. She says that she got her sixty-dollar-a-month job because the Army needed French speaking women to use the duel French/American telephone systems and to serve as interpreters. She recalls knowing in advance when the Armistice would be signed but not being able to talk about it and then celebrating when the war was finally over. After the war, Abbott says that she served with the Peace Commission overseas and finally returned to the U.S. in 1920. At home she married, finished college, started a family and she says visited France later in life when her son was teaching there. Abbott is interviewed by Jane Piatt and Mary C. Burnham.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Florence Failing Kenny discusses her service in the British Volunteer Army Division during World War I. Kenny says that she found out about the VAD through newspaper stories in Syracuse, NY where she was attending college and decided to join up and go overseas. Kenny talks about taking convalescing soldiers to have tea with the royal family, meeting Princess Alice, the differences between the English socialites who were in the VAD and the Americans and says that all VAD uniforms were tailor-made because the English socialites wouldn't accept generic sizing for their uniforms. She also remembers being reprimanded by a colleague's parents for taking the English girls to a cocktail bar in London and ending up in a rest home after the war because she had lost so much weight. Kenny is interviewed by Genevieve Hill Cadmus and Thelma Norris.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Margaret Kaminski Bliss talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corp from August 1941 through July 1946. Bliss says she trained as a civilian at St. Lukes School of Nursing in Idaho, that her first military assignment was at Fort Lewis in Washington and that she was later sent overseas to war-time New Guinea and Manila. She talks about the insects, snakes and other poisonous creatures in New Guinea, her quarters, her uniforms, the torrential rain storms, tropical diseases, the forbidding jungle, seeing Japanese submarines, being escorted to the latrine by an armed guard, seeing USO shows, the rations and having the chocolates sent from home melt immediately in the equatorial heat. Bliss also confides that she was secretly married in 1943 but that her husband was soon killed overseas and that she was married again after the war. Bliss is interviewed by Neola Ann Spackman.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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 United States Army Major Elsie Smith talks about her career in the Nurse Corps and serving in two wars. Smith says that she was in the Army Reserves for two years before moving to active duty in December 1950 for service in Japan and Korea during the Korean War. She says that she was later sent back to Korea during the Vietnam War, but suffered a heart attack in 1966 and was discharged. She talks about her pay, her uniforms, her duty stations, and her awards, medals and campaign ribbons. She also says that she joined the WOSL in 1980 and currently is a Unit President.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Patricia Young Berri talks about her service in the American Red Cross during World War Two from February 1944 to March 1945. Berri says she was working as a secretary for Shell Oil in Houston and doing USO work when she volunteered and was first assigned to the 117th Station Hospital in Leyte in the Philippines to coordinate patient recreation. She was next sent to a Naval base on Palawan and later Samar to await transport back to the United States. Berri talks about the ARC uniforms, the train ride to San Francisco and landing in Leyte and says that she didn't mind the cold showers or the tent life there, but had a difficult time adjusting to the Filipino unisex latrines. Berri is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-04-04T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Major Clara Christine "Chris" Johnson talks about her life and education in Jackson, Mississippi and Chicago, Illinois and her service in the U.S. Air Force. Johnson says that the Air Force was one of the few employers to provide opportunities for young African-American women after she left school and that she enlisted in 1950 and was sent to San Antonio for training. She talks about her duty as a "float designer" in the Special Services Unit at the San Antonio Air Force Base and says that she later was accepted to Officer Candidate School and graduated in 1954. As an officer, she says that she served in Cheyenne, Wyoming and in Great Britain and then went through officer's flight training in 1963 in Amarillo, Texas and then worked with the Ground Electronic Engineering Installation Agency, where she managed the United States' ground radio and airborne radar communications throughout the country and abroad. Johnson says that she later served in Vietnam and describes her service there and says that she returned to the U.S. in June 1969 and retired from the Air Force in 1970. After her military career, Johnson says that she became a college professor and lobbyist for human rights. Ruth F. Stewart interviews Johnson.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- Retired Major Harriet Jayne talks about her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, before, during and after World War II. After receiving her nurse's training at Marquette University, Jayne says that she enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Custer in Michigan for training in February 1941, was shipped out with the 52nd Evac Hospital to New Caledonia in September 1942 and to the New Hebrides with the 48th Station Hospital in January 1943. She talks about the mosquitoes, and hot days and cold nights in the South Pacific, having malaria and later being sent to New Zealand to recover from a broken foot. Jayne says that she rejoined her unit on Guadalcanal in June 1944, moved north with the fighting to Tinian Island in January 1945 and was on Tinian when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. She says that she returned to the States in October 1945 and recalls her many duty stations after the war and finally ending her career in February 1961 while serving at Fort Bragg. Jayne is interviewed by Betty C. Taylor Thompson.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Eleanor Carey talks about her service as a career U.S. Air Force nurse beginning in 1955. Carey says that after her basic training she was sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and later was stationed in Greece. She lists other stateside assignments, says that she earned a bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, become a recruiter in New Haven, CT, performed Air Force public relations work and finally did a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. She describes her base, her quarters, and her duties in Vietnam and remembers President Johnson making a surprise visit to personally hand out medals to the patients in her hospital. After Vietnam, Carey says that she was stationed at various places, including Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio and Norton Air Force Base in California. Carey says her experience in Vietnam changed her attitude about war and that she even joined a veterans anti-war organization. Carey is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Marion Steinhilber talks about her 27 year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, including her service overseas in World War II. Steinhiber says that she went on active duty in April 1944 and was sent to Atlantic City for basic training and that her first duty station was at Halloran General Hospital on Staten Island. Steinhilber says that she first thought that she would be stationed in Europe, but soon found herself bound for India, by way of Newfoundland, Casablanca, Cairo, and Abadan Island. After landing in Calcutta, she says that she joined the 142nd General Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan and then later the 20th General Hospital in Ledo, India. She talks about life in Ledo, including surviving monsoons, her quarters, the food, the pests, the quality of life for nurses and treating American and Chinese troops. Steinhilber says she returned to the States soon after V-J Day and was "separated" from the Army in May 1946, but was never "discharged". Steinhilber also says that she later found out that she was considered to be on "inactive reserve" and was called up for active duty in 1951 as the Korean War heated up. Steinhilber is interviewed by Ruth Stewart assisted by Carol Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Victoria O'Hearn talks about her experiences as nurse in France during World War One. She recalls being asked to translate evacuation notices sent to French citizens just prior to the bombing of their village, being stationed in a Paris hospital and having to chastise Marshall Petain for not closing a hospital door, being lost in the dark during a blackout while trying to help a little French girl shop for a gift, and treating an Italian laborer who trusted her with his life savings to send back to his wife. O'Hearns says that the morale and fighting spirit of French civilians in war time was amazing and that she herself found her work rewarding even in the face of long hours and difficult conditions. Ends abruptly.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a poignant oral history interview, American Red Cross worker Ruth Wysor talks about her adventures while serving in the Philippines during World War II and in American occupied Japan after the war, including being held prisoner in a Japanese prison camp and adopting and raising a war orphan. Returning to the Philippines with General Douglas MacArthur and the American Army, Wysor says that she was separated from U.S. forces, driven into the countryside and wounded and captured by the Japanese. She describes being held in the infamous Santo Tomas Internment Camp, subsisting on a diet of rice alone and receiving no medical attention. The camp was finally liberated after three months and she says that her untreated knee wound continues to trouble her forty years later. After the war, Wysor says that she was sent to Kamakura to help set up the first Red Cross club in Japan and that her unit befriended a group of destitute missionary sisters who lived nearby and gave them food, supplies and medical care. Wysor says that the nuns also cared for orphans and that she became godmother to a little girl, cared for her when she became ill and finally applied to adopt her. With the help of General MacArthur himself, Wysor says that she was finally able to return to the United States with her new daughter and became the first single woman in the state of Ohio to be allowed to legally adopt a child. Wysor says that her adopted daughter thrived in the U.S. and has gone on to be a successful adult. Recorded at the AOA Convention held in San Antonio, TX. Wysor is interviewed by Alf Thompson and Betty Thompson.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Lieutenant Colonel Jean Schiffman talks about her career in the Army Nurse Corp beginning in 1949 and her service in a MASH unit during the Korean War. Schiffman says she grew up in Philadelphia, worked as an RN before enlisting in the Army and took basic training at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, and advanced training at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. In Korea, Schiffman says that she served with the 8063 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and talks about "in-country" living conditions, her duties and the advance medical procedures hospital staff were able to perform under very primitive conditons. After her one year tour of duty in Korea, she says that she decided to stay in the Army and was stationed at bases and hospitals in the U.S., Germany and Japan and that she finally retired in 1970 while serving at Fort Benning in Georgia. Schiffman is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Betty Van Kirk discusses her eleven months of service in the American Red Cross in the Pacific Theater during World War II. She talks about her training at American University, shipping overseas to New Guinea, how women were treated, dating, the climate, dispensing cigarettes, toothpaste and other personal items to soldiers in the hospital wards where she worked, sleeping under mosquito netting, being "sacred to death" of malaria, and meeting former American POWs and seeing their deplorable condition. Van Kirk says that she now finds it hard to remember the faces of the people she served with so long ago. Ends abruptly.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-04-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Transcript of interview of Frances Huckins. In this transcript, she describes her early life, but most of the transcript is about her life during WWI in New York at Camp Mills as a hostess. She details her daily life at the camp. Of particular interest are her recollections of her experience with the 1918 flu epidemic and watching the men practice bayonet drills. She also details her travels around the world, including her six month job as a hostess at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii after World War I. After Hawaii, Mrs. Huckins returned to the U.S. and was hired at a tuberculosis hospital in Oteen, North Carolina. The interview concludes with her explaining her affiliation with the Women Overseas Service League.
- Date Issued:
- 1980-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Irene Cully discusses her twenty-two year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps. Cully says that she was working as a nurse in a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska when she joined the Army in August 1939 and that one of her primary reasons for enlisting was the great benefits the service offered. Cully says that she worked as a nurse anesthetist at many different Army medical facilities before being sent overseas when the World War II started. She recalls being scared to death shortly after D-Day while "passing gas" in a surgical tent in France while being strafed by German fighter planes. She says that she adjusted easily to military life and decided to make the Army a career after the war. Cully is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-04T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Colonel Crescentia "Cris" Wellman relfects on her childhood, education and her long career as a U.S. Air Force flight nurse. After growing up in rural Iowa and earning her nursing degree at St. Francis Nursing School in Peoria, IL, Wellman says that she enlisted as an Air Force nurse in May of 1953 and was first assigned to Eielson AFB in Alaska. She goes on to discuss her work at various duty stations throughout her career, including stints in California, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida, Illinois, Texas, England, Germany and Okinawa. She describes the duties of a flight nurse and treating burn victims on Air-Evac runs. She also talks about working with Vietnam battlefield casualties and G.I. drug addicts while based on Okinawa. She says she finally retired from the Air Force on July 1, 1981. Wellman is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-04-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired U.S. Army Colonel Helen P. Onyett, the first Chinese American woman ever promoted to Colonel in the United States Army, talks about her youth and education in Connecticut and her service in the Army Nurse Corps during World War II. Oynett says she was encouraged by her teachers to become a nurse and talks about her training at the Waterbury Hospital School of Nursing and her later decision to join the Army. Onyett also talks about serving in a tent hospital in North Africa, caring for the wounded, using commandeered German wool blankets to keep warm, living on Army rations, and working long and brutal shifts. After leaving the Army at end of the war, Onyett says that she later joined the reserves and finally retired from the Army in 1978. Onyett is interviewed by Ruth Stewart F.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-04-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Jane Piatt, chair of the Women's Overseas Service League's National Oral History Project, talks about her service in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two and in the Korean War. Piatt speaks at length about her time as a mess hall chief at Fort Des Moines and her time working with both Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, the first director of the Women's Army Corps and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams, the first African-American woman to become a commissioned officer in the WACs. Piatt also talks about her jobs as an air inspector and the head of an officer's club in the United States near the end of the war and leaving active duty in 1947, only to be recalled during the Korean conflict. During the Korean War, she says that she served in England at both Burtonwood Air Force Base as an air inspector and at Brize Norton Air Force Base as an administrative assistant. Piatt is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Gertrude Neff Gay talks about completing nurse's training at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, KY, joining the American Red Cross, and after completing certification requirements, joining the Army Nurse Corps in May 1944. Gay says she was eager to get overseas and signed up to be shipped out immediately after basic training. Gay talks about being sent to Omaha Beach in Normandy with the 196th General Hospital, describes setting up a field hospital near Carentan, France, enduring harsh living conditions there, her food rations, her daily routine, and the camaraderie in her unit. Gay says that the hospital cared for German POWS and French citizens right along with U.S. soldiers, and comments on how much help they received from the Army chaplains. She also talks about the rush of casualties after the Battle of the Bulge, fraternization with offices, taking leave in Paris, feeling that she wanted to get on with her life after the war ended and using the G.I. Bill back home to return to school. Ends abruptly. Gay is interviewed by Virginia Emrick.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-02-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project