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- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- Retired Army Colonel Erna H. "Tommy" Thompson (nee Schmidt) talks about her youth in Ada, Minnesota, her education and her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. After nursing school at St. Johns Hospital in St. Paul, MN and additional course work at the University of Chicago, and after receiving advice directly from Eleanor Roosevelt, Thompson enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. While her husband, who was also in the Army, was sent to Europe, Thompson says that in 1942 she was sent to Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Thompson talks about working at front line aid stations on Guam in the Mariana Islands, Enewetak Atoll, and Iwo Jima and says that she did not like being required to give transfusions from scarce blood supplies to Japanese casualties and was upset that her personal mail was censored. Thompson says she was discharged from the Army in December 1945, went back to active duty in 1948 and worked in hospitals at Fort Sam Houston and in Chicago and then in 1955, resigned from active duty and went into teaching. She says that in 1957 she went back into active duty and served in Hawaii, Fort Bragg, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Berlin and finally retired from the Army in September 1969. Thompson also talks about the tension between practicing nursing and teaching nursing and describes her retirement activities. Thompson is interviewed by Wilda Smith.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Mary J. Ford talks about her childhood and education in Indiana and serving in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. After basic training, Ford says that she was first sent to Casablanca in Morocco in September 1943 and after a month, to Naples, Italy. She says that in Naples, she served in a hospital located in a monastery which had been bombed by the Germans and that she struggled to adjust to life in Italy and treating wounded soldiers and describes her duties and working with nurses who were mainly from Detroit. Ford talks about the feelings she had after returning to the United States and why she chose to go volunteer for second tour of duty in Italy at the end of the war.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project