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- 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:
- 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:
- 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
5. Interview of Ellen Marie Johnson on her service with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in France during WWI
- Date Issued:
- 1984-12-27T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- 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:
- 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 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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
19. Interview of retired Colonel Helen P. Onyett on her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during WWII
- 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:
- 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
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Mary Ruth Pullig talks about growing up in Arkansas and Louisiana, her education and her long career as a U.S. Army nurse. After nursing school and working at various hospitals in the south, Pullig says that she joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1943, did her basic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and was first assigned to Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver. She also talks about other Stateside assignments and says that she was finally sent overseas to New Guinea and and then to the Philippines and describes the living conditions at both posts, the poor diet, working under enemy fire, some of the patients she treated and nursing civilians suffering from collateral damage wounds. After the war, Pullig says that she was stationed in occupied Germany for a time and finally came back to the States and earned bachelors and masters degrees. She says she is thankful for being given the opportunity to travel and see the world and that the young men who fought were good men overall and that she enjoyed her experience with them and helping people as a nurse. Ruth Stewart interviews Pullig.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Barbara Fravenholtz talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Fravenholtz describes her decision to enlist on Armistice Day in 1942 and discusses why she enlisted alone rather than with other graduates from the St. Francis General Hospital nursing program. Fravenholtz recounts her experiences as a nurse in the 95th Evacuation Hospital which was attached to the 5th Army and later to the 7th Army, as it followed the front lines in Tunisia, Sicily, Cassino, Salerno, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg. She talks fondly about her dog Eric, a gift from an enlisted man in Africa, and says that the dog traveled with her throughout the war and came back to the states with her when she was discharged. She also vividly recounts seeing Mount Vesuvius threatening to erupt while she was on leave. Fravenholtz is interviewed by Amelia Bunder.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-02-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Ninety year old U.S. Army and Air Force veteran Mary Templeton Gates talks about her childhood, education and service career. Gates says that her decision to go into nursing was the result of her family's long history in medicine and that after graduating from nursing school in 1938, she worked in Georgia and New York City before deciding to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps to become a flight nurse. Gates says that she turned down a teaching position to become chief nurse in a squadron sent to the Pacific during the war and describes her career in the Army through service in hospitals in Guam, Hawaii and Bermuda. After the war, Gates says that she left the Army, but later enlisted for duty in the Air Force at the start of the Korean War. She says that she became a Lieutenant Colonel around 1960 and finally retired shortly after. Templeton is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-04-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Lieutenant Colonel Bernice R. Couzynse (Ret.) talks about her long military career and serving on four continents as a United States Army nurse. Couzynse says she completed nursing school in the fall of 1942 and by March 1943 had enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. She tells of deploying to North Africa with a hospital unit, being under attack by German aircraft, moving up to Naples after the invasion of Italy, setting up a hospital at an agricultural college, moving with the troops as they advanced, being near the front lines and treating extreme battlefield injuries. At the end of the war in Europe, Couzynse says that she did not have enough points to rotate home and was slated to be sent to Japan as part of the U.S. invasion forces. Ironically, she says that she did later serve in Japan during the Korean Conflict. Couzynse recalls her duty in Germany in the early 1960s, the Berlin Wall crisis when all leaves were cancelled, and finally finishing her career as head nurse at William Beaumont Hospital in El Paso, TX in April 1971. She credits the Army with giving her a chance to have an interesting career, to travel, and to make many friends. Couzynse is interviewed by Doris J. Triick.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-03-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Retired Lieutenant Colonel Madeline M. Ullom talks about her 28 year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps, including her service in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II and being held as a POW by the Japanese. Ullom says she was based in Manila when the Japanese attacked in 1942 and was one of the last to be evacuated to the U.S. fortress on Corregidor. She talks about treating wounded in the fortress's tunnels as the Japanese attacked, the eventual U.S. surrender and becoming a POW. Ullom talks about life in an internment camp, being imprisoned with civilian women and children from almost every Allied nation, the poor rations, and roll calls even in the middle of the night. Ullom says that more and more prisoners became sick and fatalities from malnutrition increased dramatically before her camp was finally liberated by the U. S. First Cavalry in 1944. She also talks about her post war assignments, becoming an advisor to the Veterans Administration, her activities in retirement and finally traveling back to the Philippines. Ullom is interviewed by Margaret E. Duncan.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-05-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, retired Army Colonel Lois A. Johns talks about her education, her career in the Army Nurse Corp and her service in the Vietnam War. Johns talks about growing up in Cleveland, earning her nursing degree in 1948, a second bachelor's degree in 1950 and later two master's degrees and finally, in 1967, a doctorate. In 1950, she says that she also joined the Army Reserve and that her active duty began in 1960 when she was promoted to Captain. She describes a number of her duty stations, going back into the reserves while working and going to school and then going back on active duty as a Major for duty in Vietnam. She says that she arrived in Saigon late at night, was assigned to the "renal ward" at the 629th Medical Detachment of the 3rd Field Hospital and describes her quarters, her duties, her patients, the local cuisine and culture and says that she was awarded a Bronze Star when she left Vietnam and was assigned to the Institute for Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston. She goes on to discuss her various duty stations after Vietnam, both stateside and abroad and says that she finally retired from the Army in 1980. Johns praises her many coworkers throughout the years, but says that women often had problems dealing with their male counterparts and that sexual harassment did exist in the service. Johns is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Devere Powell talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. She says she enlisted in April 1943, received her flight nurse's training at Bowman Field in Kentucky, was shipped to Hollandia, New Guinea in April 1945 and then to Manila and finally to Leyte where she joined the 801st Air Evac Squad. She discusses her job of escorting casualties from the Philippine Islands and Okinawa to hospitals in Manila and tells a poignant story of giving her flight wings to a wounded former American POW as a souvenir. Powell says she was discharged from the Army as a First Lieutenant in December 1945. Interviewer Betty Thompson also discusses Powell's nursing career and her volunteer work in retirement.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-10-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Rita Geis talks about her thirty year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps beginning just before the U.S. entry into World War Two and continuing through the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Geis recalls deploying with the 106th General Hospital to Japan in 1965 to treat casualties coming in from the battlefields in Vietnam. She says that the hospital was full of injured U.S. soldiers during the brutal Tet Offensive of 1968. Geis also talks about some of her retirement activities including being Commander of Women's Metropolitan Post 206 in Denver, the only women's post in Colorado, as well as being active in the Women's Overseas Service League. Geis is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-06-17T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Neola Ann Spackman reminisces about her family, her decision to go into nursing, and what motivated her to join the Army Nurse Corps during World War Two, after serving in the Red Cross Disaster Nursing Service. She talks about working in Minnesota, moving to California, and in April 1941, receiving a request to join the Nurse Corps, which she says was almost like being drafted. She describes life at Fort Ord, California, her duties, housing, racial discrimination, and how she spent social time. Spackman recalls almost being transferred to the Philippines just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, shipping out to England aboard a cramped troop ship in 1943 and eight months later transferring to a field hospital which followed the troops into France after D-Day. Spackman says that she joined a field hospital near the front in August 1944 and describes her twelve-hour surgery shifts, being evacuated from Luxembourg as the Battle of the Bulge raged, moving into Germany at Cologne and later witnessing the Russian-U.S. hook-up at the Elbe River. After the war, she says that she was assigned to the Fort Custer hospital in Michigan, was married, worked as a civilian nurse for 35 years and retired in 1982.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-06-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anne Noreen Bauer talks about her twenty-eight year career as an United States Army nurse. Bauer talks about enlisting in August 1942 at the age of twenty-seven, her training, early assignments at Fort Benjamin Harrison where she became head nurse and finally shipping out to Bombay, India on her way to Karachi with the 159th Station Hospital. Bauer remembers the voyage to India, having dinner with Britain's Lord Louis Mountbatten, working with British nurses, staff and civilians, taking over a convent to use as a hospital, and the many the diseases and injuries she treated. She also discusses her many post-war assignments which took her around the world and especially her efforts to establish hospitals in Vietnam and provide the local population with medical assistance. Bauer is interviewed by Jane Fore.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-06-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
31. Interview of retired Colonel Edythe Jean Hathaway on her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Edythe Jean Hathaway talks about her long career in the Army Nurse Corps, including service in World War II, occupied Japan and in the Korean War. Hathaway says that she grew up in Joplin, Missouri, graduated from nursing school in 1944, enlisted in Army in February 1945 and later volunteered for overseas duty. She says that she was shipped to the Philippines in August 1945, just as the war was ending and was soon sent to Japan to help set up a hospital where American and Allied POWS were treated and prepared for shipment back home and later worked at a hospital in Kyoto where she treated victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. Hathaway was shipped back to the States in 1946 and after marrying and divorcing, says that she volunteered for duty in Korea in 1950 and worked at a hospital in Pusan and at the 64th Field Hospital which was located on a prison island. Hathaway describes her many duty stations after Korea, in both the U.S. and abroad. She also discusses her retirement activities. Hathaway is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Eighty-four year old retired Army Colonel Esther Jane McNeil discusses her long career in the U.S. Army. McNeil says that she grew up in rural Pennsylvania, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in 1940, enlisted in the Nurse Corps in 1943 and was first stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona. She says that despite some health problems, she was finally sent overseas to India and was made head of the operating room at the 20th General Hospital in Ledo, India. McNeil was on leave in Darjeeling when she received orders to prepare for the invasion of Japan, but says that the war ended before her unit had even made it to the Philippines. After the war, McNeil says that she joined the Army Reserves and then went back to active duty during the Korean War. She also discusses the various positions she held until her retirement in 1971. McNeil is interviewed by Doris Cobb.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z
- 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
- Description:
- Retired United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jeannette Marshall talks about her twenty years of military service. Marshall says she was born in Sheridan, Wyoming, educated in California, and received her nurse's training at St. Vincent's Hospital in Los Angeles. Marshall says that a failed marriage prompted her to enlist in the Air Force in September 1952 and after her training, was sent to Japan as a flight nurse to help in the evacuation of wounded from battlefields in Korea. Marshall says that in 1955 her flight crew was part of the effort to evacuate French casualties from Vietnam to the Philippines and that 104 wounded soldiers, mostly amputees, were transported in one flight. She says that she was later stationed in Germany and England and at various U.S. bases and eventually retired in San Antonio in 1972. Marshall is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-16T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Helen B. Schwarz says that she was motivated by patriotism to join the U.S. Army Nurse Corps an discusses her service during World War I in this oral history interview. Schwarz says that she was first sent to Fort Gordon in Georgia for training and later shipped to France to work in a hospital that was called "Base 114". Schwarz recalls her pay, her nursing duties, living in tents and barracks, her uniform, working twelve hour shifts and going AWOL with another girl to visit Paris. Schwarz says that obeying curfew was her biggest challenge in the military and that she enjoyed "every minute of her time in the Army. Schwarz is interviewed by Betty Thompson.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-19T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lola Olsmith talks about choosing to become a nurse, attending nursing school in Little Rock, Arkansas, joining the Army in 1967 and volunteering for duty in Vietnam. She says that after her basic training in San Antonio, she was sent directly to Vietnam and recalls the anxiety she felt as she flew into Saigon at midnight with 13 other nurses. Olsmith talks about her hospital duties in Vietnam, living in Quonset huts, taking care of Viet Cong prisoners, her experiences during the February 1968 Tet Offensive, working in a recovery ward where patients often woke with missing limbs, and making medical visits to Vietnamese villages and orphanages. After her one year tour of duty in Vietnam, Olsmith says that she returned to the U.S., decided to make the Army her career, served in various duty stations around the country, went into the Army Reserves in 1979 as a Major, was reactivated in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm and finally retired from the Army in November of that year. Olsmith says her time in the service gave her a sense of confidence as well as a career. Olsmith is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Anna Spillman Atteberry talks about her childhood in depression-era Louisiana and her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in Southern France and Italy during World War Two. Atteberry says that after nursing school she heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and immediately enlisted. She says that she was first assigned to the Fort Bliss hospital, volunteered for overseas duty, joined the 56th Evacuation Hospital and was sent to Casablanca in North Africa. She was next moved to Bizerte to treat casualties from the invasion of Sicily, she says and was later sent to Anzio and then north to Naples. She talks about spending the winter in a front line tent hospital, dealing with the dirt floors and trying to keep things sterile, treating battlefield wounds and pneumonia and other cold related cases and working during German shelling and says that she is proud of the care that she and other hospital staff provided. After next being stationed in Rome, Atteberry says that she was transferred to the 10th Field Hospital in France, followed the Army as it moved across France and Germany and says that the lines changed so quickly that they were sometimes forced to leave behind patients who were too critical to be moved. She says that she returned to the States as a patient and received treatment at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver and when she recovered, was sent to Fort Sam Houston where she nursed severely injured casualties. Atteberry is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-04-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired U.S. Army Captain Cecelia G. Mehlick recalls her service in the Army Nurse Corps beginning in World War Two. In this oral history interview, Mehlick describes being inducted into the Army in April 1944, basic training at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin and later being sent to Mayo General Hospital in Galesburg, IL to be trained a a nurse anesthetist. Mehlick talks about her duties at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina and Ft. Belvoir in Virginia before being sent to Texas to help set up a surgical center during Army training maneuvers. Mehlick says that she was finally sent to Europe to treat front-line casualties and at war's end, spent many hours also treating German civilians. After breaking her ankle in Germany, Mehlick says that she was shipped back to the U.S. and lists a number of later assignments she had both in the U.S. and Europe before retiring after 20 years of military service.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Winifred Gansel discusses her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Gansel talks about growing up in California, graduating from nursing school in 1931, her enlistment in the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor and being sent to New Guinea with the 80th General Hospital. Gansel describes life at the camp, working with the native people, surviving insects and lizards, dealing with hygiene issues, and what the nurses did to relax. She says that the 80th later moved with the troops to the Philippines and she talks about treating severely dehydrated and malnourished soldiers in tent hospitals there, and her duty in a polio ward. Gansel says that she came back to the States in November 1945, was discharged as a captain in March 1946, and returned to her position as a supervisor at the Santa Clara County Hospital in California. Gansel is interviewed by Norma I. Williams.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Jean Timms Campbell talks about her service in the U.S Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Campbell describes her youth and education in Ohio, working in the college infirmary before joining the Army, arriving in Scotland on VE Day, being very afraid that she would be sent to the Pacific, but ending up being assigned to the 114th General Hospital in Nuremberg, Germany. Campbell talks about her duties in the hospital, the 12 hour shifts, the patients, her living conditions, attending the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, traveling around Bavaria, being threatened with courts martial for not wearing her uniform cap in public, and finally being shipped back to States in early 1946. After the war, Campbell says that she married and started a family, returned to the nursing profession and retired in 1981. Campbell is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-03-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project