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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:
- Jane Piatt, chair of the Women's Overseas Service League's National Oral History Project, moderates a conversation between several WOSL members gathered for the 60th Anniversary celebration of the organization's Milwaukee Unit. Unidentified speakers reminisce about their often colorful service experiences in such places as Australia, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Brussels, and other far-flung places around the globe. The women say that it often took boldness, creativity and audacity to survive and thrive in a "man's world." The women later hold a short business meeting, convene the session with the Pledge of Allegiance and recite the WOSL's mission and purpose statement. An unidentified participant also provides a brief history of the Milwaukee Unit. Jane Piatt describes the Oral History Project, its goals, how it has been coordinated, and the success rate of conducting interviews and obtaining recordings.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-05-01T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- 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:
- Dorothy Early and Sarah Leach talk about their experiences in the Army Nurse Corps assigned to the 77th Evac Hospital in Germany. They describe how they came to join the Nurse Corps, their training, where they were stationed, the rigors of life near the front, and their eventual change to full military rank in the Women's Army Corp and the pay increase that came with it. Both discuss treating American and German soldiers, the differences between German civilian physicians and military physicians, the food in North Africa and Sicily, and making friends wherever they went. They also answer a call-in question from a listener. Recorded for the KCMO radio program "40 Years After World War Two" hosted by Jamie McFarrin.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project