Search Constraints
Search Results
- 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 an oral history interview, 93 year-old Lena Hitchcock talks about her pioneering service as an occupational therapist in the U.S. Army during World War I. She says that she was one of the first of her profession to join the Army and was in the first group of women sent to France to establish physical therapy practices in American hospitals. Hitchcock recalls being shipped to France aboard a troop transport which was part of a twenty-nine ship British convoy and being assigned to a New York nursing unit which was part of the Army Medical Corps. She says that she was always too busy to keep a diary of her experiences in Europe and that beginning each day at 6:00am she was faced with treating a constant flow of casualties coming in from front line aid stations. Hitchcock also describes the science behind physical therapy, gives a history of the profession and explains why she chose it as a career. The interview is conducted during the 62nd Annual WOSL Convention. Hitchcock is interviewed by Jane Ingersoll Piatt and Geneva K. Wiskemann from the WOSL Lansing Unit.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-07-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project