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- 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:
- 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