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- Description:
- Sophie Steffer discusses her twenty year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps, focusing primarily on her service in World War Two. Steffer says that her civilian job was considered "essential" to the war effort and that she was denied enlistment for two years because of it. She says that she was first sent overseas to India near the end of the war and then later to the Philippines, Germany and Japan with the occupation forces. Steffer talks about living in thatched huts in India, Quonset huts in the Philippines, and apartments in Germany and Japan and describes processing soldiers and civilians who had been Japanese prisoners, while she was in Calcutta. She says that her biggest adjustment to military life was learning to salute and accepting the separation of enlisted personnel and officers. Steffer is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Major Harriet Jayne talks about her long career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, before, during and after World War II. After receiving her nurse's training at Marquette University, Jayne says that she enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Custer in Michigan for training in February 1941, was shipped out with the 52nd Evac Hospital to New Caledonia in September 1942 and to the New Hebrides with the 48th Station Hospital in January 1943. She talks about the mosquitoes, and hot days and cold nights in the South Pacific, having malaria and later being sent to New Zealand to recover from a broken foot. Jayne says that she rejoined her unit on Guadalcanal in June 1944, moved north with the fighting to Tinian Island in January 1945 and was on Tinian when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. She says that she returned to the States in October 1945 and recalls her many duty stations after the war and finally ending her career in February 1961 while serving at Fort Bragg. Jayne is interviewed by Betty C. Taylor Thompson.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-10T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- 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:
- 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