Search Constraints
Search Results
- Description:
- Laura Smith talks about her service as an Army nurse during the First World War. Smith says she graduated from nursing school in the spring of 1917, was inducted into the Army in February 1918 and was sent with her unit to Liverpool, England that same year. Smith says that she was later assigned to a mobile tent hospital near Chateau-Thierry and recalls the surgeries, the daily hospital routine, her quarters, wood stoves for heat, blackout conditions, and meals. Her unit, Smith says, moved with the troops to the Meuse-Argonne front and she describes the horrors of the battle, treating gas attack victims and the onslaught of the flu epidemic which killed so many. She remembers the feelings she had when the guns fell silent on November 11th and taking a cruise up the Rhine near Koblenz in March 1919, visiting Monaco, and the Alps and finally being sent back to the U.S. in early June 1919.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Estelle M. Davis explains why she enlisted as a Red Cross nurse during World War One and describes her experiences. She reminisces about being a public health nurse in Jersey City, her family's reaction to her enlistment, and being shipped across the Atlantic to Calais with 350 fellow nurses. Davis recounts the awful food and the terrible conditions under which staff had to perform surgery, while serving only 50 miles from the front at Verdun. She says that she met her future husband when treating him for a shrapnel wound at her aid station. Davis is interviewed by Lois Collet.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-10-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Katherine Wilson talks about her service in the American Red Cross in Europe during World War Two. Wilson says she joined the Red Cross right after Pearl Harbor, was sent to England in early 1943 aboard the Queen Elizabeth, helped to set up a hospital in a cow pasture and treated casualties coming from the North African campaign. She says that her Red Cross unit was later sent to Omaha Beach, thirteen days after D-Day, to set up another hospital about eight miles from the front. She talks about treating burned tank crewman, dispensing cigarettes, helping patients to write letters home, and coordinating social activities for the troops. She says that her hospital unit was next moved to Belgium where it received a deluge of casualties from the Battle of the Bulge and was forced to pull out in the face of German advances. She talks about celebrating V-E Day on a speeding troop train through Belgium and that she had a chance to site see in Germany before finally being sent back to the States. Wilson is interviewed by Dorothy Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-12-08T00:00:00Z
- 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
- 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:
- 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:
- 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
- Description:
- Betty Thompson talks about her service in the U.S. Army during World War Two. Thompson recalls working in Chicago as a physical therapist before she enlisted in October 1943 and was sent to the 48th General Hospital in Memphis, TN. Thompson says she was first shipped overseas to Glasgow, Scotland and later to Stockbridge in England to help set up a hospital. She describes her quarters in Stockbridge, her rations, the weather, and how the nurses were treated. She also remembers the D-Day preparations that were going on around her, the conditions on the Normandy beaches when her unit finally arrived in August, how busy she was with casualties and the chaos of the Battle of the Bulge. Thompson says she returned to the States in October 1945, took a discharge at the end of 1945, was married, continued to work, and raised a family. Thompson also says that her time in the Army Nurse Corps was the highlight of her professional life. Thompson is interviewed by Lilah Ramsey.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project