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- Description:
- Helene Gram Forster talks about her hospital service with the American Red Cross between June 1943 and December 1945. Forster explains why she volunteered and describes her duties as a hospital recreation worker charged with providing activities and entertainment for patients at bases in North Africa, Italy and France. Forster says that the convoy which brought her to Africa was attacked near Oran, Algeria, and describes crossing the Mediterranean to Naples and being based in a convent hospital in Caserta, Italy, living conditions in camps in Algeria and Italy, caring for allied troops from several countries, and setting up a hospital in a French cavalry school. She says she sailed on a hospital ship back to the States for her leave and then returned to unit in France aboard a mail plane which also carried one of General Eisenhower's aides with a top secret set of battle plans. Forster says that her service during the war was a special time in her life. Forster is interviewed by Edna Fonn.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-10T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Anna Spillman Atteberry talks about her childhood in depression-era Louisiana and her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in Southern France and Italy during World War Two. Atteberry says that after nursing school she heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and immediately enlisted. She says that she was first assigned to the Fort Bliss hospital, volunteered for overseas duty, joined the 56th Evacuation Hospital and was sent to Casablanca in North Africa. She was next moved to Bizerte to treat casualties from the invasion of Sicily, she says and was later sent to Anzio and then north to Naples. She talks about spending the winter in a front line tent hospital, dealing with the dirt floors and trying to keep things sterile, treating battlefield wounds and pneumonia and other cold related cases and working during German shelling and says that she is proud of the care that she and other hospital staff provided. After next being stationed in Rome, Atteberry says that she was transferred to the 10th Field Hospital in France, followed the Army as it moved across France and Germany and says that the lines changed so quickly that they were sometimes forced to leave behind patients who were too critical to be moved. She says that she returned to the States as a patient and received treatment at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver and when she recovered, was sent to Fort Sam Houston where she nursed severely injured casualties. Atteberry is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-04-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project