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- Description:
- Former U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve (SPARS) radio technician Eleanor Jean Bechtel discusses her enlistment, the social environment in wartime America, her basic training in West Palm Beach, FL, and receiving electronics and radio instruction at the Ben Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia. She also talks about the base in Florida where she trained, seeing John Wayne and Robert Montgomery there filming a movie, and moving to post-war Japan to work as a civilian secretary.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-07-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Description:
- Mildred Blandford talks about her service as a secretary in the American Red Cross during World War Two. Blandford, who served from August 1944 to November 1945, says that she joined the Red Cross for overseas adventure and spent most of her time stationed at the 194th General Hospital in Paris. She says that she was quartered in a Parisian hotel with maid service, but that service in the hospital was no picnic and meant leaving her secretarial duties often to help care for the onslaught of wounded soldiers. After VE Day, Blandford says that she volunteered for duty in the Pacific and was sent to Okinawa where she found herself living in a tent rather than luxury hotel. She talks about her daily tasks and again helping out with wounded G.I.s. and describes two typhoons that hit the island and how staff tried to protect the patients in the tent hospital from the storm. At war's end, Blandford says that she returned to Louisville to work, but later went back to Paris for school and to work for NATO. Blandford is interviewed by Dorothy M. Harrison.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-10-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Former U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve (SPARS) radio technician Eleanor Jean Bechtel discusses her enlistment, the social environment in wartime America, her basic training in West Palm Beach, FL, and receiving electronics and radio instruction at the Ben Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia. She also talks about the base in Florida where she trained, seeing John Wayne and Robert Montgomery there filming a movie, and moving to post-war Japan to work as a civilian secretary.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-07-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection