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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:
- Mary C. Burnham talks about serving as a dietitian in the U.S. Army Medical Specialist Corps during World War Two and later in occupied Japan and stateside military hospitals, over a twenty-year Army career. Burnham discusses her youth in Milwaukee, her college years, her early work life in Chicago, enlisting in the Army in 1942 soon after Pearl Harbor, training at a base in Texas, shipping out to the Pacific Theater, her initial posting to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands, and her life on the base and her duties as a dietitian. She says that she was later transferred to India and after serving in hospitals there, was sent back to the states via the Middle East and North Africa. During the Korean war, Burnham was again sent overseas and served as part of the U.S. Army of Occupation in Japan. She describes her three years of service in Japan, and says that she was very happy to finally be sent back to the states to serve in a series of military hospitals for the rest of her career. Burnham is interviewed by Jane Piatt.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Patricia Accountius, talks about her nearly thirty years in the U.S. Army Meidcal Specialist Corps, including her service during the Vietnam War. Accountius says that she joined the Army in 1948 and became a dietician after completing an internship program. She discusses her stateside assignments, serving on Okinawa from 1956-1958, being stationed at Walter Reed Army hospital in 1958, earning a graduate degree and finally being sent to Vietnam in 1966 as a captain. She says she spent a great deal of time in Vietnam just trying to get food deliveries made on a regular basis, developing menus for hospitals and dealing with the lack of basic food items. After Vietnam, Accountius became Chief Dietician at Walter Reed Hospital for several years, was later assigned to the Pentagon and was finally sent back to Texas in the 1980s as part of the Panama Command. Accountius is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-10-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a an oral history interview, Mary Duncan Clark talks about her twenty-eight year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She says that her friends persuaded her to enlist during World War II and that she began as a staff nurse, moved up through the ranks and ended her career as a chief nurse. She discusses her duty stations in the U.S. and overseas, including in Vietnam and describes base housing, her uniforms and her travels. She tells a humorous story of going through customs in an unfriendly country and putting her feminine hygiene products on top in her suit case so that it would not be searched. Clark also says she enjoyed working with an adoption board in Japan to find homes for the illegitimate children of American soldiers and that she decided right after D-Day to make the Army her career. Clark is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-04-26T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Army Colonel Mary Patricia Laughlin talks about her childhood and education and her service as an U.S. Air Force nurse from 1951 to 1954 and as an Army nurse from 1963 to 1980. Laughlin says she was raised in Omaha and went into nursing because she didn't want to be a "teacher or secretary." After graduating from nursing school in 1946, she says that she worked in Seattle and Denver and other locations around the Midwest, before finally joining the Air Force in 1951, during the Korean War. She left the Air Force in 1954 and after working in various hospitals, joined the U.S Army in 1963 and was sent to Korea. Laughlin describes life and work in Korea and says that she was next sent to Japan and later worked in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Fairbanks, Alaska and Monterey, CA, where she retired in February 1980. Laughlin is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol A. Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In a wide-ranging oral history interview, Margaret Canfield talks about her twenty-four year career in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and serving in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Canfield says that she graduated from nursing school in 1951 and enlisted in the Army that same year. She talks about her basic training in Texas, her first assignment in Colorado, being sent to Japan in 1953 and treating casualties coming in from Korean battlefields. After the Korean War, she says that she was stationed in Utah and Hawaii and again in Asia and was finally sent to Vietnam in February 1967. Canfield discusses her various duty stations in Vietnam, treating Vietnamese civilians and U.S. and Korean troops and says that after becoming Chief Nurse at the 18th Surgical Hospital in Pleiku, she extended her tour of duty for another year. In December 1967, she says that she was transferred to a hospital in the Mekong Delta in support the 9th Infantry Division and that the hospital was shelled and virtually destroyed during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Canfield says that she returned to the U.S. after twenty-one months in Vietnam and finally retired from the Army in August 1975. Canfield is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Helen McPherson Reynolds talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. She says that after her induction in October 1942 and receiving training as an anesthesiologist, she joined the 232nd General Hospital unit and shipped overseas in February 1945. Reynolds says that she first landed in Saipan and was later sent to Iwo Jima to help prepare for the expected invasion of Japan. She says that she was one of the first ten nurses on Iwo Jima and describes the tent hospital in which she worked, the heat and the casualties she was treating from the battle on Okinawa. She says actor Tyrone Power piloted the plane which transported the nurses to Iwo Jima. Reynolds says that she was discharged from the Army in January 1946.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Harriet Wise talks about her service in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two and in Asia following the war. Wise discusses her postings at various military bases around the United States during the war and being one of the few women sent to the Army Exchange Service School at Princeton University. Following the war, Wise says that she accepted an assignment in Japan and talks about her time in Yokohama and Tokyo and later being sent to Seoul, South Korea to serve as an assistant PX officer. Wise is interviewed by Geneva Kebler Wiskemann and Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Mary Hall talks about her service as an Air Force officer from 1951 to 1956. Hall says that she enlisted in the Air Force as a Second Lieutenant in November 1951 and discusses her duties in the U.S., being sent to Japan in May 1953 as supply officer, and later to Eglin AFB in Florida with the same assignment. She says that while attending Squadron Officers School in Montgomery, AL, as one of five women in a class of 500 men, she met her husband, married him right after the course finished and left the Air Force in 1956 to start a family. After the Air Force, in addition to raising her family, Hall says that she attend graduate school, did volunteer work, sold real estate and after her husband died in 1991, moved to the Air Force Village in San Antonio and married again. Hall is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-02-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Dorothy Haughton talks about joining the American Red Cross as a secretary in 1943 and in 1948 beginning a twenty year career as a physical therapist in the U.S. Army. She says she became intrigued with physical therapy while working for the Red Cross in a hospital unit and decided to get training and pursue an Army career. She discusses her duty stations, her travels, housing conditions, the Korean conflict, and her uniforms and says that adjusting to military life was easy for her. Haughton is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-13T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Johanna Butt talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two and the Korean War. Butt says that she graduated from nursing school in 1943 and joined the Army that same year. She talks about treating wounded from Patton's Third Army in Europe, living in miserable conditions, being cold and not having enough to eat, V-E Day and finally being "separated" from the Army in February in 1946. She says that she was called up from the Army Reserves in 1951 for the Korean War and talks about being stationed in Japan with the 382nd General Hospital, the flood of casualties that came in from the fighting in Korea, returning to the States in 1954, teaching nursing, working as an Army recruiter in the Pacific Northwest and being turned down for service in the Vietnam war. Butt says she retired from the Army in 1970 and moved to Tucson, AZ to care for her mother and husband. Butt is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Colonel Crescentia "Cris" Wellman relfects on her childhood, education and her long career as a U.S. Air Force flight nurse. After growing up in rural Iowa and earning her nursing degree at St. Francis Nursing School in Peoria, IL, Wellman says that she enlisted as an Air Force nurse in May of 1953 and was first assigned to Eielson AFB in Alaska. She goes on to discuss her work at various duty stations throughout her career, including stints in California, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida, Illinois, Texas, England, Germany and Okinawa. She describes the duties of a flight nurse and treating burn victims on Air-Evac runs. She also talks about working with Vietnam battlefield casualties and G.I. drug addicts while based on Okinawa. She says she finally retired from the Air Force on July 1, 1981. Wellman is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-04-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Devere Powell talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. She says she enlisted in April 1943, received her flight nurse's training at Bowman Field in Kentucky, was shipped to Hollandia, New Guinea in April 1945 and then to Manila and finally to Leyte where she joined the 801st Air Evac Squad. She discusses her job of escorting casualties from the Philippine Islands and Okinawa to hospitals in Manila and tells a poignant story of giving her flight wings to a wounded former American POW as a souvenir. Powell says she was discharged from the Army as a First Lieutenant in December 1945. Interviewer Betty Thompson also discusses Powell's nursing career and her volunteer work in retirement.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-10-10T00:00:00Z
- 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 Army Colonel Edythe Jean Hathaway talks about her long career in the Army Nurse Corps, including service in World War II, occupied Japan and in the Korean War. Hathaway says that she grew up in Joplin, Missouri, graduated from nursing school in 1944, enlisted in Army in February 1945 and later volunteered for overseas duty. She says that she was shipped to the Philippines in August 1945, just as the war was ending and was soon sent to Japan to help set up a hospital where American and Allied POWS were treated and prepared for shipment back home and later worked at a hospital in Kyoto where she treated victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. Hathaway was shipped back to the States in 1946 and after marrying and divorcing, says that she volunteered for duty in Korea in 1950 and worked at a hospital in Pusan and at the 64th Field Hospital which was located on a prison island. Hathaway describes her many duty stations after Korea, in both the U.S. and abroad. She also discusses her retirement activities. Hathaway is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Barbara Pratt-LeMahieu talks about her childhood in Salem, Massachusetts and her career in the U.S. Air Force which included service during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Pratt-LeMahieu says that she enlisted in 1948, took basic and administrative training in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and later worked as secretary for the Strategic Air Command in Colorado Springs and as a secretary at March AFB in California during the Korean War. After officer candidate school, she says that she was commissioned a second lieutenant and served as a public information administrator in Montana, until she volunteered to go to occupied Japan in 1955. In 1967, Pratt-Lemahieu says that she volunteered for service as a personnel services administrator in Vietnam and talks about hearing shelling on her way to work each day and her experiences during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Pratt-Lemahieu is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart and Carol Hapgood. She is assisted in recalling the details of her answers by her husband, Jim LaMahieu.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- 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