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- 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:
- In an oral history interview, Winifred Gansel discusses her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Gansel talks about growing up in California, graduating from nursing school in 1931, her enlistment in the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor and being sent to New Guinea with the 80th General Hospital. Gansel describes life at the camp, working with the native people, surviving insects and lizards, dealing with hygiene issues, and what the nurses did to relax. She says that the 80th later moved with the troops to the Philippines and she talks about treating severely dehydrated and malnourished soldiers in tent hospitals there, and her duty in a polio ward. Gansel says that she came back to the States in November 1945, was discharged as a captain in March 1946, and returned to her position as a supervisor at the Santa Clara County Hospital in California. Gansel is interviewed by Norma I. Williams.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-05-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project