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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:
- In an in-depth oral history interview, retired Lieutenant Colonel Therese M. Slone-Baker talks about growing up in New York City, attending business school, taking a civil service job in Washington D.C., joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1944 and working as a secretary, special events coordinator and a recruiter until she leaving active military service in 1946 to join the reserves. Slone-Baker says she was recalled to active service in 1952 and became an officer and discusses the various assignments she had throughout her career, including being the commander of a WASP squadron. She says that she finally retired in 1972 with 25 years of military service and feels that even though she did not have a "dramatic" career she did contribute and did her best to uphold the high standards of the service. Slone-Baker is interviewed by Ruth F. Stewart assisted by Carol A Habgood.
- Date Issued:
- 2004-01-14T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Edna Penny Rice talks about her twenty-four year military career, first in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and then its successors, the Women's Army Corps, and the Women in the Air Force. Rice says that she enlisted because she thought she "was as good" as her brother and her fiance and felt very patriotic. Rice says that she was inducted in July 1942 and worked in personnel and administration in every military theater of operation. She describes working and living conditions at her various posting, her uniforms and her leadership and administrative responsibilities. Rice says she was was pushed into becoming an officer and never planned on making the service a career. Rice is interviewed by Marjorie Brown.
- Date Issued:
- 1986-03-07T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Ninety-eight year old Elizabeth Phillips talks about her service in the Army Nurse Corps in Europe during World War I. She recalls being assigned to a hospital five miles behind the front near Avignon, France, German planes flying over on their way to bomb Paris, surgeries performed as wounded were brought in from the front, her general duties, the large number of casualties, the catastrophic flu epidemic in 1918 and the many funerals, the regimentation and twelve hour shifts, and that when her unit was first deployed to France in May of 1917, the nurses did not receive rations and were expected to find their own food. Phillips explains that nurses had no rank in World War I and were not treated as equals and says that she lobbied vigorously in World War II to correct that inequality. She also says she tried to volunteer for service during World War II, but was refused and spent the war preparing Red Cross packages for shipment to American POWs in German camps.
- Date Issued:
- 1982-04-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Irene Petrie talks about her World War Two service (July 1942 to September 1945) as a mess sergeant in the U.S. Women's Army Corps. Petrie says that she was motivated by patriotism to enlist and talks about being trained to set up field kitchens, her various duty stations, military regulations, running a mess hall, experiencing discrimination based upon her gender, what it was like to date G.I.s, her U.S. and overseas housing, and the poor military diet. Petrie also talks about preparing food in Southampton, England for troops heading for Normandy on D-Day, talking to the young, nervous troops headed to France during the invasion, her mess team landing on Omaha Beach in early August 1944, later being quartered in the Grand Hotel in Paris, and setting up a field kitchen during the Battle of the Bulge. Petrie is interviewed by Neola Ann Spackman.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-01-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Barbara Fravenholtz talks about her service in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War Two. Fravenholtz describes her decision to enlist on Armistice Day in 1942 and discusses why she enlisted alone rather than with other graduates from the St. Francis General Hospital nursing program. Fravenholtz recounts her experiences as a nurse in the 95th Evacuation Hospital which was attached to the 5th Army and later to the 7th Army, as it followed the front lines in Tunisia, Sicily, Cassino, Salerno, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg. She talks fondly about her dog Eric, a gift from an enlisted man in Africa, and says that the dog traveled with her throughout the war and came back to the states with her when she was discharged. She also vividly recounts seeing Mount Vesuvius threatening to erupt while she was on leave. Fravenholtz is interviewed by Amelia Bunder.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-02-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Peggy Lechtweis talks about her five years of service in the Army Nurse Corp during World War Two. Lechtweis discusses her induction, basic training, and shipping out to Fiji in the Pacific. She also describes life on base and her responsibilities as chief nurse at the hospital and putting in long shifts in operating rooms. She explains how her unit moved as it followed the advancing U.S. troops across the Pacific to Okinawa and describes the events on VJ-Day, and later treating Allied POWs after their release from Japanese camps. Lechtweis is interviewed by Lois Collet.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-05T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, Retired Lieutenant Colonel Madeline M. Ullom talks about her 28 year career in the United States Army Nurse Corps, including her service in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II and being held as a POW by the Japanese. Ullom says she was based in Manila when the Japanese attacked in 1942 and was one of the last to be evacuated to the U.S. fortress on Corregidor. She talks about treating wounded in the fortress's tunnels as the Japanese attacked, the eventual U.S. surrender and becoming a POW. Ullom talks about life in an internment camp, being imprisoned with civilian women and children from almost every Allied nation, the poor rations, and roll calls even in the middle of the night. Ullom says that more and more prisoners became sick and fatalities from malnutrition increased dramatically before her camp was finally liberated by the U. S. First Cavalry in 1944. She also talks about her post war assignments, becoming an advisor to the Veterans Administration, her activities in retirement and finally traveling back to the Philippines. Ullom is interviewed by Margaret E. Duncan.
- Date Issued:
- 1985-05-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- In an oral history interview, retired Army Colonel Lois A. Johns talks about her education, her career in the Army Nurse Corp and her service in the Vietnam War. Johns talks about growing up in Cleveland, earning her nursing degree in 1948, a second bachelor's degree in 1950 and later two master's degrees and finally, in 1967, a doctorate. In 1950, she says that she also joined the Army Reserve and that her active duty began in 1960 when she was promoted to Captain. She describes a number of her duty stations, going back into the reserves while working and going to school and then going back on active duty as a Major for duty in Vietnam. She says that she arrived in Saigon late at night, was assigned to the "renal ward" at the 629th Medical Detachment of the 3rd Field Hospital and describes her quarters, her duties, her patients, the local cuisine and culture and says that she was awarded a Bronze Star when she left Vietnam and was assigned to the Institute for Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston. She goes on to discuss her various duty stations after Vietnam, both stateside and abroad and says that she finally retired from the Army in 1980. Johns praises her many coworkers throughout the years, but says that women often had problems dealing with their male counterparts and that sexual harassment did exist in the service. Johns is interviewed by Ruth Stewart and Patricia Martin.
- Date Issued:
- 2007-02-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Ruth Weisberg says, in an oral history interview, that she joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, which later became the Women's Army Corps, in February 1943. Weisberg recalls receiving training at several bases in the U.S. before going back to New York to embark for Europe in late 1943 on a ship with the 101st Airborne Division. Her first assignment overseas, Weisberg says, was with the Military Attache in the American Embassy in London where she handled secret communications. The classified nature of her work prevented her from getting acquainted with many people, she says, but she did meet and marry an officer from the 101st Airborne in January 1944 and left the service in July 1945 to become a dependent army wife.
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project