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- Description:
- Lee Gordhammer talks about her service in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and the Women's Army Corps (WAC) from 1942 to 1945. Gordhammer says she chose to work in motor transportation and became both an instructor and a skilled mechanic. She describes dodging "buzz-bombs" while in England, landing at Omaha Beach in July 1944, and ending the war in Paris. Gordhammer also discusses why she enlisted, her pre-war employment, military living conditions, uniforms, using the G.I. Bill to finish her education after the war, and finally working at the U.S. State Department.
- 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:
- 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:
- Jane Piatt, chair of the Women's Overseas Service League's National Oral History Project, talks about her service in the Women's Army Corps during World War Two and in the Korean War. Piatt speaks at length about her time as a mess hall chief at Fort Des Moines and her time working with both Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, the first director of the Women's Army Corps and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams, the first African-American woman to become a commissioned officer in the WACs. Piatt also talks about her jobs as an air inspector and the head of an officer's club in the United States near the end of the war and leaving active duty in 1947, only to be recalled during the Korean conflict. During the Korean War, she says that she served in England at both Burtonwood Air Force Base as an air inspector and at Brize Norton Air Force Base as an administrative assistant. Piatt is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-04-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Hazel M. Hamilton, formerly a sergeant in the Women's Army Corps, talks about her service in World War Two. Hamilton explains why she enlisted in July 1942 and talks about going through confidential secretary training and working and housing conditions at her duty stations in Des Moines, Iowa, Daytona, Florida, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Fort Sam Houston and Fort Hood, Texas, Fort Hamilton, New York, and in Scotland, England and Paris, France. After being discharged, Hamilton says that she took advantage of the G.I. Bill and attended secretarial school for eight months in Pasadena, California. Hamilton also reminisces about her childhood and events she remembers from World War One. Hamilton is interviewed by Thelma Norris and Genevieve Cadmus.
- Date Issued:
- 1983-05-28T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Rose Stornant talks about her service as a legal secretary in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Stornant recalls her training and her different U.S. assignments before being shipped to England in March 1944. She remembers being in Salisbury England watching the gliders and Airborne troop transports heading for Normandy on D-Day and says that she wasn't sent to France until November 1944. Stornant says that she was in Paris during the Battle of the Bulge at the end of 1944 and also talks about Christmas in Paris, the celebrations on V-E Day, Bastille Day, and V-J Day and finally earning enough points to be sent back to the States. She says that she worked in Chicago for a short time after the war, but finally returned to Lansing, MI to reclaim her old job. Stornant is interviewed by Elsie Hornbacher.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-07-11T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Description:
- Theodora C. Smolinski talks about her service in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and later the Women's Army Corp during World War II. She says that she was working as a stenographer and switchboard operator for a company in Pittsburgh when, motivated by patriotism, she enlisted in October 1942 and later found herself being shipped overseas aboard the Queen Mary. She discusses the bases she served at in both England and France, describes her Army duties as a switchboard operator, her pay, her rank, her uniforms, and being segregated from the men. Smolinski says she returned to her employer in Pittsburgh after her discharge in 1945, used the GI Bill to earn a certificate in occupational therapy and later an undergraduate degree and that her time in the military gave her a sense of confidence which was important to her throughout her life. Smolinski is interviewed by Amelia Bunder.
- Date Issued:
- 1984-02-22T00:00:00Z
- 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