Women at war: Four stories |
It may surprise readers to learn that about 350,000 women served in the U.S. military during World War II. Those women weren't represented in the newsreels and movies of that time, and for good reason: Most of them served here in the United States.
But the war front had its share of service women, too, many in the medical arena. In later conflicts, such as the Vietnam War, even more women were overseas—again usually providing medical care. Many of them witnessed horrors that no soldier wants to see, horrors we hoped young women never would.
The Best Times interviewed four local women who served overseas during war: Margaret Blaylock Davisson, 89, of Lenexa; Louise Graul Eisenbrandt, 63, of Overland Park; Lillian Hoch Macek, 90, of Roeland Park; and Virginia Summers, 89, of Lenexa. Theirs are stories of gutsy, adventuresome "girls" who braved the absolute unknown to serve their country. Here are their stories.
A DECISION TO SERVE
What sends seemingly ordinary young women into the military during wartime? A host of longings and passions are at play, but each woman can usually point to one force that drives everything.
Virginia
For Virginia, military service fulfilled a desire to see the world.
"My women friends who were in the Navy just sat in the states!" she recalled, and that's not the kind of service she wanted.
A Kansas City, Kan., native, Virginia had a great-uncle who was a country doctor, and she and her sister had spent summers with him. His wife was his "nurse," a capable assistant without formal training.
"Sometimes he took us with him when he made house calls on his patients," Virginia recalled. "I was so impressed that I decided that, like him, I was going to be a doctor, live in a brick house, and own a Buick automobile!"
Being a doctor was extremely rare for a woman then, so Virginia opted for nursing. A full course of training cost $75, such a burden that her father had to borrow the money. She graduated from nursing school at Bethany Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., in late 1942, signed up for military service in December, and took the oath of service in January 1943. From Camp Crowder she went to Camp Shanks in New York. Two units were slated for Europe and hers was one of the two. Through a snafu, they ended up in the Pacific Theater.
"Thirty days after setting sail from New York, we arrived in late afternoon in Brisbane, Australia," Virginia said. "But we were unable to dock because the tide had gone out. We were stranded until the following morning, when the tide came back in and we were able to reach the dock."
Virginia couldn't swim and feared the water, so it's ironic that she ended up surrounded by oceans. An Army nurse, she served in the Pacific, moving frequently—Brisbane and Townsville in Australia, Milne Bay in New Guinea, and Manila and San Fernando in the Philippines.
A nurse anesthetist assisting with surgery, Virginia recalls sudden overwhelming influxes of patients. One New Year's Eve she was called in to work at night, and she ended up working through the night and throughout the next day and night.
"There was no room for the injured soldiers in the tents, and no beds," she said, "but we rounded up Army cots and blankets and bedded them down under the stars—and hoped it wouldn't rain that night."
Lillian
A Wilson, Kan., native, Lillian received her nursing training at Marymount College/St. John's Hospital in Salina, and when she and two nursing pals graduated they decided that "If the country went to war, we would go together." A Salina-area cardiologist who had served during the war encouraged the young women to go, and that gave them a needed boost.
She vividly remembers their physical exams at Fort Leavenworth and traveling east by train afterward, the windows wide open to fight the oppressive heat. Their destination was Indiantown Gap, in Pennsylvania. There, reflecting the war's early stresses and the scarcity of women in the service, they were issued residual uniforms from World War I. All three friends managed to stay together for the duration of their service.
Lillian was a nurse with the famed 77th Evacuation Hospital, composed of men and women from the KU Medical Center. Attached to a triage unit, she was always on the move and she saw service in North Africa, Sicily, and England, including the aftermath of the D-Day invasion at Normandy.
Lillian recalls that medical units were required to remain at least 35 miles from the battle front, and her unit came that close seven times. She remembers operating out of two tents, each about 40 feet long, each with one nurse and one hospital nurse attendant. She remembers working night and day.
"We would evaluate the soldiers' conditions," Lillian recalls. "If we could fix them up well enough, they were returned to the field. If not, they were sent to an intermediate general hospital and then to England or the United States."
A surgery nurse, Lillian recalls particularly dreadful wounds, like those of a soldier who had shrapnel lodged near his heart.
Her unit was present during the Battle of the Bulge at Verviers, Belgium, where a female Red Cross employee tending to the soldiers was killed. And there were, as she puts it, "a lot of close shaves." Her unit also went into Normandy on the 28th day following the invasion. She remembers one patient who came into surgery with no eyes, ankles, or hands.
She also has bitter memories of Slapton Sands, where servicemen engaging in "Exercise Tiger" were attacked while practicing for battle and 44 were slaughtered. Some nurses died there, too.
Margaret
For Margaret, the decision to join the Army came from a desire to serve. She studied dietetics and institutional management at Kansas State University because "My dad wouldn't let me be a nurse!" she said with chagrin.
She graduated in 1944 following an internship at King County Hospital in Seattle—and the minute she got home, that same reluctant dad took her down to the Army Medical Corps recruiting office in her hometown of Mankato, Kan.
She was sent to Camp Carson, Colo., where she received her basic clothing and completed a course in cooking dehydrated foods. Then, on to Fitzsimmons General Hospital in Denver before joining the 174th Army General Hospital Unit at Camp Barkley in Abilene, Texas. All the doctors and nurses and the other dietitian were from New England; Margaret was the only Midwesterner. But, she says, "They finally decided I wasn't so bad!"
In October 1944, they boarded the Queen Mary at Camp Kilmer, N.J., and arrived in Glasgow, Scotland; were taken by train to Southampton, England; and boarded a boat to Omaha Beach. From there they were taken to La Haye du Puits, France, where she provided arduous service as a dietitian. Her large tent hospital was a stationary unit so she stayed put, the women living in tents of their own.
"Life in a tent was interesting," she recalled. "For instance, we were given water in our helmet to bathe ourselves, and then we washed our undergarments in that water! How is that for conservation!"
Because of the size of the hospital, Margaret was not near the front lines. Instead, patients were brought by ambulance to the hospital.
"Our duty as dietitians was to plan special diets as needed, using the Army rations that were available," she said. "And it wasn't easy to turn rations into palatable special diets, especially with no fresh fruits or vegetables."
She didn't have much personal contact with the Allied soldiers, but Margaret and her service mates got to connect with area residents and took short trips to Cherbourg, Mont Saint-Michel, Utah Beach, St. Lo, Barneville, the American Cemetery, and a longer trip to Paris.
Lou
An Illinois native, Louise, known as "Lou," had wanted to study music and theater, but lack of money made that impossible. Instead she trained in nursing, then joined the Army to see the world—and, she hoped, to do "some really good nursing."
"I grew up near Scott Air Force Base in Illinois and most of my friends were Air Force brats," Lou said. "Having grown up with friends in the military, I was comfortable with the military and liked the way of life it offered."
She took her officers basic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Her first duty assignment was at Fort Dix for nine months, and then she was immediately assigned to Vietnam—not something she had anticipated, because she had heard rumors about long waiting lists for nurses wanting duty there. Once there, she said, "Everything was the front line. But we were young and, we thought, invincible."
Lou was in the Army Nurse Corps from May 1968 to October 1970, serving with the 91st Evacuation Hospital in Chu Lai, northern South Vietnam, for one tour of duty, from October 1969 to October 1970. She remembers arriving in Chu Lai only to find that her luggage, duffel, and foot locker had not arrived with her. The relentless monsoon rains only worsened the situation.
The most memorable week of her year in Vietnam was in May 1970.
"Three mornings in a row we grabbed flak jackets while racing to bunkers to avoid rounds of incoming mortars," she later wrote. "While on duty, the casualties were nearly too numerous to count (99 civilians one day from a local village). Many American grunts lost their lives that week."
"The Viet Cong," she explained, "would celebrate holidays by blowing things up. We always knew that we would have lot of casualties around holidays; that was true with the Tet Offensive."
Lou recalls caring for a soldier who was lying on a litter. He was missing one leg, the other was dangling, and his body was covered with shrapnel.
"We cut his clothes off and rolled him over," she said, "but his back remained on the litter."
Another horrific moment occurred while she was tending to an injured soldier and realized that he was "not just a face in the crowd, but someone I knew and cared for." The physician working with Lou in the emergency room suggested that the soldier's wounds might result in the loss of both legs.
"It was the only time while I was in Vietnam that I had to walk away to compose myself," she recalled.
LIGHTER TIMES
Lou recalls that "In Vietnam everybody was disrespectful; there was a lot of irreverence, a lot of sarcasm, and you gave as you got. You had to."
Likening her experiences to those portrayed in "M*A*S*H," she says that the medical teams played hard as an emotional survival technique when not on duty.
"Seven scotch-and-waters didn't faze me then!" she said.
She remembers that getting to see Bob Hope perform was "a big deal."
The other women experienced many moments of playfulness overseas, as well—times when they could forget, at least momentarily, the horrors they were experiencing.
Virginia remembers being one of two nurses selected to represent her unit at a dinner with Douglas MacArthur in 1943 in Brisbane. She also recalls a visit to their hospital by Eleanor Roosevelt while she was on tour in Townsville, Australia. She remembers her as "a very gracious lady."
Margaret's favorite memories center on official R&R in July and August at the end of the war. Highlights were Marseilles, Monte Carlo, the Folies Bergère in Paris, and the Palace of Versailles. She recalls seeing the Basilica du Sacré-Coeur on a hill and visiting Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, only accessible when the tide was out.
Lillian, too, has great memories of Paris, which had many places where American military personnel could stay when they were on leave.
COMING HOME
Virginia
When Virginia returned home after three years, parting from her service comrades was difficult. Her unit was going on to Japan and she wouldn't be part of it.
"The unit was so small, like a family, really," she said. "It was hard to part ways."
So she didn't completely sever the ties, remaining in the reserves until 1953. She was even recalled during the Korean War, but she received a deferment.
Virginia returned to Kansas, working in a hospital in Clay Center for a year. She remembers working with many "wonderful country-girl aides." She also nursed at Bethany Hospital in Kansas City, Kan. But the civilian hospitals wouldn't accept her Army anesthesia training, so Virginia switched venues and took a good job nursing at the Phillips Petroleum Co. Refinery in the Fairfax District, where she remained for 34 years.
"There were six nurses and no doctors in the beginning," she said. "Later, physicians would come in periodically to see patients, and finally we had a full-time doctor."
Virginia has become an honored and expert volunteer, whose service with the Johnson County Library started in 1984 and is still going strong. She also volunteered with Pets for Life for 15 years.
She has never returned to the Pacific.
Lillian
After the war, Lillian married Leon Macek, also an Army veteran. Leon was a Wilson native and they had known each other since childhood. They had two daughters.
Lillian nursed for 15 years at Trinity Lutheran Hospital in Kansas City, and for another 15 years with the VA Hospital in Kansas City. During that employment she was able to return to England for a 10-day visit. She retired from the VA in 1984, when her husband developed cancer.
Margaret
When the war in Europe ended, Margaret's unit was slated to go to the Pacific. But after the atomic bombings of Japan, the unit received orders to return to the United States. They boarded the John Erickson, docking two weeks later at Staten Island, then boarded a bus for Camp Kilmer. From there she took a train home to Mankato. Her parents had not received her telegram announ-cing her pending arrival, so no one was there to meet her.
In November she traveled to Camp Seibert, Ala., for a farewell meeting and dinner with her unit.
"What a pleasant surprise that evening, when I was awarded a Good Conduct Ribbon as Sweetheart of the 174th General Hospital," she said.
Her next orders were to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where she stayed until April 1946. She received terminal leave at Fort Sheridan, Ill., and from there traveled to New York to visit nurse friends.
After several months with her parents on the farm near Mankato, she moved to Kansas City to take a job as a dietitian at the KU Medical Center. At a bowling party sponsored by her church, Margaret met Willis Davisson. She has never bowled again, but their relationship had better traction! She is proud of their four children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren (with a fourth on the way).
Later Margaret earned a master's degree, then taught first grade for 20 years at Cherokee Elementary School in Johnson County.
Margaret has been a consummate volunteer with the Johnson County Health Department at its Mission and Olathe offices and with the American Association of University Women and PEO. She is also a key volunteer at Lakeview Village, where she is a lay chaplain. She is a former president of the Shawnee Mission La Sertoma group and belongs to the Merriam Homemakers, a club that has been perking along since 1913.
She has never had the opportunity to return to Europe.
Lou
For Lou, "Leaving Vietnam was very bittersweet."
In part that's because "Things had gone on there that nobody else knew about, and I knew I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone about them," she said. "But I was so grateful to have survived."
After her discharge, Lou and a nursing friend from Minneapolis took to the road for six weeks during fall of 1970, visiting other nurses they had known. "It provided great decompression," she said.
She then settled in Denver, practicing civil service nursing at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. There she met her husband—"over a patient," she says—and they moved to the Kansas City area, where Lou taught childbirth classes for eight years. Overall, she found civilian nursing "too low-key" after her wartime experience, so she shifted gears, with adventures such as teaching cooking to children in her home. Now Lou is a class facilitator and board member for Turning Point: The Center for Hope and Healing. She loves to play golf, travels worldwide, and gardens.
Through the Internet she has reconnected with medical colleagues from Vietnam, and she is active in ensuring that Vietnam-era service women are recognized and respected.
She and Jim Eisenbrandt have a son and a daughter, both married. They have one grandson and another grandchild due in April. She has returned to Vietnam twice.
