Interview of Betty Van Kirk on her eleven months of service in the American Red Cross in the Pacific Theater during World War II
In an oral history interview, Betty Van Kirk discusses her eleven months of service in the American Red Cross in the Pacific Theater during World War II. She talks about her training at American University, shipping overseas to New Guinea, how women were treated, dating, the climate, dispensing cigarettes, toothpaste and other personal items to soldiers in the hospital wards where she worked, sleeping under mosquito netting, being "sacred to death" of malaria, and meeting former American POWs and seeing their deplorable condition. Van Kirk says that she now finds it hard to remember the faces of the people she served with so long ago. Ends abruptly.
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- In Collections
-
Women's Overseas Service League Oral History Project
- Copyright Status
- In Copyright
- Date
- 1982-04-01
- Interviewees
-
Van Kirk, Betty
- Subjects
-
Van Kirk, Betty
American National Red Cross
World War (1939-1945)
Medical care
Military nursing
Military participation--Female
New Guinea
- Material Type
-
Sound recordings
Interviews
- Language
-
English
- Extent
- 00:48:05
- Holding Institution
-
Vincent Voice Library
- Call Number
- Voice 32799
- Catalog Record
- http://catalog.lib.msu.edu/record=b11759564
- Permalink
- https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5b56hc81