Narrator: Mary Fane Interviewer: Lindsay Raver    LR: When did you join the military?  MF: In the early 1940's rumbles of war were eminent.  Unlike later years, patriotism ran rampant.  Everyone wanted to do his share toward the war effort.  My father participated in the block watch for "lights out" and my mother rolled bandages for the Red Cross.  With this background I was determined to find a "niche" where I could utilize any experience I had that may be useful to the war effort.  I had worked for Rockfod Life Insurance Company for several years since graduating from highschool.  When I read of the need for women to man the homefront and relieve men for active duty, I knew that I had found my place.   I enlisted in the WAVES (Women's Auxiliary Emergency Serfice).  I reported for duty on April 9, 1943 for boot camp at Waterloo, Iowa.  The Navy Utilized Iowa State University campus for training and we were billeted in dorms.  The whole experience was a revelation.  I had been working for about 4 years in an office and spending my spare time going dancing, having fun, and securing an up to date wardrobe, so this rigid routine was quite a shock.  Wearing a uniform was a new experience which I soon became very proud of.  As part of our rigorous physical training, I used muscles I never knew existed.  At that time I was 5' and weighed 110 lbs., so my new found friends had to boost me over walls and pull me along on marches.  My whole life style changed from going out at night staying until midnight to going to bed at 9:00 P.M. exhausted.     Narrator: Bettie Lerdall Interviewer: Josh Sievers    JS: When did you join the military?  BL:  Women Marines started in February of 1943 and my twentieth birthday was in July, so I went over and was signed up in July of 1943. JS:  Why did you join the military?  BL:  When World War II started, as a matter of fact, living on the coast of California, when we heard about Pearl Harbor we were sure that the next thing that was going to happen was the coast of California was going to be attacked by the Japanese.  We took all sorts of precautions like watching for planes and blacking out the windows in response. But to answer your question, why did I join the military, everyone wanted to do something for the war effort-- that was your goal.  I mean if I hadn't joined the service, perhaps I would have been a ship builder like Rosie the Riveter…I would have done something like that I think. JS:  Were you married when you entered the service?  BL: No I didn't get married until after I had gotten out of the service. JS: What branch did you join?  BL:  At that time there were the common groups which women joined. There were the WACS, the WASPS, and the WAVES, but I decided to become part of the Women Marines. JS:  Why were you attracted to the branch of military you joined, in your case the Marines?  BL:  The highest branch to me, the hardest branch to get into would be the Marine Corps. I mean their qualifications were the highest, most strenuous, with more physical requirements, and they were known for their harder testing. If you couldn't get in the Marines, you could get into the Navy and if you couldn't get into the Navy you could always get into the Army.  Well I wanted to go for the highest thing, and to me that was the Marine Corps, so when they started signing up women in February 1943, that's what I decided to do. JS:  How did your family respond to the news that you were joining the military?  BL:  My mother was very much against it, and my father wasn't even in the picture.  He was in WWI and was recalled into WWII.  He was an Ulman in the Navy, Chief Ulman.  My mother had all sorts of objections. She said you won't be able to choose you own friends, you won't be able to dress the way you want, and I mean she had crazy ideas. I eventually convinced her that that's what I wanted to do and so I was called in September 1943 and went to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for six weeks of recruit training also known as "boot camp."     Narrator: Betty Nichepor   Interviewer: Rynae Wiggins     RW: When did you join the military? Were you married or single when you joined? What branch did you join? Why did you join?  BN: 1943, single, Army Air Force. I wanted to go to Europe with my brother, he was stationed in Germany. I wanted to go to that theater but they said no. Two children from the same family couldn't go to the same area. So I went to the South Pacific & he went to Europe. I stayed in South Pacific for two years. RW: Tell me about your boot camp and training experiences? What were your first days like? What kind of uniform did you wear? Do you remember any unusual rule?  BN: Well we didn't have boot camp; the first assignment is where I got my training. It was all marching, protocols, procedures, policies and how to be accepted because we were military and how to get along with all the military people which were the boys, the Red Cross, everybody. We were just trained in that respect. [Ha-ha] It was tough: you're lost, you're away from home, and it's all new people, new procedures, new type of life, and you just couldn't have a life. O.D. [off duty uniform] which was green, and it was a jacket, skirt, and for our duty we had seersucker blouses, slacks and combat boots. And that was our uniform.   RW: Did you like it?  BN: It was fun; it was good. Rules: do not date the noncoms, and I dated and married one of them, [ha-ha] but it took a few years until I married him.   Narrator: Esther Duncan Interviewer: Elizabeth Ellery    EE:  When did you join the military?  ED:  Well after I finished beauty school then I got a job in Grove City, Pennsylvania; that's a small college town.  And met, of course, some new friends, you know, and so this one girlfriend and I decided we wanted to see the world.  So she and I joined the service.  And, I didn't tell my folks until it was Thanksgiving. I must have joined in October.  I have my stuff all here if you want to see my stuff.  I told my folks, and my older sister was pretty upset.  Because she had heard some girls got in the service and got pregnant.  [Laughs]  I said, "Dorothy, I can do that here, I don't have to be in the service to do that, if I wanted to do that!"  So I went into service then and went to Des Moines.  And I was there a little over a year I think.  My girlfriend, after she has basic training, she got shipped right out of Des Moines to something.  We both had signed up to be jeep drivers [laughs].  And of course, she worked on the farm with her dad, and I know she knew equipment a lot better than I did, and whether that helped her, I don't know.  But anyway I was still there after she left.  And, like I said, I was made an MP, you know what that is?  Military Police, so that's what I done in Des Moines. I was there quite a while, over a year, and then they started taking girls overseas.  But when I got over there they wouldn't let me be an MP.  I don't know really why. I don't even know if they told us why. So I could type, I had taken typing in high school, so I got an office job.    EE:  So was that the Army?  ED:  Army, yeah.  Yeah they called it the Women's Army Corp, you know WAC at first.  Well then they changed it later on, done away with the WAC and just said women can be in the Women's Army Corp.    EE:  Why were you attracted to the branch of military you joined?  Any specific reasons?  ED:  No I don't think there really was.   EE:  Well why didn't you go into the Navy?    ED:  Well one thing, I wouldn't go in the Navy, I don't know how to swim [laughs].  Never learned and I really, you know, just never was around water very much. I think it was just [the] Army was more convenient.    EE:  You already said your sister was a little upset.  How did the rest of your family respond?  ED:  They didn't say too much.    EE:  Tell me about boot camp and your training experience.    ED:  Well it wasn't bad at all.  Of course Des Moines isn't a lot different in weather, except the summer was very humid and I don't think we had that much humidity in Pennsylvania, very humid.  And I remember one time, a bunch of us girls put our bathing suits on and went down to the pool, and of course I just laid out in the sun, man did I get a sun tan-- I burned [laughs]!!   And oh when I put my collar and tie on it hurt SO bad, but I had to wear it, you couldn't go without it.    EE:  What were your first days in the service like?  ED: Well, it wasn't too bad, it was just different.  I had never been in the barracks before, you know all these beds. I wasn't a hard person to get along with and I got along well with other people.    EE:  Do you remember any unusual rules?  Any wild and crazy ones?  ED:  No not really, cause I didn't smoke or drink.  When I was a MP, that's what we had to do, check out all the bars.  And all through town we had to go every place and make sure the girls were behaving... a MP man did go with me. I was with him when we went around all these places at night and things like that.   Narrator: Ruth Maiden Interviewer: KC Haas     KC: When did you join the military?  RM: February 1943; and I got out February 1946. I enlisted for the duration of the war plus 6 months. We all did. We were losing the war to Japan-when I enlisted--and Germany. We were getting beaten on both shores. You guys don't have any idea what it was like, but I mean it was scary.  Japan was just beating the hell out of us in the Pacific. Bombing everything, you know and taking over the islands. Germany actually landed on Long Island. A U-Boat actually landed on Long Island during World War II. I guess, from what I remember, one of the men from the U-Boat actually got out and walked around and they figured it was not the good place to be.   KC: Were you married or single?  RM: No, I was single. I got married after the war. KC: What branch did you join?  RM: The WACS: the Woman's Army Corps. It was a branch of the army but it was for women. We were only women. We had separate barracks. We had WAC officers, WAC cooks; everything was separate from the men but we were in the Army. KC: Why did you join?  RM: We were getting the bejeezus beat out of us and I thought it would be interesting to help the country. I had been a secretary for 5-6 years before that (laughing) and I thought, "Oh boy, I'll get in the Army and find something more interesting to do." You know what they did with me? They made me a secretary!  (laughing) But I got to work for a real nice brigadier general, and a colonel and several majors. It was interesting.   KC: Tell me about your boot camp and training experience. RM: Well our basic camp was in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia which was just across the line from Chattanooga. And we didn't have complete uniforms until we left; some of us were doing KP [kitchen patrol] in our good suits---that was in early February '43 and they weren't really ready for us yet. We never did have a complete uniform. We had --(laughs)-- well, our winter uniforms were two shades of a kind of a grayish/purple and we would go around, "Would anyone like to trade a size 14 shirt or skirt for another one in the other color"…because they didn't match. We went around to the other barracks; we finally got uniforms that matched but only by swapping. And the first girls in the Army, they had the men's-you know the jackets the men wear in the winter time? They're like canvas? Well, that's what they had. We never did get a full uniform. We were supposed to have army underwear and stockings; we never did get them. There was something a little depressing about dark brown underwear….[talking about living conditions] We were segregated, completely segregated. I knew the men were segregated and I never knew until the war was almost over that there were black WACS. They were kept completely away from us. And I thought that was horrible because I'm from Northern Ohio, you know, and I thought that was awful. They were kept behind barbed wire in a separate part of the camp; and I didn't know about it until the war was nearly over. I ran into a bunch of them when the war was over; some of us got sent up to Kentucky to discharge the men who were coming back from overseas…and they had a whole area that was blocked off with barbed wire and that's where the black WACs were. It's terrible…we never got a chance to meet them. Well the Army was segregated too.   Interviewer: Andrew Ward Narrator: Anne Krizanauskas    AW: Why were you attracted to the branch of military you joined?  AK: The war came out and the WAAC (Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) was formed, and since I was very patriotic, I joined.  At that time we were permitted to join only for one year. Of course that changed the following year. It (the WAACS) was the first service, all the others came later and at first I had been doing some volunteer work at the Red Cross hoping to help with the war effort. Then when they passed the bill  permitting women in the service,  I joined the first one that was available. It was the WAAC [which became the WAC-Women's Army Corps] and the Navy followed later along with others. AW: How did your family feel about the decision to join the military?  AK: Since I didn't talk to them, I kept waiting until the recruiting office got the application. First they were surprised; then they were worried because the heard all the rumors about what happens to women in the service. Many of the rumors were immoral. All I was told was--"Remember, you're a Krizanauskas, and don't do anything that would ever change the name."  My dad was very proud though. In fact in the small town I lived in, I wondered how people knew who I was dating or something when I came home from leave. They said they would see my dad uptown and ask how I was doing and he would give them the last letter I wrote home. My letters were shared with everyone in town so I had to edit what I said after that. My dad and family were very proud.