INTERVIEWER: This is Aug. 24, 1997. We're at the home of Frankie Nolan - Frankie Ota Mae Nolan in Vacaville, California. The interviewer is her daughter-in-law, Karen Nolan, and this is the first of what we hope will be several tapes about Frankie's life. Can you tell me just ajust a little bit, briefly, about where you were born and a little bit about your childhood.

FRANKIE: I was born in Dublin, Texas, which is in Erath County, about the center of Texas. My father worked for the city of Dublin at that time. I was about 4 years old when he decided that he wanted to try farming, so he resigned from the job in Dublin and we moved out to a farm in the eastern part of the state of Texas. Of course, that was quite a traumatic thing for me because I was sure that we were going to the end of the earth. I had lived in this little town where I could run and do whatever I wanted to do and walk down to the stores and stuff and riding out into this big country to the farm was just terrible. I know my mother used to tell me—of course, this sounds sort of .... What's the word I want about blacks? ... anyway, there was a black couple that used to walk down the railroad track sort of in back of where we lived. And when we lived in Dublin, because I'm so light-skinned [Editor'snote: Frankie is a red-head] ... They [the black couple] would come home in the evening with something in a big bag hanging over their back. And my mother used to tell me they picked up little girls who didn't wear their bonnets. Of course, we didn't have any blacks living in our town so these people came in from somewhere else. She said they were picking up little girls who didn't wear their bonnets. We wore sun bonnets all the time. I remember telling her when we got onto this farm, "Well I don't think even black people would come out here to get little girls." [CHUCKLES.] So anyway, I went through that.

And then we moved later to another farm, that was in Kaufman, the name of the town was Kaufman. I started elementary school there. We didn't have kindergarten in those times, and besides my birthday coming when it did I wasn't eligible for kindergarten. So I went to first grade. The first day of school we had to walk into school—we lived on the edge of town there. I remember walking into this classroom and all the little kids looked at me and looked at me and I went walking in and I told them who I was and that I was a new student and that's about all I remember. I don't even remember about the teacher or anything there. Anyway, from then we moved around to various little places and I went to different schools. I ended up going up to a school called Center, which is a rural, two-room school, and I finished ...

INTERVIEWER: Where was that?

FRANKIE: It's out of Wills Point, Texas. I finished the 7th ... 8th ... I guess the 7th grade there.

INTERVIEWER: Let's stop at that point for just a second.

OK, let's continue here.

FRANKIE: Anyway, I graduated from 7th grade there. In fact, I was valedictorian of my class. I think there were about three people in my class, but I got to make the valedictory address to the graduates. My father had real good penmanship, so the school usually took all the certificates and everything for him to sign, or put the names and stuff on them so. I was really quite proud of the fact that my father put my name on my certificate. I don't know whatever happened to it. Somewhere down the line it's gotten misplaced. I don't think I have any pieces of his signature, but he wrote a very beautiful script.

After I finished that year, there was no high school around for me to go to except in Wills Point. Previous to my coine, my brother and my older sister had had housekeeping rooms in Wills Point and had cone to Wills Point High School. But there was no place for me to go at that time so there was no way I was going to be able to go to high school there and they couldn't figure out what they were ooing to do with me. We were nine miles out in the country and I couldn't walk and I didn't have a horse... we did have horses that I could have ridden but they didn't want me riding a horse through the bad weather and stuff. That particular summer one of the cousins came out to visit. Her husband worked for the railroad so she said to me when she got ready to go home, "Why don't you go home with me?" She was traveling on a railroad pass. She said, "It won't cost you anything to go." So I got on the train and rode back to Dublin with them and stayed with her for a short period of time. Then we went over to Brownwood and visited my aunt that I'm named for—her name was Aunt Ola—and when I got over there she wanted to know what I was going to do about going to school and I said, "I really don't know because there's no... I don't know how I'm going to manage to go to school." She said, "Well, why don't you live here with me and go to the local school?" So I said, "Well, I'll do that." I wrote to my mother and asked her if it was OK and she said fine. Anyway, I started school in Brownwood then, I started in junior high in Brownwood, and stayed there until I grad... Well, I didn't stay there until I graduated. I took a year off and went down to Southern Texas, to Placedo Junction, which is down near the Gulf. I took a couple of courses. I took geometry and I think Spanish and a couple of other classes down there. I was living with a cousin. Anyway, I stayed down there for a year and got some credits toward my high school and then I went back to Brownwood the next year and graduated. While I was down in Placedo Junction I had made application to nursing schools. So I had letters of acceptance from a couple of them. One of them was from Scott White in Temple, Texas, the other was from City-County in Fort Worth. I was accepted at both schools.

When I graduated from high school, I had been doing library work. The head librarian told my mother, "If you can possibly manage it, I'd like to see you send her to college to get a degree in library science because she's very talented in doing library work." My mother, when I told her I had applied to these schools of nursing, she tried to influence me not to go to nursing. She said she thought the work was too hard for me, and if she could possibly figure a way that we could finance college at that time, she would see that I got to go to college. Anyway, it didn't work out. I went on to nursing school. But I got a job as a waitress. Some friends had a little café near the highway there. And they discovered oil in that little community.

INTERVIEWER: Where?

FRANKIE: Placedo Township. They discovered oil there and of course that was a big oil boom. So all the oilers were coming in and I was working in this little café. They'd come in for chili and coffee and rolls or whatever. Of course, at that time I was probably about 15 or 16 years old. They were all pinching me as I'd go by and getting real fresh with me. So I thought, I've got to do something better than this. I can't put up with this kind of a life! [CHUCKLES] I didn't realize when I got into nursing I was going to be doing much the same kind of work.

Anyway, I made that move. I saved enough money from my salary ... in fact that was the year they passed Social Security. I remember I was making such a little salary—I can't remember what it was—but I know they took almost half of it to pay my Social Security, which left me with very little money. But I did save enough money to buy a uniform and shoes and pay for my first textbooks to go into nursing school. From then on, when I worked in the hospital they paid us. We went to school during the day and then we worked eiaht hours in the hospital with patients. That was our practical experience. They paid us $5 a month for the work we did there. I always had to save my money for that...

I guess I skipped something. I skipped the fact that my father died when I was in Brownwood. Then I was pretty much on my own to do whatever I had to do because he didn't provide anything for us.

Anyway, I saved my money to buy books and uniforms as they wore out or as I used them up. My $5. And I graduated from nursing school. When I araduated from nursing school, our director of nurses said, "Well..."—of course, at that time they were already beginning to have rumors of a war coming up. There was a lot of things happening and they were passing all these laws about inducting Civil Service people, I mean, what do you call it?

INTERVIEWER: Drafting?

FRANKIE: Drafting. Yea. So the director of nurses said, "I think that in view of the fact there's probably a war coming, I think any real practical minded nurse should sign -up for Red Cross service. So I joined the Red Cross. At the time, I wanted to go into the Navy because I heard the Navy paid better and gave you promotions more liberally than the Army did. But because I'd had an appendectomy while I was in nursing school, they wouldn't accept me in the Navy. That's how rigid their rules were at that time.

INTERVIEWER: Can we back up forjust a second. Why did you want to go into nursing? Because you didn't want to do...

FRANKIE: I didn't want to be a waitress any more.

INTERVIEWER: Right. But why nursing?

FRANKIE: Because I didn't have any money to go anyplace else and I didn't know how to go about getting ajob to work my way through college.

INTERVIEWER: OK. But that's the other question. How did you pay for nursing school? Did you pay your tuition?

FRANKIE: Well, I saved. I only had to pay, I think I had to pay $60 for tuition. And that was all. Just for the entrance. Then they paid us $5 a month.

INTERVIEWER: Basically your education was free.

FRANKIE: Yea. Well, our labor was free also.

INTERVIEWER: Right. So it was a trade off.

FRANKIE: We had very good instruction in nursing. Because it was a charity hospital we were training in, all of our staff doctors were our teachers. Our staff doctors were board-licensed doctors at that time, very highly qualified. It was very efficient. We had very good instruction. All of our teachers were excellent and they were very highly respected doctors in the community.

INTERVIEWER: The year you graduated from nursing school, was it 1940?

FRANKIE: 1940. In the meantime I had already signed up with the Red Cross, designating the Army as preference. I just saw on my papers here that it was Nov. 6 that I was accepted

INTERVIEWER: Actually you went in Feb. 19....

INTERVIEWER: So you went into Camp Bowie [Ed. Note: Located outside Brownwood, Texas] on Feb. 15, 1941.

FRANKIE: Yea, and it was a brand-new camp. They'd just been drafting alot of guys to come into service and they opened this hospital. It was mud and rain all over the place. I can remember going up a hill with mud all over us, trying to cet up to the station hospital which was on a hillside. It was quite an experience. But anyway, it worked out to be OK because I had a nice chief nurse there and she was a very good friend to me through the years.

INTERVIEWER: And her name?

FRANKIE: Inez Hulse. She had been called back from Hawaii - what's the big hospital over there? Oh, I can't think of the name of it. Anyway, it's a big, famous general hospital in Hawaii. She had been called back from there to be chief nurse at Camp Bowie. So she was very good to me and kind of took me under her wing. She kind of steered me the right way and tried to get me to ... in fact, she encouraged me to join the regular Army Nurse Corps, so I did.

INTERVIEWER: You were coming in actually as a Red Cross nurse?

FRANKIE: Reserve, yea.

INTERVIEWER: So when you came in were you in basic training?

FRANKIE: There was no such thing as basic training at that time. We just went into the hospital and they told us how to do things and we did them that way. I was fortunate enough to have my first officer I had to work with was called Lt. Oliver. He was garaduate of Baylor University. I remember the first day I went on the ward with him, he came and I told him, "I'm your new nurse reporting for duty." He said, "Where did you go to school?" I told him, "City-County in Fort Worth," and he said, "Oh, we'll get along all right because I know that's a good training school." So from then on we never bad any problems. We got along real good.

INTERVIEWER: What ward were you on?

FRANKIE: It was a surgical ward. That's the first time I'd ever heard of having patients get out of bed. I had had an appendectomy when I was in nursing school. My surgeon wouldn't let me out of bed for 14 days. So the first thing when I went in with Dr. Oliver, we had a patient go in for an appendectomy—a young fellow—and he wrote the orders for me to get that patient up in eight hours. I said to him, "Get him up in eight hours? Won't everything fall out and eviscerate?" (That means opening up and failing out into your hands.) My surgeon had told me a story about a black guy he'd had as a patient—because he caught me getting out of bed one time when I was supposed to be bedfast - and he said, "I heard a nurse screaming and I went and there was this big black guy with all of his guts hanging out in his hands." That scared me so bad I didn't try to get out of bed again until [the 14 days] was over. They sent me on convalescent leave, so I missed almost a month of work, so I had to make that up at the end of my training. After I graduated I had to stay in as a newly graduate. But I didn't met paid as a graduate. I just worked to finish up my training. I worked relieving the nurses. In fact, I remember I was relieving the emergency room nursing supervisor at the time when our grades from the state board examination came in. The chief nurses office was in the hallway opposite the emergency room. She came out in the hall yelling, "Oh, you all passed! You all passed!" So that was quite an exciting time, that we'd passed our state board exams. Anyway, I stayed there. They hired me as a head nurse on a medical floor. I stayed in there until I got called to active duty. I think my pay was $37.50 a month. One of my roommate's and I had taken an apartment near the hospital there so we could walk to and from work. They did our uniforms for us and we had one meal there when we were on duty. The rest of the time, the $37 paid our rent and our expenses for the apartment, for food and so forth.

They built a new hospital at the time. While I was on leave, they had finished the new hospital. This was City-County Hospital. They named it Peter Smith Hospital for some famous guy who had been in the county. Opened it up and it was brand-new. It was beautiful. It was just gorgeous. I came back from my convalesce-at leave after my appendectomy and walked into this brand-new, beautiful hospital. We had all the newer, state-of-the-art equipment to work with. It was just gorgeous. I really enjoyed that. At that time, I relieved the OB supervisor and the surgical supervisor while they took their vacations. Then I was relieved of duty and went on regular assignment on the medical floor, 3 to 11 shift. Of course, on the 15th of February I had to leave to go to the Army. I went out to Camp Bowie...

INTERVIEWER: How did you get there? Drive? Fly?

FRANKIE: Well, it was only about 75 miles, but I think I rode the bus. I can't remember. But I rode the bus out from Brownwood out to the station hospital. No, not to the station hospital but to the base, then I had to walk up the hill to the station hospital to report in.

INTERVIEWER: Did you get ... the orders to report, did you get them in the mail?

FRANKIE: Oh, yea. I got a letter.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you have between the time you not the letter until you had to be there?

FRANKIE: I can't remember exactly. I think maybe 14 days or something like that. But you had to be pretty fast.

INTERVIEWER: And everybody—that was sort of common at this time?

FRANKIE: This base was filling up with all kinds of recruits. National Guard units and all that kind of stuff. It was just a big tent city. The whole area of the valley was just covered with tents of different outfits moving in. And of course, we had all the childhood diseases that people hadn't gotten. People were coming in with measles and mumps. And at that time I remember one of my patients happened to be, oh, what was his name, "Up Front." Bill Mauldin. He was with a unit from Oklahoma. They had come down on maneuvers with our people from Camp Bowie and so when he got down there he found out he could get into the hospital. I don't know if he came in with measles first. Of course, they knew when they came in with those diseases, they got on quarantine for a period of time. So they were usually in 14 days and then they'd be released. So Bill Mauldin came through. He finished up his 14 days. He went out after his quarantine, he came right back in with a bad cold. He came in and out of the hospital. Every time we'd dismiss him, or discharge him, he'd be back very soon. During that time, of course he turned out to be quite a famous guy. He did a thing with the Army newspaper. He went to Europe. Anyway, before he left, he took some old scratch pads we had around the ward and he did some cartoons with me in them. Me doing various things. I took those home to my mother when I reported and put them in an old trunk at home. They got destroyed so I don't have any evidence that I knew Bill Mauldin. Anyway, he had a friend named Red Morgan. And the two of them ... one of them would come in and I'd see the one guy ... Bill Mauldin would come in and I'd say, "Where's Red?" because the two of them came together all the time. They were sort of my pals. They were really kind of cute guys and I enjoyed them. But anyway, it was kind of nice to know I knew a guy who turned out to be a celebrity. I guess he's still... in fact, when I went on the cruise up north, I met a guy from Oklahoma City. He had the Bill Mauldin museum there. He was very interested in that. He told me every so often Bill Mauldin checks in with me to see how things are going. So I told him "Tell him you ran into his old Army nurse on this cruise." He said, "I surely will do that," but I never heard anything. This guy was judge in Oklahoma City and I never heard anything more from him. I don't know what happened to him. Anyway, that's the story of my exposure to Bill Mauldin.

INTERVIEWER: So he just came in as one of the many..

FRANKIE: He was just a recruit. He was just an Army guy. But he was a good cartoonist. So he drew cartoons for, I can't remember the name of that Army paper...

INTERVIEWER: Stars and Stripes?

FRANKIE: Stars and Stripes. And in fact I think somewhere we still have a book he wrote, "Up Front." We've been hanging onto that all these years. Of course, Andy [Ed. Note: Frankie's husband, Andrew H. Nolan] served in that area, so he knew more about Bill Mauldin than I did in later years. Of course, the fact that I had met him as a young recruit really impressed Andy. He thought that was something great. Anyway, I stayed in Camp Bowie for—I can't remember the exact date. I'll get it here.

INTERVIEWER: While your searching for your dates, tell me a little about what life was like at Camp Bowie. What was your reaular day like? Where did you stay?

FRANKIE: Well, l'll tell you during that period of time we had barracks we lived in. They were right alongside the hospital. It was one of those wooden cantonment hospitals. [Ed. Note: Frankie identified a " cantonment " camp, or hospital, as wooden buildings connected by ramps.] We had ramps that went from the barracks into the wards. So we walked through these ramps to get into the wards. And long wards, you know. I did a session of night duty there. When you had to make rounds of all those, it seemed like you walked miles. I made those rounds at least three times a night.

INTERVIEWER: About how many patients did you have on a ward?

FRANKIE: Oh there were about 3O. l think there were 3O total in each ward. They had a big day room in the back. At one time, they had segregation. They had the blacks at the back of the ward and the white guys up front. When I went down to New Orleans, my commanding officer there was a guy from one of the Carolinas or someplace—I can't remember now which area he was from—but I remember when he came in to inspect my ward one time, he said, "I can tell you're from the South." I said, "How come?" He said, "Well, I see you've got all the black patients in the back of the ward." I didn't think anything ... I just thought that was the way you did it. I thought everybody did that everywhere. That was just one of those things that happened. His name was Col. Mudgett. I later happened to ran into him when he was commander of a hospital unit over in New Guinea. I was dating a first lieutenant in the field artillery. They had as over one time for a party and here comes Col. Mudgett in. It was nice to have a reunion with him. I never saw him again after that. At that same time I worked with the people from, what's the big clinic... what's that famous clinic?

INTERVIEWER: Mayo?

FRANKIE. Mayo, yea. Charles Mayo was commanding officer.

INTERVIEWER: This was in Brownwood?

FRANKIE: No, this was in New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: You're jumping ahead, Frankie!

FRANKIE: Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped Brownwood.

INTERVIEWER: We're still back in Brownwood!

FRANKIE: Well, anyway. While we were in Brownwood, for a period of time there weren't very many patients. We worked 7 to 1 one day and 1 to 7 the next day, so we got a whole half-day off. We had lots of things we could do. They entertained us greatly.

INTERVIEWER: Entertained you how?

FRANKIE: Oh, with the different kinds of parties and picnics and taking us on dates, and so forth. Of course, I had relatives living in Brownwood so there was no problem with things to do because they'd come pick me up whenever I wanted to go somewhere. So that worked out pretty nice. (I was looking to see when I went there ... ) I remember Inez Hulse got transferred. She went to Washinaton, D.C., as the head of the procurement for the nurses, the Army nurses.

INTERVIEWER: She was the one who persuaded you to go into the regular Army?

FRANKIE: Yea, but that was while I was still in Camp Bowie. But then she got relieved and went to Washington. In the meantime, we had Pearl Harbor. And when Pearl Harbor happened, I was working as a mess officer in the nurse's mess. At that time we had our food separate. We had our mess hall separate, where we had our meals. We had a mess allowance that came in with our regular pay. That went to the mess officer. I had never purchased any food or cooked a meal or done anything. When she assigned me to that, I said, "I hope you know what you're doing because I've never bought any groceries or cooked a meal and I never planned a meal." She said, "Oh, you'll learn." So I went over to the mess hall and I had this other regular Army nurse who was at the mess hall at the time. She taught me quite a bit and then she got transferred back to Fort Sam Houston. I was working over there as a mess officer at the time of Pearl Harbor. The chief nurse had gone back to San Antonio to visit some old friends, Inez Hulse had gone back to visit some of her old Army buddies at Fort Sam Houston for the weekend and she said, "I'm going to leave you as acting chief nurse." I said, "Well, I hope nothing happens that I need to make big decisions because I don't know what I'm doing." She said, "Well, if anything happens, there'll be someone around to help you." So in the early morning I was going across—my barracks were right alongside of the mess hall—so I got up and was walking across from my barracks to the mess hall and I heard all the radios blaring like crazy all over the place. I walked into the mess hall and they were talkino about Pearl Harbor. I thought, "Oh, God, this is going to be it."

In the afternoon, they sent a TWX from Washington that they needed 15 nurses to go to Hawaii immediately. So I took it upon myself to post a sign--up sheet for people to volunteer to go. I put my name on the head of the list. When the chief nurse came back, she said, "What are you doina putting, your name on that list to go to Hawaii. You don't want to go there." I said, "Why not?" She said, "You're going into the middle of a war." I said, "That's what I joined up for, I thought I'd be of service to somebody." She said, "I don't think I can spare you right now. I'm going to take your name off the list." My roommate from nursing school was there at the same time and she went in to sign up on the sheet and the chief nurse said to her, "What do you want to go there for?" And she said, "Well, my roommate's doing and she can't go without me. I've got to go with her." She started crying. Anyway, they put her name on the list and sent her to Hawaii and I stayed! So then they had another list going to Alaska. I put my name on that one. The chief nurse took it off that one. They wanted 15 nurses to go to Alaska. I put my name on that list. She called me into the office and said, "I don't want to see your name on any more lists going anywhere. You stay here until I tell you it's OK to go." So then she got transferred to Washington. I wanted to get out of Camp Bowie. I figured there's lots of stuff going on that I don't know about and I'd like to see what's happening in other areas. So there was an [order] came in for a group of nurses to go down to the Port of embarkation down in New Orleans. I thought, "That would be interesting to go to" so I signed up for that. I had only been down in Port of Embarkation for about a week and I had a letter from Inez Hulse and she said, "I'm amazed at you. I thought I told you not to sign up for any more transfers. I went to my office the other day and here's a request for a transfer to go to New Orleans. I was working on transferring you to Walter Reed in Washington. Now I can't do it because I can't make you transfer in just a short period, so you'll have to stay there for a while."

So in the meantime, they called us into service. But I stayed in New Orleans for I don't know how long. A couple of years. A year-and-a-half maybe. Then they sent us to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma. [Ed. Note: It was outside Muskogee, Okla.] What they did was start putting nurses out to go to different units to fill out overseas...

INTERVIEWER: Whoa. Back up. Back up. Let's talk about the Port of Embarkation in New Orleans. [Ed. Note: Frankie was transferred to the Port of embarkation in August 1942.]

FRANKIE: Oh that was quite a place. That was during all the riots.

INTERVIEWER: What riots?

FRANKIE: When the blacks were deciding they didn't want to be discriminated against any more and they had all that uprising in the South. You probably don't even remember anything about that.

INTERVIEWER: If it was in the 1940s I don't.

[LAUGH] FRANKIE: Oh, yea, well Jim wasn't even bom yet.

INTERVIEWER: None of us were born!

FRANKIE: I hadn't even thouaht about that! Well, anyway, it oot to be pretty dangerous down there. This Port of embarkation handled an awful lot of people from quartermaster corps and they were mostly black because they were handling loading all the ships and all that stuff, that heavy-duty stuff. Our hospital was stationed on the banks of the Mississippi just outside of, well I think it was Metairie or whatever. There's a little town out of New Orleans. Anyway, it was under the Huey Long Bridge. You know who Huey Long was?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

FRANKIE: Well, there's a big Huey Long Bridge across the Mississippi River there. Our hospital was on the banks of the Mississippi. There again, I went into a hospital that was just opened. We used to go into the bathroom and sit down and little green frogs would jump up and hit you in the fanny while you were trying to go to the potty.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

FRANKIE: Because it was so new, they just came in from the outside. And, of course you know, New Orleans was very wet. Those little green frogs were all over the place. They'd get in through the pipes and they'd get in through the toilets. But we had a good time in New Orleans because there were so many interesting things and places to go. Of course, being hicks that we were from the country, we didn't know anything. Of course, the soldiers—the military guys were all coming around wanting to take us out. They wanted any nurse they could get to go with them to go out, to date. So we were quite popular. We got to go into a lot of places in New Orleans and do a lot of fun things.

INTERVIEWER: Such as?

FRANKIE: Well, go to dinner and dancing and different shows.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of shows?

FRANKIE: Well, anything that was going on. Mostly we went to a lot of places where they had jazz. But they didn't have very many stage shows or that kind of stuff going on at that time. tn

INTERVIEWER: Did they have burlesque?

FRANKIE: No. At least, I don't think they did. But I was dating a guy—this guy was from Oklahoma, too. His name was King. I can't remember what his first name was. But he was one of those very protective kind of guys. I would suggest I wanted to go somewhere that was a little shady. "Oh, I don't want you to go there. You don't need to go there." So I didn't get to go to too many of those kinds of places. But we did go out to eat a lot and visit a lot of night spots and dancing a lot.

INTERVIEWER: And what did you have? What kind of food did you eat?

FRANKIE: Oh, mainly French. The French element was big in New Orleans. Of course, a lot of seafood, too. I know I used to love to aet frog legs down there. They had a wonderful place out of New Orleans where we used to go— I can't remember the name of the place now—but they had really good frog legs. I used to order frog legs and french fries and eat those. They were good. Mv dad had told me years ago about eating frog legs, but I'd never tasted them until I got down there. But I enjoyed those. And of course we had all other kinds of ...

INTERVIEWER: Other kinds of seafood?

OK

FRANKIE: One of our favorite places when we'd go into town to shop—we had a bus that ran from out at our station into New Orleans, so we used to ride the bus in to shop—and one of our favorite places was one of the department stores there that had a dining room. We used to go in and order French remoulade and a lot of different kinds of French-type food. It was delicious. And then we went to Brennan's and a lot of those famous old places for meals. There was another place called the Port of Two Sisters. We used to like to go there for lunch, and we'd eat out in the patio area. It was really kind of—it was so different for us. And then when we'd go out on a date, if we danced late we'd go down to the French Market and have that coffee and beignets. You know, that French coffee. Of course, it took quite a bit of getting used to with that chicory. They had a lot of chicory. That was the first time I heard of anybody askino, whether you wanted white or black coffee. You had to order by whether you wanted white or black, and of course the white was half cream and half coffee. The beicnets were good. Then we'd have to go home. We'd have to catch the late bus. I think we got back about midnight. Then when they began to have all these uprisings, we had so many black people out at the Port of Embarkation, which was across the street from where our hospital was - across the highway from where our hospital was located. It got to be kind of dangerous. I was assigned as night supervisor and I remember one time they'd send an MP over to walk the rounds with me, when I'd be making the rounds of the hospital. I'd be walking around with two armed guards on each side of me, walking around to check the different wards to see if everything was doing all right, if they were having any problems. They had a lot of fights and stuff down at the bus stop, so they got so they didn't want us to go anyplace without an armed guard. If you left the base and came in after night, they'd hail you from the guard house and say, "Halt, who goes there?" You'd have to identify yourself, then you'd have to step forward to be recognized. That was quite an exciting time.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of mission was the port of embarkation? Where people were going overseas?

FRANKIE: Yes. That's where they were loading up to send them down to the south.

INTERVIEWER: So what kinds of patients were you seeinc,? Were you giving immunizations?

FRANKIE: Well, we didn't have very many patients at first. I worked in an ENT sections and a lot of them were setting ...

INTERVIEWER: What's that?

FRANKIE: Ear, Nose and Throat. A lot of them were getting tonsillectomies and that kind of stuff before they went overseas. But the one time they sent a bunch of people from one of those French islands down off of South America. Anyway, they were all black and they spoke nothing but French. They had a shipload of them. There were 40 that came in at one time.

INTERVIEWER: Haiti?

FRANKIE: No. I can't think of the name. Some of these names get away from me real easy.But anyway, the chief nurse ordered us then, "You have to be available. Be on call." These guys all came in loaded with worms. They had intestinal worms. So the first thing we bad to do was give them worming. They had all these big pills we had to give them. Trying to tell those Frenchmen how to take those pills was something else! [CHUCKLES] We kept those guys for a couple of days. A lot of them were mental patients, so we had to go through all their barracks bags and list everything they had in them and have them sign so they couldn't say we were keeping some of their stuff from them.

INTERVIEWER: What were they there for?

FRANKIE: Some of them were mental patients.

INTERVIEWER: Why were they coming to your hospital?

FRANKIE: Well, I think that little island was being threatened with invasion. Because every time somebody said boo— like people off the coast of California here at that time, they reported—it was being threatened, so they pulled them out and brought them back to us. Anyway, that was quite a time.

INTERVIEWER: Let's call this the end of tape one. side one, and turn it over.

INTERVIEWER: This is Tape 1, Side 2 of our Aug. 24th, 1997, interview of Frankie Nolan. OK, at the Port of Embarkation, your ward officer ...

FRANKIE: My ward officer was a doctor named Connell from Ohio, I don't remember the town. But that's the first time I'd met any Yankee, which we thought was real strange, because they were all Yankees to us. Because they were from the East.

INTERVIEWER: So was that a real distinction then? Did they seem foreign to you?

FRANKIE: Well, sure, they were foreign to us. They even spoke differently. There was a great difference in the language that we used, because we had that old Texas drawl and they all spoke with that clipped, Eastern accent. So it was quite different. But this Dr. Connell for some reason he liked me very much. One time he went duck hunting and he and his wife prepared the ducks and had me over for dinner at their home in New Orleans. It was the first time I ever ate duck. I never really cared much for it, but she did do a good job. It was a real fancy duck dish. I can't remember what the name of it was. But he thought that was really great that they were doing something really spectacular. But then from ... let's see what else happened at the Port of Embarkation. Well, all that uprising. That was kind of a problem because we had to have all of those armed guards around and they had armed guards at the entrance to our hospital. But I will tell you this. I was in charge of some kind of funds and we bought a bunch of, we had a one of the rooms over one of the hospital wards that we took over and made into a nurses lounge. We bought some real nice furniture and put it in there. There was a doctor also from the ENT department. His name was Dr. Searamouza. He was from New York City and he was Bing Crosby's throat doctor. He was a good dancer. He used to like to take me dancing. He told me, when I went away to go to Camp Gruber to go overseas, he told me, "If you ever come to New York, look me up." So when I went back to New York years later, after I was martied - Andy and I went back to see Aunt Jo - and I looked in the phone book, I couldn't find him listed anywhere. I'm sure by that time... I don't know what happened to him. He might have even done overseas and might not have made it back. Anyway, he was Bing Crosby's throat doctor, and he explained to me about why Bing Crosby had such an unusual sinaing voice: Because he had a little tumor on his voice box that gave him that extra little quality to his voice. We had another guy—and I swear, every time I see Tony Bennett I think he must be the same guy—he had a long Italian name. He was a young kid and he had very bad middle-ear infections. He had a beautiful voice, though, and Dr. Searamouza played the piano so this kid would come over and sing. He got discharged, of course, because of his middle-ear infection. He went back to New York City. Then when I heard about Tony Bennett, he sounded so much like that kid I said, "I wonder if that Tony Bennett could have another name?" Sure enough, he does have another name, but it wasn't the same as this little fellow had. But that [Port of embarkation] was the place, too, that we had some big, heavy rainstorms, with thunder and lightning and all that stuff, and at that time I was very frightened of lightning. So I had a couple of guys that were on my ward, a couple of patients, and they had seen me when I was there on the ward and they'd have lightning and thunder and I'd sort of cringe. They got to the point they'd walk up to the ramp—where the nurses quarters ramp led into the main ramp to the hospital—and if we were having a thunderstorm, they'd meet me there at the door and say, "We wanted to walk you down because we knew you'd be afraid of this thunderstorm." But they both got discharged and went back to a couple of little towns outside of Boston. For a long time, I'd get a package about every week, I'd act a little box of Fannie Farmer's chocolate in the mail from one or the other. They took turns sending me. I think Lowell, is that outside of Boston?

INTERVIEWER: Yes

FRANKIE: I think that's where they were from. I don't even remember their names, but they'd send me a little box of Fannie Farmer's candy. I thought that was pretty fancy. And you know, Fannie Farmer's is one of the best chocolates there is anywhere. I think it's one of the better ones. It even beats See's. Of course, maybe that was because that was my first exposure to really ... the only chocolates I'd ever had was the fudge we made at home. I'd never had any store-bought chocolates to speak of.

INTERVIEWER: You were still living in the barracks at the time?

FRANKIE: Oh, yea. We lived in barracks afl the time.

INTERVIEWER: And the barracks had ... how many people were in the room?

FRANKIE: Oh, only one. We had private rooms. We shared a big shower room—toilet and showers all in one big bathroom. ... That was another thing. My first exposure ... all of that experience was quite a telling thing, an impressive thing, to me. We had a girl from Connecticut. I think her name was Getz or something, I'm not sure. But she was kind of a funny-looking girl. But anyway, she slept nude all the time and she'd go walking down the hafl without a stitch of clothes on. Of course, we'd been very sheltered and protected and very private with our body and so forth. We thought that was pretty outlandish. Then when we got ordered to go overseas, one of the orders stated that you must wear pajamas when you were sleeping on the ships so that if we had to abandon ship you'd have some clothes on. [LAUGHTER]. I thought, "Well, that's very appropriate." She got sent to Europe and I never heard anymore from her so I don't know whatever happened to her. But I know she was from Connecticut.

INTERVIEWER: Let's talk a little bit about the job of nursing.

FRANKIE: What we did was we did every thing for the patients. Every patient got a backrub before they went to bed at night. That was one of our regular chores was to go in and rub their backs and put them down for the night. All through that period of time—I always remembered this because when we were little kids and we wet the bed, that was a big deal; everybody got all upset about the wet bed—and so they found out some of the GIs— everybody wanted out of the service—so they found out they were discharging patients who were bed-wetters. So they'd send in patients. They'd come in and tell you, "I'm a bed-wetter." We'd admit them and we'd have to observe them. We'd have to get them up at night and see that they went to the bathroom every so often and we had to list the number of times they wet their beds during the night. They had to prove that they were really bed-wetters before they got discharged from the service. That was a big deal.

Of course we gave their medicines and their shots, you know, the regular stuff that everybody else does. We had a lot of accidents all through that period. The guys who had cars—of course, there weren't too many down in New Orleans who had cars because there was already gas rationing and nobody could afford to bring a car down there—but the guys were always getting out in accidents and stuff. A lot of them got in accidents in military vehicles, so we had a lot of accident cases. We did a lot of heavy-duty work. We bathed them and we cleaned them, we fed them, served their food and saw they got everything they needed. When they went to bed at night, we went in and rubbed down their backs. Later on, when I was in New Guinea, I had a patient—in fact, the reason it sticks in my memory was it was the day I developed dinghy fever, and I knew that I felt very warm. But I was working on an officers ward and I was getting my patients ready for bed and there was this Navy lieutenant who was in the ward and I went back to him and was rubbing his back and he said, "I think I better get out of this bed and put you down here. Your hands fell like fire." He said, "This is so unusual. I've been in Navy hospitals and Navy nurses don't do this." He said, "You guys really take good care of us here." Of course, that impressed him, getting a good rubdown.

INTERVIEWER.- In other words, you guys were using some massage therapy.

FRANKIE: Well, we had a class in massage and I learned how to do all kinds of back massage and all the legs and the abdomen and the feet and the whole thing. But I never really followed through with it and now I can't do any massage at all. I can't even massage my own hands. [Ed. Note: Frankie suffers from arthritis.] But we had a whole class in massage therapy in our nursing school.

INTERVIEWER: So let's go on to Oklahoma. Did you apply to go there?

FRANKIE: Well, they started pulling nurses out to fill out complements that were going overseas, to man the hospitals overseas. They kept pulling them out of New Orleans, and I kept thinking, "When is my turn coming?" Finally, it was down to four of us left. The chief nurse called us in and said, "You're going to get your turn. We've got orders to send you to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma." So my friend, Janie Ryan, was kind of courting a mess sergeant at that time and she went out on a date with him that evening, before we were to leave the next morning. She was quite a character anyway. She'd put off her laundry until she got home. When she got home from the date, she had to go wash her clothes to get them ready to go. So she left New Orleans with a bag of wet clothes, for Camp Gruber. But when she got to Camp Gruber, it was so hot that it didn't take long for them to dry. [Ed. Note: This would have been in August 1943.

INTERVIEWER: How did you get there? Did you take a train?

FRANKIE: We took a train. We were on a train. And when we got to ... we went to this little town, I think it was called Briggs or Bragg, it was in New Mexico [Ed. Note: Frankie later corrected this; it was in Oklahoma; an atlas indicates there is a Braggs, Okla. in the area], but that was where the train stopped. We got off and stepped out into the sand up to your ankles practically, and it was hot you could hardly breathe. Anyway, they picked us up there and took us out to Camp Gruber Station Hospital. We were stationed there for quite a while, several months, before we were... That's when we beaan our training for going overseas.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me about that. What kinds of things did they train you to do?

FRANKIE: Well, we didn't do anything there except take care of patients, but they trained us in Army routines and so forth. What to expect overseas and all that kind of stuff. We didn't do very much. We more or less just filled in spots at the hospital as the chief nurse had need for us, because we were on what they called TDY—temporary duty. So we didn't take any responsible positions in the hospital at all. Of course, we had a lot of play time there. I later met a guy in Wyoming that had been stationed in Camp Gruber and he said, "I remember you from Camp Gruber. In fact, I used to dance with you at the officers club." ... The only thing about it was I know it was awfully hot there. What we'd do is we'd go into the shower and take a cold shower with our nightgown on and then we'd wet the sheets and put them down on the bed and we'd lay down and sleep until we dried out. It would get so hot - it would be way into the hundreds - it would be so hot you could hardly ... Of course, coming out of New Orleans where it was always damp and cool and wet, it really was hard on us.

INTERVIEWER: Let's back up a section and let me ask you about Janie Ryan. I know she's been a friend of yours for a long time....

FRANKIE: Well, she came into Camp Bowie the same day I did.

INTERVIEWER: That's where you met her?

FRANKIE: Oh, we went through a lot together. We used to travel together. In fact, I don't know how we ended up in the last two that were pulled. She was a surgical supervisor. We were the last two—there was another girl from Pennsylvania, and I can't remember who the fourth girl was who was left. The four of us went overseas together. When we got orders from Camp Gruber, we were put on a troop train and we came across on a troop train through the country. Ed. Note: This would have been in September 1943.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you come to?

FRANKIE: San Francisco, or to Pittsburg.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me about that. Tell me about the troop train.

FRANKIE: It was kind of a real experience. They had the mess hall set up on the train. When they'd come through the—we had Pullman's—and when they'd come through the Pullman you had to have your mess kit ready. They'd dip the food out and put it on and you'd eat there. Anyway, we came all the way across the country. When you'd stop—sometimes we'd have to pull over and wait for a train to go through, you know—so there were always people down there to greet us. The troop trains were quite the thing for people to go down to meet them and have cookies and stuff for us. I remember particularly stopping in Arizona. The Indians were there. It was the first time I'd ever seen any Indians, and I was quite impressed with them. We went through that...

INTERVIEWER: Did they bring you anything?

FRANKIE: I don't think the Indians brought us any cookies, but the USO people brought cookies. I've heard a lot of people talk about taking cookies down to the troop trains. Sometimes we'd stop for an hour or so. They'd say, "We're going to be here for an hour, so you have that much time off the train." So you'd go down to the town. Most of the time I didn't bother to go off of the train. I wasn't very venturesome, I guess. I stayed mostly on the train.

INTERVIEWER: Were you traveling as all the nurses? Or were you all mixed up?

FRANKIE: I think there were a lot of other people on the train, but we had separate Pullmans.

INTERVIEWER: You couldn't go back and forth?

FRANKIE: I guess we could go wherever we wanted to, but we didn't have any way to go anyplace much. When we were at Camp Gruber, at the officer's club.

INTERVIEWER: Can we pause for a seconds

FRANKIE:. Well, you know, Camp Gruber was the dry country. So we had to furnish our own bottles of booze, whatever we liked to drink. We'd buy it and take it down to the officers club and they had a locker for us. We'd go down for the evening, or go down to dance, or whatever, we'd tell them who we were and they'd go to out locker and get our bottle out and fix our drinks for us. So the night before we left Camp Gruber, everybody went to the officers club and took all their stuff out of the lockers. Of course, we had it packed away until we got to Pittsburg. When we got to Pittsburg, we were planning, to have a big party. We were all going into San Francisco and have a big celebration. But they put us on restriction. As soon as we got into Pittsburg, we went on restriction, because we were going to leave right away. Janie Ryan was a big girl. And they didn't have any ... we got issued our Army military uniforms at that time and they didn't have any uniforms to fit Janie Ryan so they had to have a transportation driver take her into San Francisco to Livingston Street to get a uniform to fit her. She was quite impressed. She thought that was real treat to get into San Francisco.

INTERVIEWER: How big was she?

FRANKIE: She must have weighed over 200, l don't exactly remember.

INTERVIEWER: Is she tall?

FRANKIE: She's taller than I. But she was very big. Not real big-boned. She was kind of delicate as far as hands and feet and body. She has an Irish laugh. She could throw her head back and give a big belly laugh and everybody would have to laugh with her because she enjoyed herself so much. She loved to dance. Every time I talk to her she tells me about one time we were dating—I think this was in Camp Gruber. Anyway, I was dating a dentist and she was dating a second lieutenant from the field artillery. This dentist was attached to our unit; he was a captain. Anyway, when we went out that night, I had a low-cut dress; it had straps across the shoulder but it was cut low. It was a black taffeta and had a white crocheted or embroidered kind of thing around the top. It had black velvet stripes on it, and straps on it, I know. Anyway, when we went out, my date said, "You girls are going to get pneumonia." He really was worried that we weren't dressed very warmly. She laughs about that till today. She remembers that guy's name, but I can't remember who he was. He really worried about the fact that we had our top part exposed. I think we had tea-strapped dresses at that time. Anyway, my dress just came around the shoulders and was off the shoulders but had straps to keep it on, to keep it from falling. I had gotten that for a party just before we left Camp Bowie. It's a funny thing. When I got over in New Guinea—I missed a lot of stuff I should tell you about in Camp Bowie, really. I dated an artillery guy there. His roommate was the father of Hagman. What's the name of the guy who played ...

INTERVIEWER: Larry Hagman?

FRANKIE: Larry Hagman. His father. He was a lawyer. l'd go over to have a drink with them in their tent, and all he could talk about was how mean Mary Martin had treated him. They had been married. She had Larry before that. And his little boy was with his parents in Weatherford, Texas. Anyway, while I was going to that place, I met their general in charge of their division. When I was over in New Guinea later, every week they'd send somebody from one of the units in to inspect our hospital. One day, this general came walking in. He said, "Oh, I remember you." He said, "Last time I saw you, you were wearing a black taffeta dress with a white top and you had a corsage on. Here you are wading around over here in all this mud and khaki clothes and everything." Anyway, that was another one of those kind of fun things I experience.

INTERVIEWER: Let's get back to Pittsburg Calif.

FRANKIE: We've got to go back to Camp Gruber and Pittsburg. When we got out here to Pittsburg, you probably haven't even seen that area up there—but that came back later, too. When they started building up on that hillside where the old Pittsburg cantonment camp was, they started a big development over there. When they did that, the Chamber of Commerce in Pittsburg had a dedication. I happened to know one of the people from the Chamber of Commerce there and she invited me to come over and be a speaker and tell them about our experience in Pittsburg. But when we got there [in 1943], it was so hot and all that waving grass—you know the old dead grass—I thought, "My goodness, we're really going to the end of the earth." Anyway, they put us on restriction riaht away and that's when we started our real military training. [PAUSE FOR BREAK] ... We were all excited with being that close to San Francisco that we were going to have a big night. I think the Top of the Mark was one of the places that everyone had told us about, so that's where we were planning to go. Our orders came in and put us on restriction, that we'd be leaving the next day. So we were only in Pittsburg for one day. When we got ready to go, they took us on a riverboat from Pittsburg down to San Francisco, to the dock down in San Francisco. When we got ready to leave, of course, everybody had leftover stuff that they didn't have any room for. We had our raincoat sleeves filled with shoes and different things that we had to pack, hairbrushes and cosmetics and all that kind of stuff. We got on the riverboat at Pittsburg—well, we had to walk down through this center of Pittsburg. There's a bridge over there, I did see that that day [year's later, at the dedication]. We had to walk under that bridge, down to a big warehouse and then you'd go up a rarnp onto the boat, a barge, I guess you'd call it. The soldiers would all Go in and they'd have to pick up their barracks bags and their rifles and all this stuff and go on. We had to wait till they aot all the soldiers aboard, then they took us. We had to walk all that distance. Janie Ryan was not much of a marcher, and we had gone through some drill out in Camp Gruber. One thing we had out there was gas mask drill. We had to go through this gas chamber and learn how to use our gas masks. That was about the extent of our training, until we got overseas.

INTERVIEWER: Did you guys carry guns?

FRANKIE: No, no. We didn't have any guns. l didn't even know how to shoot a gun. I still don't know how. Anyway, Janie Ryan could never keep up. She was always yelling, "Jinks, wait for me! Wait for me!" I'd say, "Janie, I can't wait for you, I've got to keep marching with all the others." We were kind of having a formation march down to the barge. When we got on the thing, we had all of our raincoat sleeves filled with all kinds of junk and it was cold. The wind was blowing in. There was a squall. We were sitting out on the open deck and we were trying to unload our sleeves so we could get our coats on. It was quite a mess. It was really something, Anyway, we made it into San Francisco. When we came in to the harbor, we passed by all these ships that were docked there. We passed by this one and I said to Janie at that time, "That's the one I want to go on. If we're doing to, I'd rather be sure it was a big ship. I think that's the biggest one here and I think I'd feel a lot safer on a big ship." Sure enough, we got passed the thing and I said, "Oh, heck, we've missed that one." But then they started backing up and pulled right alongside there and that was the ship we went on.

INTERVIEWER: What was the name of it?

FRANKIE: At that time, it was called The Miss America. It had been a cruise liner. When we got on board, they had all these troops on there and they had the nurses all up in the top deck, the sun deck or whatever they call that special deck on top. We were in a compartment that was meant for two people and there were 12 nurses in there and one shower. The shower was on for an hour in the afternoon. For one hour, and all 12 of us had to get our shower during that period of time. It was salt water. We had a big dining room. It was a regular cruise-ship dining room. I remember we had the ledges along the thing to hold our plates when we ran into stormy weather. When we got aboard the ship, we had to find our place. There were so many troops on there you could hardly breathe. You had to walk through this maze of guys. They finally opened up, after we got to sea, they finally opened up a PX on the ship and we could go down and buy cookies and cheese and different kinds of snacks and cigarettes for those who smoked. You'd have to walk through this bunch of guys sitting on the deck. As you'd walk through, they'd pat you on the fanny or pinch you. I said, I think my backside was black and blue by the time we got out to sea. We didn't have any idea where we were going, but they had issued us these big, heavy fur-lined boots and the coats we had had a big detachable lining. We figured we were sure to be going to Alaska. We got out to sea ... actually, we pulled out of San Francisco, I think it was 5 o'clock in the evening, this was in September. It was still quite light. We all wanted to see the last of San Francisco because we hadn't had a chance to even get in there. We all wanted to see San Francisco, but they made us go below deck. Nobody was allowed on the decks during that departure time. They had an air ship that escorted us out till we got out of any danger area, out of the port situation. They turned back and left us out there. This ship traveled, I think they said 14 knots, that was pretty fast travel. We finally got to come up and we couldn't see anything. San Francisco was far behind us. So we never did get to see San Francisco till we came back. They didn't tell us anything until we were out. I think it was four or five days when they finally opened our orders. They told us we were going to Australia. It was summertime down in Australia, just beginning at that time. But here we were with all this Arctic wear that we weren't going to be using at all. But that's typical Army stuff.

INTERVIEWER: Let's oo back to the pinching and stuff. What did you think about that?

FRANKIE: Well, you know the soldiers would go up on deck and sit there because there was nothing for them to do. They just were waiting to get on their assignments overseas. So they'd just be sitting out on deck and we had to walk right through them. As you'd walk by, they'd give you a pinch, just to let us know they were human, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: Were you allowed to say anything about it?

FRANKIE: Oh, no, you didn't say anything. Back in those days you didn't say anything about harassment or sexual anything having to do with sex. We weren't liberated at all. We were just still sex objects as far as most people were concerned.

INTERVIEWER: How did you feel about that?

FRANKIE.- I didn't like it. But I thought, what can you do? You can't turn around and challenge a guy when there are about a hundred guys sitting all around. There wasn't any room to challenge anybody, so you just kept walking as though nothing had happened to you. We had one little guy who didn't have any teeth - I don't know how he ever got assigned to an overseas unit, but he was in our unit. We called him "The Baby," because he didn't have any teeth. He'd never had any teeth. We'd send him down to the PX to get whatever we wanted and we didn't have to go through that but a couple of times.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do?

FRANKIE: We jus thung around. We didn't do much of anything.

INTERVIEWER: You didn't have a ...

FRANKIE: We could look out the portholes and see the water.

INTERVIEWER: There wasn't a nursing station or something?

FRANKIE: No, we didn't do any kind of work at all on the ship. We were passengers. I think we were out, I think it was 14 days we were out. It's in my—I can find it. Anyway we pulled into Sydney... We didn't see anybody or hear anything ... One of the things that the gun crews on the ship would always like to tell us on the ship were about the submarines that had been by during the night. "Did you hear the sirens going?" No, we didn't hear anything. I got a real bad cold. My bunk was on the top. We had three bunks, all on top of each other, and I was on the top bunk and the exhaust for the air conditioner was right over my head. So I got a bad sinusitis. They fed us pretty good. I think we had one meal a day, but it was usually pretty good. They served it in the main dining room. They had the ledges along the tables so when we got into rocky weather the plates wouldn't slide off and break or fall all over you.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have a lot of rough weather?

FRANKIE: It wasn't too rough, as I recall. I don't remember it being that rough. I don't think we had any stormy weather at all that crossing. Then we got into Sydney. We pulled into a big, dock area down in Sydney. That was the first time I ever saw black and white together, in Sydney. While we were waiting to disembark, we were allowed to ao on deck and look around. I kept seeing these black soldiers come along with a white Australian girl on their arm and I thought that was really absolutely unheard of. We talked about that for a long time. They told us that the black guys were telling the Australian girls that they were American Indians. [CHUCKLES] Anyway, they took us off that ship and put us in a general hospital. It was wintertime. It was cold. I remember we had a big pot belly stove in the cabin we were in—it was kind of a tentlike place. They had a big black pot-bellied coal stove that we had to keep fired up during the night to keep warm. We had a gal named Harrigan from Boston. She had brought along some Iong red underwear. She'd put those red underwear on and sing some Irish song and do a little jig step. She entertained us at night. We didn't get to do very much in that period of time. We were stationed at this big general hospital outside Sydney and we had been there just a few days and they split us. They sent one group one way and the other group the other way. We did get into one of the big hotels for a couple of meals, and we rode the train out to the hospital where we were. There's nothing really eventful that happened during that period of time. We were overwhelmed with the stuff going on and the chances that we saw, it didn't register too well what was going on around you. I do remember that I met a commander from the British Navy. His name was Jenkins, also. They were having dinner in this one hotel where we were having dinner. Of course, they came over and started talking to us and found out we were American. We found out we had the same name. We f igured we were probably cousins or something. I never saw the guy again, but we had quite a visit that time. There was a nightclub that you went down the stairway into this nightclub down underground. We used to go there and have some drinks and dance and whatever. We went there after dinner that night. Then the guy took us down and put us on the train and we went back out to our temporary home out at the general hospital. Shortly after that they decided we weren't going to open our—we were called the 126th Station Hospital. It was supposed to be a small, portable-type hospital. They decided they weren't going to need to open our hospital at the time, so they were going to split us up and put us on temporary duty with other hospitals. Since I was a regular Army nurse at that time, the chief nurse decided I should be acting chief nurse of the unit. I was quite a bit younger than most of the women in the unit. Anyway, we got farmed out to field hospitals and a couple of station hospitals and then to a big general hospital, just filling in where they needed nurses. Eventually we got back together with our own parent unit. That's when this guy asked me to share his quarters. That was in Finschhafen, New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: Let's ... OK let's not end the tape. Let's keep going.

FRANKIE: From Sydney, Australia, they put us on a troop train and sent us up north to Brisbane, Australia. They put us in a big camp there. There was a train station ran nearby, so we could walk down and take the train into Brisbane and then come back out. There was a family lived near where the train stopped. We went over and met those people one time and asked them about getting some laundry done. The lady said sure, she'd be glad to do some laundry for us. So we'd take our clothes over and she'd wash and iron them for us. At that time, Australia was so desolate and so completely shut off from everything because all the supply ships coming back from England were being sunk. They didn't have any soap. They didn't have anything. They were really very upset because they said Great Britain wasn't treating them right because they took all their stuff. They didn't have any factories to make anything, so they were really very upset. This lady used to unburden on us about how bad they felt toward Great Britain.

Anyway, this station was called Wacol, just out of Brisbane. We'd ride the train in and do our shopping. They had a big American center there where they had an officers club and a PX for us to shop in. We weren't allowed to eat any of the dairy products there or the fresh vegetables there. They restricted everything because of the lack of minerals in the soil. They didn't want us to eat any of the stuff that was prepared. But we used to go into Brisbane and there was a little tea shop where they made—I can't remember what we called that—but they made waffles and they'd put ice cream in between and then they'd put butterscotch over the top. We'd go in and have that stuff with our tea. Then there was usually a lady there who would read tea leaves in our tea cups. You'd walk along the streets of Brisbane—they had no refrigeration—so all of the meat would hang out. The flies would be terrible around it. And the smell of the meat hanging there was terrible. Of course, they later got—I guess now they're pretty modern. But back in those days they didn't have much of anything.

When we got ready to go overseas—I mean, go up north to New Guinea—the base commander from Brisbane came out and had a meetina. There were about 500 nurses stationed in this compound. We were right next door to General McArthur's headquarters. There was just a barbed wire fence separated us from the headquarters. So every Friday, he'd send one of his generals over to have us do a parade for them. We had a little corporal who came over and gave us close-order drill instructions: how to march and all that kind of stuff. We'd do this "retreat," they'd call it, for the general. He'd review us and then we'd go on about our business. That was the first real military training we had. We'd do calisthenics—I was telling somebody the other day I can hardly get up and down [now] but we were doing jumping jacks. That's where you jump up and click your heels together and slap your hands over your head. We'd do so many jumping jacks every day and so much of other different kinds of calisthenics. We had our calisthenics every morning. The rest of the time we just kind of hung around in camp. Oh, no. We did mess duty. Of course, they assigned one particular hospital unit to do mess duty for a day. Then they'd rotate the next day; somebody else would take over. We'd go down and they'd give you a job, like peeling carrots or potatoes, and getting stuff ready to cook. That's what our mess duty usually consisted of. They had other people to clean up. We didn't have to do that after. Of course, we ate out of mess kits so all we had to do was run our mess kits through the boiling water and soap and stuff and take 'em back to our tent till the next day. They'd bring the vegetables in from the farms in big tow sacks. You'd reach your hand in to pick up a potato or carrot and you'd get a handful of mud because they didn't even bother to clean them off before they put them in the bags. That was quite a thing. That was our duty in Brisbane. That was the year we got a notice from General McArthur that he was sorry—it was at Christmastime; we were there at Christmastime—he was sorry that our ship that was bringing our Christmas over from the states had been torpedoed and sunk, so we wouldn't be having any Christmas. That was kind of sad. But we survived and managed to do our own little gift stuff between us. We could get in and buy some of that cheap Australian perfume to give to each other; or soap; or whatever we could find to give to each other as gifts. Of course, we had to be limited in what we could take because we couldn't carry a lot of luggage. We had to carry a musettee bag, which carried all of our personal clothes, plus usually—it's like you carry a tote bag today—a change of underwear and socks and whatever toilette articles you need to take along. That's what we could pack. Our other stuff was put in a big foot locker and shipped to wherever we were going.

INTERVIEWER: Did they give you any special nursing training for New Guinea?

FRANKIE: No. Oh no. We were supposed to know all that stuff. We were registered nurses. [LAUGHS] They didn't give us any kind of training or anything. Then they ordered us to go up to—no, I've got us up to Brisbane. Then we went down and took a Norwegian cargo ship from Brisbane into Oro Bay, New Guinea. That was the first time I ever knew about nurses on ships. There was a really pretty Norwegian woman who was the ship nurse. She used to talk to us about the experiences of being a cruise nurse. She was quite interesting. I always thought I'd like to go back and check with that woman, but I never did. I thought, "Well, maybe I'll do that when I get finished with this war." But then we went into Oro Bay, and at that time they were still under air attack from the Japanese. So we'd have an air raid warning every once in a while and get a little excitement. But the only thing we had was—they kind of built some trenches out in the fields near where we had our tents. If we had an air raid warning, we had to run and get behind those, in those trenches, so if they dropped bombs or anything, they wouldn't hit us. Which we hoped they wouldn't do. We were attached to the Air Force at that time. We were in a bga compound...