Interview of Peggy Likewise??? on Army Nurse Corps Lois Collette: Good evening. May 5, 1983. I’d like you to meet Peggy Likewise. Peggy was overseas during World War II with the Army Nurses Corps. I am Lois Collette. Both Peggy and I are members of the Detroit Unit of the Women’s Overseas Service League. Peggy, Why did you enlist in the Army Nurse’s Corps? Peggy Likewise: Well, I’ve always been interested in the military, and, um, I wanted to, wanted to join. In fact, it took me twice to, to get in because I was somewhat overweight, so the second time I had to sign a, a waiver, which I did at Selfridge Field. Lois Collette: [00:51] Uh, Peggy, when did you enlist? I understand you enlisted really before those, uh, second America ju-, went to war this, in the second World War. Peggy Likewise: I, uh, enlisted in, uh, January of 1941. Lois Collette: [1:10] What had you been doing before you enlisted? Peggy Likewise: I’d been working in the hospitals as a nurse in, in the, at Harper Hospital, as a matter of fact, was the last place I’d worked. Lois Collette: [1:25] I, uh, I understand that you enlisted before the war, as I mentioned. Uh, when you enlisted, where did you go? [laughter] Peggy Likewise: I, I was, uh, I enlisted and was, uh, inducted at Fort Custer near Battle Creek. Lois Collette: Yeah? Peggy Likewise: And, uh, that’s where we stayed. The, uh, hospital there was a wooden hospital, and, uh, we used to call it the Eagle Lake Health Resort. [laughter] Lois Collette: [1:58] And you had your basic training? Peggy Likewise: Basic training – we didn’t have basic training like they do now, but, uh, we went to work in the hospital itself. Lois Collette: [2:05] And then how long was it before you went overseas? Peggy Likewise: Uh, I went overseas in May of ’42, 1942. Uh, during the Coral Sea Battle before the Battle of Guadalcanal, and there was seven ships in the convoy, and when we got to Fiji, two of the ships were let off at the Fiji islands because they were afraid that the Japs might take the canal and then would come down and take Fiji, so the rest went on to New Zealand. I was with the 51st Station Hospital, which was, took over the, uh, hospital in Fiji in Suva, near Suva, Fiji, and, um, from the New Zealand. Lois Collette: [2:47] And you received the wounded from where? Peggy Likewise: And, well, we got the wounded from Guadalcanal. They came over by hospital ship, and we kinda more or less put them back together, uh, if they were able, and then some of them were able to go back to the war, and others had to be, uh, went back home on the hospital ship, and, uh, they had very, to be taken care of further depending on the type of wounds they had. Lois Collette: [3:18] You said there was a fairly small hospital unit, right? Peggy Likewise: We got 400 casualties with only, uh, 14 doctors and 27 nurses, and it was, we really worked hard on’m and then a month later when we got most of them ready to go back home or to go back to the war, uh, we stood there crying as they were getting into the, into the, uh, ambulances because we had worked so hard with them to make them well enough. Lois Collette: [3:48] Did you, uh, g, did you work with the, the Fiji islanders at all? Or, uh… Peggy Likewise: They, they did, they did work in the compound. They worked at the hospital, but, and they were beautiful people. And, uh, they have such strong feet they can walk on coral or they could kick a man to death with their feet. Lois Collette: Oh. Peggy Likewise: And they had done, a lot of them had gone up to the, to fight in some of the islands and done a tremendous job. Lois Collette: It must’ve been quite an experience for you coming, y’know, a young girl coming from Detroit, um, into this not only war area, but also, um, an area where the, completely foreign environment. [4:16] Uh, did you have a hard time adjusting to this? Peggy Likewise: Well it, just like the army, when we were waiting to come overseas in San Francisco, we were given a muffler and gloves thinking that we were going to Alaska and ended up in the Fiji Islands [laughter] without any, any nets, any mosquito nets, so we got a few bites. Lois Collette: [4:52] Um, but did you get ho-, y’know, did you get homesick, or…? Peggy Likewise: Well, the first, well, we were there in, in May, and the first Christmas we were very homesick because, uh, that was when, uh, White Christmas came out, and of course, that made us a little more homesick. Lois Collette: [5:07] Were most of the other nurses in your, uh, army hospital from Detroit, or…? Peggy Likewise: No. They were from various areas. We came from Fort Custer, so. Lois Collette: But they… Peggy Likewise: Most of them were in, in and around the area, but not necessarily from Detroit. Lois Collette: [5:21] Uh, how long did you stay the-, in, uh, Fiji? Peggy Likewise: I was 2 ½ years in Fiji, and, uh, came home on leave. When I came home on leave, I, I was aboard a ship to, which took me to New Caledonia and from there I took the ship home. Lois Collette: [5:40] And I understand you, you were, uh, when we were talking earlier, you said that when you, um, came back home for a few months, you did recruiting and, uh… Peggy Likewise: Yes, I was, I was lucky. I came h – I had a month’s leave, and instead of having everybody wait at, when they didn’t have enough ships to take you back overseas, they had you stay at home and they kept telling me I could stay at home, so I had two months at home. And during that time I was recruited, uh, or was asked to talk about recruiting nurses at, uh, WJR radio. I still have the script someplace. [laughter] Lois Collette: [6:21] And so then you went back overseas in what, what month? Peggy Likewise: I went back, I went back overseas, let’s see, I, I went back in January of ’43 and, uh, it was towards the end of – yeah, it was in January, and, uh, I was supposed to go to Guadalcanal, which we had gotten by that time, but my outfit was in New Caledonia, so I had my orders changed and I went to New Caledonia where the chief nurse, uh, was going home on leave, and I was acting chief nurse, to get our outfit ready to go up to Okinawa. Lois Collette: [7:01] Now at New Caledonia, did you have, um, a, a regular hospital? Or was it… Peggy Likewise: No, we, we were, we were not attached to any hospital. We were just waiting as a unit to go up to Okinawa. Lois Collette: And so, and that… Peggy Likewise: Waiting for orders because at that time they, as they took various islands, they had you move up that much. Lois Collette: [7:21] So then when you, uh, when you finally got your orders to go up, um, did…wa-, was, uh, did you, how did you live? Did you live in tents? Or… Peggy Likewise: Uh, uh, of course on the… Lois Collette: Oh, you, you were telling me about how you disembarked. Peggy Likewise: We were 59 days aboard ship because we [raided 7:41] several atolls, and [throat clearing], Eniwetok was one of them, where they since had an atom bomb test, and then we [throat clearing], uh, got in and we had to go down the, the rope netting on the side of the, of the ship into the LSTs and then go on into the beach. Lois Collette: [8:05] And wa, when you, uh, got to your hospital, was, was the hospital a tent hospital? Peggy Likewise: It was a tent hospital, yes. It was, all of us in tents, and in, we weren’t there, they were always having blackouts because, uh, the Japs were – they hadn’t cleared all the Japs off the island and some a, about ten days after we were there, we had, uh, Condition Black, as I say, the Japs were parachuting in, and we were supposed to go in the foxholes, but nobody wanted – everybody wanted to see what was goin’ on with the air war, and, uh, either you got, you’re so busy puttin’ your pants on you might’ve put’m on backwards [laughter], then you run around the tent thing and fall over it, or you pick up your helmet and forgot, had forgotten to take the water out of it and put it on. [laughter] Lois Collette: Oh no. [laughter] Peggy Likewise: So we had a lot of interesting scenes with that one. Lois Collette: [8:59] And you’d mentioned that there were some of the natives would build fires? Peggy Likewise: Well, that was in Fiji, yeah. Lois Collette: Oh, that was when you were in… Peggy Likewise: Yeah, the Hin- – the Hindus were partial to the Japs, I guess, or used to build the signal fires in Fiji. Lois Collette: When you had… Peggy Likewise: We had blackouts there too, but they, uh, fortunately didn’t come down and we did take the canal. Lois Collette: [9:22] Now, in Okinawa, y, you were again with a field hospital? Is that right? Peggy Likewise: Mm-hm. Yeah. We were, uh, we’d get – there, we got, um, the wounded off the field because they still had, a, what they termed gooks, which were the natives, some of the natives, uh, even the children would throw hand grenades at the [inaudible 9:42] they had gotten around, and, and the, and the whole island was flattened. Lois Collette: [9:47] How long, uh, how long was it then be, after the island had been retaken that you occupied, uh, that you, you went in? Peggy Likewise: Oh, we went in D-Day plus 23, but they were still doing it when we went in. Lois Collette: But it was only 20 – it was D-Day plus 23, which wasn’t very much time though. Peggy Likewise: We, we, no, we didn’t have much time. And every time that you were tryin’ to give a shot, uh, a hypo where you, you’d have a blackout and of course you couldn’t use your flashlight [laughter] ‘cause they could see it, so. Lois Collette: [10:19] And, and so after, um, once you got established there and, uh, the, war on that island stopped, then where did, where did your troops come from? Peggy Likewise: Well, the, uh, the… Lois Collette: [Inaudible 10:33] the patients. Peggy Likewise: …the U.S. [inaudible 10:34]. V-J Day was, happened there, uh, some of the fellas unfortunately got killed because everybody was shootin’ guns off everywhere and… Lois Collette: You mean they shot each other? Peggy Likewise: No, no, they didn’t do it on purpose. They, uh, they, uh, were so happy they were shooting guns and there were hills there and there was, um, um, tents on the hills, and somebody’d be standing on a hill, you see. And for, and didn’t, not [inaudible 11:03]. Lois Collette: Yeah, but it did happen on occasion. Peggy Likewise: Yeah. Lois Collette: [11:07] Well, you must have a couple of, uh, events that sorta stand out in your mind during the, how many years was it? Five and a half or four and a half? Peggy Likewise: Well, I was in… Lois Collette: All together. Peggy Likewise: All together five, but I was 38 months overseas. Lois Collette: Seas. Peggy Likewise: And while, when, when V-J Day came, then they, we, uh, quite a few of the, uh, prisoners that the Japs had taken were brought to… Lois Collette: Oh, that’s right. Yeah. Peggy Likewise: They were brought to Okinawa, and it was, it was very emotional, the, the, a lot of the brothers would find their brothers, y’know, or they would know somebody and find that they, they weren’t dead after all, that they had been prisoners. But the poor prisoners had been mistreated and, uh, were so, had not been fed very much, and were regular scavengers even though they knew that they would get [the food 11:59], and as a matter of fact, we were all went on canned rations so that they could have the fresh food, and, uh, they’d go ‘round with their little bags and keep picking up things and, ‘cause, y’know, some of them had been there as many as four years. And they were, uh, blacks, Dutch, black and white Dutch. There was American blacks, there were, uh, there was, uh, uh, Eskimos. And, uh, and all kinds of British and, and any of the countries around that area that, uh, that the Japs fought in, y’know, they, they would. Lois Collette: [12:38] Uh, did you find living in the tropics very difficult or were you so busy working that you didn’t even have time? Peggy Likewise: Uh, well, it was rather interesting in, uh, in Fiji, uh, uh, it’d be 110 in the shade in the daytime and go down to 72 at night, and you’d swear it was gonna snow. In fact, on night duty, I’d wear, uh… Lois Collette: Oh, really? Peggy Likewise: …fur-lined [laughter]… Lois Collette: Really? Peggy Likewise: …[white 13:02] boots. Lois Collette: When it was 72 you got so acclimated to the, to the warm weather that you – Peggy Likewise: Y’know. Lois Collette: – you, yeah. Peggy Likewise: Y’know, it’s just, it’s a lot like the desert, y’know, where it gets so cold at night. Lois Collette: Right. Peggy Likewise: Y’know, and, uh, it would, it would get kinda hot [and everything 13:19]. Lois Collette: [13:20] Um, how long did you stay, uh, at Okinawa before you went home, Peggy? Peggy Likewise: I went home, I was about eight months there. Uh, before I went home. I had enough points to go home every, people were going home and part, part of my outfit went on to Seoul, Korea, and even at that time, they’d write back and tell us how much problems they were having with the communists at that time, or the Russians. Because the Russians had had all the, the access to all the coal there, C-O-A-L, and, uh, they weren’t giving it to them and it was cold. Lois Collette: [13:58] Uh, were you, were you a war, you weren’t an operating nurse. You were a ward nurse. Is that right or am I…? Peggy Likewise: Uh, no, and I was chief nurse when I went up there. I was acting chief nurse when I went… Lois Collette: Acting Chief. Peggy Likewise: …to Okinawa to, to the other. Uh, I, I, as far as while I was overseas, I even, I worked in the operating room. I did everything, y’know, so it, depending on where they needed you. Lois Collette: [14:22] And depending upon, I know, the situation, uh, I’m sure it varied, but say, a, a busy day, how many hours would you work a day? Peggy Likewise: Well, in, in, in Fiji, [coughing] excuse me. In, in Fiji, uh, it would be ten, twelve hours depending on the number of patients we had, when we had so many, then it was either feast or famine. Either you were working on many hours or not too many of them. Lois Collette: [14:51] And you, you hit, you were working with corps men and… Peggy Likewise: Oh, yeah. Lois Collette: …yeah, all the time. [14:58] Uh, did, did you always have enough medical equipment to work with? Or, uh… Peggy Likewise: Yes, we were very lucky. We, we did most of the time, y’know, I, I don’t remember ever not having enough. Except in Fiji, what we had too much of were the cockroaches. [laughter] Lois Collette: Oh, really? Peggy Likewise: Yeah, everything was cockroaches all over the place. Lois Collette: I guess we all hate those. [15:25] Um, then, uh, Peggy, after the war, you came home and you got married and you raised a family and you’re, you’re, t, you [inaudible 15:34]. Peggy Likewise: I, I… Lois Collette: …went back to nursing again. Peggy Likewise: I went back to nursing. In fact, I, up until 1981, I worked 20 years [inaudible 15:43] just before [that time, 20 years 15:44]. Lois Collette: We are, we are very proud to have someone like Peggy Likewise who spent so many years in service during the war. I think the, from the very beginning to the very end, there aren’t too many of us that have done that, and then even now that she’s home and retired, we are very proud because she is doing tremendous service with the aged in the hospital, and I wanna thank you, Peggy. Peggy Likewise: Thank you. /jw