Interview of retired Lieutenant Colonel Madeline M.  Ullom on her career in the 
U.S.  Army Nurse Corps, including her service during WWII


Margaret Duncan:	This is Margaret Duncan of Tucson Unit of the Women’s Overseas Service League, and I'm interviewing Madge Ullom, who is a member of this unit.  The date is May 15, 1985.  [0:17] What branch of the service did you serve in, Madge?

Madeline Ullom:	I served in the, uh, Army Nurse Corps.

Margaret Duncan:	[0:24] How long.

Madeline Ullom:	I was in, uh, for 28 years.  

Margaret Duncan:	[0:28] Uh, where, where were the most important and most interesting places that you served?

Madeline Ullom:	Well every place was very interesting and very unique in its own way.  I joined the army, and my first station was Walter Reed, uh, General Hospital in Washington, DC, and, uh, I volunteered to go to the Philippine Islands, and I was very fortunate to be stationed at Sternberg General Hospital, the Hospital of the Philippine Department in Manila.  Uh, gee, I was stationed at, uh, Foster General in Jackson, Mississippi, uh, Northington in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and more general in, um, uh, Swannanoa, North Carolina.  Each of these hospitals closed a short time after I got there, and, uh, I spent, uh, quite a long time at, uh, Brooke Army Medical Center.  I went there first as, um, uh, Director of the, uh, Medical Surgical Procedures area for, uh, the enlisted people.  And, uh, then I, um, [tsk] was sent away to school.  I guess that comes a little later.  And, uh, then, uh, I was at Brooke General Hospital and, uh, also the – yeah, yes, it was previously Brooke General Hospital, although there was coordination with all the different, uh, uh, military aspects on the post.  Uh, William Beaumont General Hospital and, uh, in El Paso, Texas, and, uh, Fitzsimons, uh, Army Medical Center in, uh, Denver, Colorado.  Oh, and oh yes, then I was stationed overseas.  When I first went over, I was at the 2nd General down in Landstuhl, Germany, and then after 3 months, I went up to, uh, the 130th Station Hospital in Heidelberg as the Chief Nurse.

Margaret Duncan:	[2:41] Uh, what influenced you to volunteer to go into the service or to join the service?

Madeline Ullom:	Well, um, my sister was a graduate of the Army School of Nursing and was in the Army Nurse Corps, and I knew many of her friends and had seen them, and it seemed to me that the army nurses had a very interesting, um, professional life as [stuttering] well as a very interesting life in travel and, uh, uh, cultural pursuits and, uh, historical and just, uh, eh, I thought they were a fairly nice group of people, and I thought well, if I were going to be in nursing, of course I – 30 years – I thought maybe I would like to join them.  

Margaret Duncan:	[3:28] So you – at the time you came in the service, you really came in as a career?

Madeline Ullom:	Yes, I did.  Uh, I had had the opportunity, uh, to come in as a CCC nurse immediately, but I wanted to come in as regular army, and at that time, there were only 625 in the corps, so one had to wait until, uh, someone died or retired.  But very fortunately for me, there were several retired at Walter Reed, uh, at the time that I was available to join the corps.  And so, uh, I, uh, came from Philadelphia and was stationed at Walter Reed in Washington.

Margaret Duncan:	[4:10] What was your pay when you first came in?

Madeline Ullom:	Seventy dollars a month.

Margaret Duncan:	[4:15] Uh, what – were you given equal opportunities for service and education the same as say, uh, the men in the service were?

Madeline Ullom:	Well I think probably.  Uh, eh, I should say this, I, uh, really have attended a great many army schools or military schools, and I also was graduate of the Quartermaster School, and I was on some of their, uh, projects, uh, from the top of Mount Washington and different places, and the army, uh, sent me to school at Columbia, and they also sent me to school at, uh, [tsk] Catholic University in Washington, DC, and that was very nice assignments because, uh, all one did was, uh, tell them what subjects you were taking, and when you received your grade, send 'em a copy of the grades, and of course you received your pay and maintenance and quarters and all those things.  Uh, it was rather strange though.  We were attached to different, uh, places at the time.  When I was going to school at Columbia, we first were attached to d-, Fort Dix, and then later on at g-, the Governors Island in the, uh, 1st, uh, Army Area.  When I was, uh, going to school in Catholic University, I, I was assigned to the engineers at Fort Myers.

Margaret Duncan:	Oh, I know that when you were in the Philippines that you were, uh, taken as prisoner of war.  [5:52] Can you tell something about that experience?

Madeline Ullom:	Well, yes.  Uh, of course, uh, it was an ideal assignment, and at the time that I was there, it was considered the choice assign-, one of the choice assignments of the service.  Uh, well we really knew something was happening, but we really didn’t think that anybody would really declare a war on us.  I was stationed at, uh, Sternberg General Hospital in Manila, and, uh, so we soon – and I was almost ready to come back.  I had been there a y-, a year and a half, and we had two year tours of duty, and, uh, so there were several of us, uh, ready to come back and two more boats, because at that time, you went over on the boat and then you came back on the boat after your tour was extended.  Well while we were there, uh, the Japanese, of course – many people don’t realize this, but it was only hours after Pearl Harbor that the Philippines was bombed, and, uh, we were on the other side of the International Date Line, so it was December 8th over there.  And the Japanese really came down and pounded us in no uncertain terms.  It was just almost amazing.  We could hardly believe it.  And, uh, it was only a very short time until they were landing forces on Northern Luzon, which is the island on which, uh, Manila is located.  

	And of course, there was the evacuation then to, uh, Bataan, uh, Peninsula and to, uh, Corregidor, which was a impenetrable fortress of the Philippines, a conglomerate rock 660 feet high with a tunnel underneath called, uh, Malinta, and, uh, well, uh, eh, eh, it was every day the Japanese were after us, and all our – every day people were going to Bataan.  People were going to Corregidor.  Well I'm at the end of the alphabet, and I never see my name posted.  So, uh, finally, uh, practically everyone was gone.  Manilla was declared an open city a-, on, uh, Christmas day, uh, December 25th, and, uh, there were only about, uh, 10 nurses and, uh, about a 10 military people left at Sternberg.  So, uh, it was an open city, and it, uh, seemed very strange that we couldn’t have a flag flying, no, uh, guns or ammunition, and, uh, [tsk] so then, uh, on the 31st of December early in the morning about 2:00, why we, uh, left Sternberg and went to, uh, Corregidor, landed there in the midst of, uh, an air raid alert, and, uh, we really had planned to go directly at about 2:00 in the morning, but the Japanese were strafing us so that we were kinda dodging around between the sunken vessels in, um, the harbor, and, uh, so when we got to, uh, Corregidor, why, uh, there was a big air raid on, and Corregidor had been very seriously bombed on the 29th of December.  

	And, uh, so, uh, we landed there and, uh, went to the, uh, tunnel, and, uh, there was a big hospital set up there, and, uh, so, uh, I did duty there.  Uh, usually in the morning.  I was not really a permanent party, so, uh, in the mornings, I'd give baths.  And, uh, then the Japanese always bombed us usually around noon, so I'd take an early lunch, and then, uh, after lunch, I'd go to the operating room, and Ann Mueller was the Chief Nurse there, and we had worked together in the operating room at Walter Reed, and, uh, so it was kinda back to old times because, uh, we had a great many casualties, and although Ann was now the Chief Nurse on Corregidor, why, uh, she doubled as an anesthetists.  Again… 	Uh, days and nights were practically the same.  One never knew when they were gonna be bombed, and we used to say bombed last night and bombed the day before, we're going to be bombed today as we've never been bombed before.  And, uh, so, uh, the Japs really – we had a great many casualties, and the Japanese, uh, or course were bound and determined that they were gonna take Bataan, and they did everything for the emperor, and after, uh, Bataan surrendered, why, uh, Corregidor received the full brunt of everything the Japanese had and it was constant shelling, bombing, strafing.  And, uh, then the, uh, Japanese of course came and, uh, there was nothing to do but surrender.  

	And, uh, I must say that, uh, you really have to admire our soldiers.  Well, I mean I take the term soldiers as including the army, the navy, army air force, and coast guard, because we all worked together, and, uh, one did not think of, uh, divisions of service as, uh – for one thing, uh, we had, uh, lost uniforms in the bombings, uh, lost, uh, the equipment that we worked with.  And I must say that right from the very beginning we lacked sufficient medication, clothing, food, uh, personnel, equipment, everything that there really was.  Uh, and it was wonderful the improvisions that the men made and, uh, how uncomplaining they were.  Uh, the Japanese, uh, came onto the island, and, uh, I, I remember, uh, s-, uh, military personnel after military personnel come in with very, uh, grave wounds, and they would often say well, I got 3 or 4 after they got me.  Uh, shortly, uh, about 10:00 that morning on the 6th of May, General Wainwright, uh, broadcasts the surrender.  But surrender doesn’t mean that you take a white flag and you go up and say I surrender.  The Japanese, uh, really sent a colonel to accept General Wainwright’s surrender, and, uh, there were many negotiations that went on.  Uh, General Wainwright said that he was the commander of Luzon, and they insisted he was commander of all the Philippine Islands.  

	So, uh, after several days of negotiation and dispatching, uh, liaison officers to the north of the Philippine Islands and to the south, finally the surrender papers were signed.  The Japanese, of course, took over the very beginning and, uh, uh, would come along, you know they're short people with long, dragging swords, and they’d clank away through the night when you were on night duty and wake up the patients with those swords dragging along on the floors.  Uh, I remember one time that, uh, Miss Davison, who was our Chief Nurse, great person, and, uh, [chuckle] she was – had her bed right inside of this lateral.  Of course, the hospital was a group of laterals.  There was really 3 tunnels there, and one tunnel interlaced with the next tunnel and all these laterals were, uh, alternating on both sides of the main corridors.  Well this one day, a very high-ranking general and all and his assistants of about 20 people stormed into the place, and in our laterals, we were in double-decker and triple-decker beds, and the patients were in double-decker and triple-decker beds too.  So this Japanese general decided to come into the nurse’s lateral, and, uh, [chuckle] Miss Davison [chuckle] looked at him, and she says, “Halt!” And [chuckle] he was so surprised that he stopped, and she said, “You can't come in here without permission!,” and so he turned on his heel and the whole [inaudible 15:38] of them took off.  

	And then Miss Davison thought all my goodness, here [chuckle] I told the Japanese general he couldn’t come in.  So she strode down to the commanding officer to tell him what she did, and, uh, it was only about an hour and there was a great big sign about 3 feet wide and about 4 feet long that was posted in front of our quarters that nobody could come in there unless they had permission.  Well the Japanese really wanted to – we stayed over there, uh, in the tunnel for, uh, probably a few more weeks, and our patients not only, uh, had their war wounds, but they had malaria and dengue and tropical diseases.  And, um, so then we moved back to the old hospital, which had been bombed on the 29th of December, as I said at the very beginning.  Uh, there was only fragments of it left, but there were a couple places where it wasn’t too bad; however, the rainy season was coming, and everybody was wondering what would happen when the rainy season came.  The Japanese wanted to refortify Corregidor for their own purposes, and, uh, so, uh, they, uh, took the remaining patients, there were probably close to a thousand and the doctors and, uh, the nurses, and we were, uh, loaded on a pla-, uh, ship, and, uh, they took us to Manila.  And, uh, they had promised that they would, uh, take us to a school that was all set up as a hospital.  

	Uh, the Japanese officer in charge of us spoke excellent English, and he said don’t be afraid of me.  He said, “I'm a graduate in one of your universities.” And he served some tea and some cookies, and so we said well, what are you gonna do with us, and he said well, we're taking you to this schoolhouse outside of Manila.  It's all set up as a hospital.  And he said there’s medicines in the medicine cabinets and there’s – the patients will all be unloaded first and be in the beds, and all you have to do is taken care of them.  Well we thought that was alright.  So, uh, we were the last to be unloaded, and, uh, when we were unloaded, why, uh, they put us in 3 trucks with armed guards, and they took us to Santo Tomas Internment Camp.  And there we were very thoroughly searched because we were considered to be dangerous people ‘cause we took care of, uh, the military wounded.  They would not allow any of the internees to talk with us, and the internees had been kn-, had known for 2 weeks that we were coming.  And, uh, they had everything all ready for us, and they were lined on the stairways and at the windows and on the lawn and everyplace.  The Japanese would allow no contact with them.  And then they took us to the Santa Catalina Girls School and locked us, uh, in 2 rooms for 6 weeks, and we were allowed no contact with the outside world.  

	However, after 6 weeks, we went over to Santo Tomas and were told we were going to live there.  And, uh, the, uh, Santa Catalina Girls School, where we had been staying in the 2 rooms, was turned into a hospital.  We had a men’s ward and a women’s ward, and, uh, later on we, uh, used the, uh, School of Mines building as an isolation hospital.  It was also a children’s hospital because we had, uh, 600 children under the age of 16 in camp with us.  And we had several clinics.  Uh, the, uh, army nurses took charge of the general hospital, the isolation hospital, the main building clinic, the hospital clinic, and the children’s clinic.  And, uh, we were rotated around and worked in those different places and took care of the internees.  The Japanese said we don’t have any women in our camp, in our army.  You aren't in the army.  We don’t consider that.  Although, they always did recognize that we were army, and there were several times they had high-ranking officers come down from Tokyo, and, uh, they often asked for, uh, about 4 nurses to come over and be interviewed by them.  

	It seemed like that, uh, Clara Mueller and Letha McHale and I were always chosen by Miss Davison to talk with them.  And, uh, they really, uh, were quite nice.  They asked how we were being treated, and of course we told them, and they asked us who we felt, and we told them we didn’t like being prisoners and, uh, we really, uh, should be taking care of our military people, and, uh, oh, we'd have about a half hour interview with them and they would take off.  Six or eight months later, we'd go through the whole thing again.  Uh, we always knew that the Americans would, uh, come and liberate us, although it, uh, it seemed like a [ringing] long, long time.  

Margaret Duncan:	The hospital that the Japanese told you was all set up when they brought you from Corregidor from Manila that really didn’t materialize.  [21:29] Uh, where did they, where did they have the, uh, army wounded? Was that a different place from the internment camp?

Madeline Ullom:	Yes, yes, it was.  And of course, we never did see the school, which was out in [Inaudible 21:42], and, uh, men were out there as patients.  Later on they were shifted to Bilibid Prison and taken to other places, and of course, some of them, uh, went up to Camp O’Donnell, and uh, to the other prisoner of war camps.  And of course, uh, we really sort of believed that officer when he told us that, uh, was where we were going, but we learned, you know, not to believe anything that they said.  One time, though, this was quite interesting if you like a little interesting something off the beaten path, um, this Japanese diplomat came into camp, and he got us all on the front plaza and was gonna tell us a few things.  And, uh, he seemed quite friendly, and, uh, so, uh, we asked him, uh, how the war was going on.  Uh, we were in prison camp and, uh, internment camp and we didn’t know what was going on, and we asked him what, uh, he could tell us.  Oh, he said, the war’s going on very well now for the Japanese.  He said we're making a great many advances, and he said, uh, we landed on the West Coast, and we have progressed as far east as Chicago, and, uh, he said we've had a little difficulty there because there's many Indian tribes and the Indians are quite ferocious fighters, and they’ve slowed us down a little.  So of course, we smiled inwardly.  

	Um, uh, as time passed on in camp, of course we were only on about 1,500 caloric calories a day and it w-, we ate twice a day.  We had a plate, cup, and a spoon, and, uh, we g-, got a scoop of, uh, uh, real watery rice, um, morning and evening and a scoop of watery vegetables, and sometimes there were a few shreds of meat in it.  And, um, we had to stand in line of course.  You always stand in line.  We had many roll calls.  We had at least 2 roll calls a day, 1 in the morning and 1 at night, and we often had 5 and 6 roll calls in the day.  Maybe 2:00 in the morning we'd have a roll call.  There were many searches, and you always had to s-, be as you were in all of these things.  You couldn’t even shift your weight from one foot to the other.  You had to be as you were.  If you were going up the stairs and 1 foot was on 1 step and 1 on the other, that was the way it was.  

	Uh, a record was played in the morning to wake us up.  And, uh, we, uh, we're in bed at 10:00 at night.  And after, uh, 7:00 at night, we had to be in the building.  We had a bed space that was, uh, [tsk] 3, uh, 3 feet wide and 6 feet long and a 2 foot isle between the beds, and, uh, really we, we became quite streamlined.  Uh, fortunately, uh, as we were in Santo Tomas Internment Camp, Santo Tomas was a university, the oldest university under an American flag established by the Dominican in 1611.  It's a royal and pontifical university, and the, uh, people there were very good to us.  The liaison between the, uh, university and the internees was a professor.  And, uh, the Japanese did issue a bar of soap for cleaning ourselves, but we had n-, nothing for cleaning purposes in the, uh, rooms that we occupied or in the hospital.  But we had many engineers in camp who with mining companies.  There were about – most of the time around 5,000 people in camp.  That was men, women, and children.  

Margaret Duncan:	[26:04] Uh, then according to what, what you're saying, at the internment camp, they were the civilians…

Madeline Ullom:	Yes.

Margaret Duncan:	…outside of the army nurses?  Those were the civilians who and been rounded up in Manilla by the Japanese?

Madeline Ullom:	That’s right.  Th-…

Margaret Duncan:	[26:17] They, they were not m-, there were no military prisoners there?

Madeline Ullom:	That is correct.  And, uh, the, uh, we had practically every nationality except the Germans and the Italians and the Irish Free State, and not only did we have the people who were in Manila, but, uh, at the time that the war was declared, all the ships in the Far East were ordered to the Port of Manila, and the Port of Manila is large and deep.  So we had all the people who were coming down from China and all the Far East.  We had many people who were out as consultants, uh, anthropologists out on anthropological digs.  So we had really a very fine group of people that were all brought in.  And of course, uh, everybody came, everybody came to Santo Tomas and was interned there.  Later on, the Japanese consolidated their camps and they had ca-, uh, imprison camps down in Davao and Mindanao and the Southern Islands and up in Baguio, and all those people were later brought into our camp.  Now we had so many people that the Japanese, uh, really had 2 purposes involved.  There was a place called Los Banos, and there were some nice springs, and it was very beautiful, and, uh, so they wanted all of us to go down to Los Banos.  Well the people we had in camp were very knowledgeable, and they knew that the water supply in Los Banos would probably take care of about 1,500 people or 2,000 at the most but not 5,000 people that we had in camp with all the others coming in.  

	So, uh, we were always signing – we had a judge in camp, a lawyer, a brilliant lawyer, and he would make out these different forms and, uh, we would say it wouldn't be a – not be possible for us to do this, and then we'd all sign our names to it and send it to the commandant.  We were always sending in petitions that we couldn’t do this, that, and the other thing.  However, they did insist that 400 go down to Los Banos, and they chose them and sent them down, the young people.  And they later on sent a couple other groups down to Los Banos.  And, uh, s-, but by that time, we were still getting more people coming in from all these outside camps.  Uh, as time went on, uh, the Japanese had decided that they were going to have a victory.  Straight to Tokyo! On to Tokyo! Clean sweep! And, uh, this was, uh, probably, uh, early in the, uh, spring of 19, uh, 44, and, uh, the Japanese high command with all their military and p-, p-, politicians and everybody had decided that an admiral would have his headquarters in Manila, of course a great big beautiful harbor, and that they would refortify all the fortifications that the United States Army had had, and, uh, uh, refortify them.  It would be at least a year before the Americans could possibly come back, absolutely.  

	And, uh, [laughter] so, uh, the admiral came and he started his fortifications, uh, rebuilding the airfields that surrounded Manila, refortifying Corregidor and Fort Stotsenburg and all the other posts and shipload and shipload and shipload kept coming in.  So, although this was only, eh, only formulated their plans in the spring, by summer the harbor was just full of all these ships, and, uh, so they had dogfights, simulated dogfights every day, so, uh, when the Americans would come in that they could shoot them down and, uh, uh, every day the dogfights went on.  Every day the admiral was busy with all his preparations, and, uh, this was only, uh, weeks later, which was the, um, 21st of September, all of the sudden one morning the sky was filled with planes.  [crying]

Margaret Duncan:	Okay.  And th-, go ahead.

Madeline Ullom:	The sky was filled with planes, and really our, uh, alarm went off the first in the city.  The Japanese were so surprised.  They really didn’t know what to do.  Uh, of course the, uh, center of bombing was, uh, Manila Bay, and, uh, they just, uh, pound and pounded those, uh, ships that were there.  The noise was terrific.  Uh, the ground shook like in an earthquake.  

Margaret Duncan:	31:54[] The Americans had arrived?

Madeline Ullom:	The Americans had arrived, and, uh, and all this ammunition.  Uh, the smoke billowed forth.  The flames leaped high in the sky.  Uh, really the Japanese admiral’s, uh, plan went up literally in smoke.  The airfields nearby were bombed, and all day long this happened and the next day too.  Well the Japanese were so surprised because, uh, they had really believed that it would be a full year before the Americans could possibly come back.  Of course, uh, that was the 21st of September.  And then on the 20th of October, General MacArthur landed in Leyte and, uh, said I have returned.  Um, I, I should really tell you how we found out that he had returned.  Every night at, uh, 7:00 when, uh, the, uh, program was going on and, uh, the announcements were made for the next day as to, uh, what group of the [ADC 33:17] women would debug the rice and which number the labor group would work in the garden or collect the garbage or – because everybody in camp had to work.  Everybody over the age of 16 had to work unless you had a doctor’s certificate.  So, uh, Don Bell was the one who ran the broadcasting station, and, uh, so Don Bell – this – they made all his announcements.  

	And, um, then he said, now I realize – see by this time, the people had lost – the men had lost about, oh 40 to 80 pounds and the women had lost 20 to 40 pounds, and many of the activities they engaged in in the early days, they could no longer do.  It was, you know, you had to take care of yourself and then do a camp duty.  And many people were late in reporting for camp duties, and they didn’t have much energy.  So he said well, I realize that it's hard on you.  You’ve had the tropical diseases, and you have the tropical diseases, and you have lost weight, and I know it's hard, but he said, you know, it's very important, he said, that you do report for duty.  Now of course, coming up from Australia, there’s Australia, and then, uh, the, uh, different islands coming up.  One is Leyte and then, uh, Samar is a smaller island, and the next island is Luzon on which Manila is located.  So this night Don Bell kept saying now really, please do report for duty, and if you're late or if you're tardy, he said do report for duty anyway because, he said, you know it's better Leyte than never.  Well nobody dared look at each other because we knew it wouldn't be long until the Americans would come in.  You know, the first year, b-, we thought they’d be in, you know, at 4th of July.  We thought they’d be in at Christmas.  

	Well then the next year, we started betting that they would be on, you know, come on Valentine’s Day or they would come on Thanksgiving day, and the next year we started betting, and we had, uh, the date and the hour and the minute that they would come.  And of course, these were all promissory notes that would be paid after we were liberated.  Uh, during the time that, that we were in camp, we did receive 3, uh, Red Cross packages.  One of them was for – the first one was from South Africa.  The second one was from Canada.  And the third was from the United States.  In the early days, uh, women were not g-, people in camp were not allowed, the women, to have their knees show, but as time went on and our clothes got worn out, why, uh, uh, there was a little relaxation on all of this, and then we did get the Red Cross packages, and we had a pair of shorts and a shirt in the Red Cross package.  So the Japanese did let us wear that because it was about a-, the only clothes people had.  Uh, well the, of course after the jap-, uh, the Americans landed on, uh, uh, Leyte, which General MacArthur said I have returned, why the Japanese, uh, you know, cut our rations.  We were on about 500 r-, uh, calories a day, and our last issue of food in camp was 200-pound sacks of moldy rice for 5,000 people.  

	Uh, our death rate was increasing tremendously.  We had, uh, 7 of our patients die in 28 hours of, uh, starvation.  That’s just an example.  And, uh, so, uh, Dr.  [Stevenson 37:46] who had been with the Peking Union Medical Center up in China was our Medical Director at the time, and on the death certificates, he had put starvation, malnutrition.  Well the Japanese says you can't do that.  And he said well that’s what they died of.  Oh, but we can't have something like that on a death certificate.  Well, he said, I have to be – I took an oath and, uh, the Hippocratic Oath, and I have to abide by it.  They said we don’t care if you did.  Uh, it was just like when we would complain about things, uh, they would say, uh, we would say well, according to the Geneva Conference, we should have this, that, and the other thing.  Well, they said, we never signed the Geneva Conference.  We don’t abide by it.  So, uh, Dr.  [Stevenson 38:32] would not change the cause of death, starvation or malnutrition, on the death certificate, and they said well, we'll put you in the camp jail, and he said well, I, I, I cannot si-, uh, change that.  
So he was in the camp jail until the Americans came in and liberated us.  

	Uh, it was the 1st Calvary and, of course, General Wainwright had been a calvary man, and a, uh, a [column 39:00] of 600 came in from the 3rd of February about 8:00 in the evening, and, uh, we were liberated, but the, uh, Japanese, uh, had gone into the education building where the men lived and had barricaded themselves on the different floors with their machineguns, and we couldn’t fire on the Japanese because we’d kill our own people.  Negotiations went on all night long, and about 2:00 in the morning, why they finally decided that the next morning at 8:00 we would give the Japanese safe contact outside…

Margaret Duncan:	[39:44] Safe [inaudible 39:45] conduct out?

Madeline Ullom:	Uh-huh, a c-, uh, and conduct them outside of the city to a certain point, and we would let them carry their arms with them.  [tsk] Uh, one of the very annoying disturbances that we always had in camp was that we had to bow to every Japanese every time we met them regardless of their rank.  You stayed 6 paces away, and you bowed very slowly from the waist and you, uh, were very – with your arms very stiffly at your side.  And what really got us was the philosophy behind it because that meant that we expressed our appreciation to the Japanese for what they did.  

	And for what they did was anything but what was desirable.  So, uh, they in turn would bow to us to show that they accepted our appreciation.  Well, as I told you in the early times, we had about 600 children in camp, so the next morning at 8:00 while the Japanese were lined up for [inaudible 41:00], and, uh, the American soldiers were going to give them their conduct out of the camp.  And, uh, so everybody came out to see them march off, and, uh, little children said, “Make 'em bow! Make 'em bow!” Well the American shoulders didn’t know about the bowing, and they just thought that these children had been in camp too long, you know, and the boys and girls would come up to the soldiers and say “Make 'em bow! Make 'em bow!” And they would ignore them.  So finally one soldier said to the one little bow, he tried to soothe him, and he said well how would you like an ice cream cone, and the little fella looked at him and said what’s an ice cream cone.  [laughter] 

Margaret Duncan:	[41:55] Where did you go, uh, after the – you were liberated by the Americans? Where did you go then?

Madeline Ullom:	Well after we were liberated, we were still in there about 12 more days, and, uh, the Japanese shelled the camp, and we had many casualties, and, um, we took care of the patients.  And then, uh, on the, uh, 11th of, uh, February, uh a hospital came in and on the 12th, we went to Leyte and, uh, they, uh, put us in the hospital down there, and then the next day a-, about 10 of our girls were quite ill, and, uh, the next day, they, uh, everybody wanted to talk with us and every-, everybody wanted to ask questions, and we were tired, you know, so, uh, they made, uh, hos-, tent hospital down on the beaches, and there we had our physicals, and there we were interviewed with all the different kinds of interviewing.  And so then, uh, we flew to Janssen, Ireland, and then we flew to Hawaii where we had our – we got permanents and fingernail polish and, and, uh, they opened the PX early in the morning, and we shopped, and then we went on to, uh, San Francisco and were patients at Letterman.  And then we, uh, went home for a month or two, and then we went, uh – we could have our choice of rehabilitation at Lake Placid, New York, or Atlantic City or Santa Barbara or Miami, and, uh, I chose Lake Placid, New York, which was really lovely.  And then we could be assigned back to duty, and we could go anywhere we wanted to.

Margaret Duncan:	I have a couple questions to ask you.  [43:54] What about the, what about your uniforms while you were in the Philippines?

Madeline Ullom:	Well of course, we had worn the white, nice white starched uniform and c-, cap.  Well, uh, they had said when there’s an air raid on, you hit the dirt, so you could imagine what these uniforms were like when you hit the dirt.  So the only thing that was available w-, we had a whole warehouse full of size 46 coveralls, and so we were all issued 2 pair of f-, size 46 coveralls to wear as a uniform.  Now I know I could get into one leg of the uniform.  We'd been taught that you don’t destroy government property, so this bothered us a great deal; however, we had nice Chinese tailors, and they cut down the 2 pair of size 46 coveralls, and made us, uh, some that fit us.  So we wore those.  Uh, we did have some West Point drill over on Corregidor, the kaki, and, uh, the Chinese tailors made, uh, 2 skirts for each of us, and we wore the men’s shirt that, uh, and cut the sleeves off and rolled 'em up above the elbow.  Uh, we, uh, at that time were very conscious of wearing a cap on duty, and we wore the little overseas cap on duty.  Uh, when, uh, we were, uh, in Santo Tomas, that was our uniform too.  Uh, we got down to, uh, Leyte, and, uh, the girls were very nice to us down there.  

	They gave us lipstick and, and, oh a lot of, you know, combs and a lot of things like that, and they gave us a little garment.  It was a seersucker affair, and, uh, w-, gave one to each of us, and we looked at them and we thought they were kinda nice, so the next morning when we took a shower, why we said oh, my, you know, the army got [really 45:53] very sensible, uh, th-, uh, making these little bathrobes for us, and, uh, so [chuckle] we, uh, took them off and put our uniforms on and went to breakfast and – so then some of the nurses there said, uh, what do you think of the uniforms, and well, we said we don’t know, uh.  They said you don’t? And we said no, we haven't seen them.  And they said, um, well, we gave each of you a uniform last night, and, uh, we stopped a minute, and then we said you mean those seersucker jobs? And they said yes.  We said oh, we thought those were bathrobes.  [chuckle] 

	Well, uh, we got back to the states, or course, and, uh, there again the, uh, we're having the beige uniforms, and they had the dress uniform, a, a single dress, uh, kinda beige with maroon on it, and then a, a skirt and a shirt, and we had all those and, and, uh, the greens and – these were all things that were very different to us.  I must tell you too, though, while we were down in Leyte, another thing that bothered us terribly was that we kept hearing, um, we need wax so badly.  Oh, it'll be so good when we get more wax, and, uh, there’s a whole shipload of wax coming in.  Well we kinda thought maybe they had different ways of doing things, but for the life of us we could not understand why everybody was so concerned about the wax.  And so finally we said well, would you mind telling us what it is that you're so anxious to get all this wax and you're getting a whole [laughter] shipload of it? And they stopped a minute and said oh, I guess you don’t know.  W-, no we don’t! Well they said, uh, this is the Women’s Army Corps, [laughter] which we had thought was W-A-X.  We really had quite a learning process after we came back.

Margaret Duncan:	[48:04] You were out of contact with everything for what 3 years when you?

Madeline Ullom:	Right.

Margaret Duncan:	[48:08] Three years and three years in the prison camp?

Madeline Ullom:	Right.

Margaret Duncan:	And this was a 3-year revolutionary time as far as the United States was concerned.

Madeline Ullom:	Oh, yes.

Margaret Duncan:	And the Army Nurse Corps and the Army with, with everything.  

Madeline Ullom:	I must really tell you, too, that, uh, uh, one morning, uh, I was going along taking a little walk early in the morning.  And I wasn’t on duty, and I met Ann Mueller, the Chief Nurse, and she said oh, Madge, would you go and take care of  Miss Davison? She is very ill, and she has to have somebody with her, and I said sure, Ann, I'll be glad to do it.  I said, as soon as I, uh, I had my shorts on and my little shirt.  I said as soon as I change into my uniform.  She said Miss Davison is so sick she won't know what you have on.  So she said you go on just as you are.  And I said boy, this is great, taking care of the chief nurse of the Philippines in a pair of shorts and a shirt.  [laughter] 

	Well we used to often say we wonder what the people in Washington would say, you know, eh, if they could see some of the things that, uh, we did and some things that we had, but w-, we really, uh, had to get along with what we had at the time.  When we got to Hawaii, they said oh, we’d like to take you out to Schofield Barracks, and we'd like to show you how to improvise in the field.  Well we said, thank you, we appreciate that, but if you don’t mind, we think we know how to improvise [chuckle] because, you know, coat hangers had been, you know, a little branch of a tree and a little piece of a vine, you know, to hang it up because, uh, over on Bataan, why the sky was the roof of the hospital and the ground was the floor.  And, uh, you know, it was improvisation all the way.

Margaret Duncan:	We've talked about your service during the war.  [50:07] What are some of the highlights, the things that you accomplished, uh, after the war was over for the rest of the time that you were in the service?

Madeline Ullom:	Uh, well, it involves a great deal, but, uh, I just sort of, uh, something happened at Fitzsimons that stands out a little bit.  Uh, I was Assistant Chief Nurse, and I was Educational Coordinator and, and, uh, a few more things.  Uh, it seemed like I was always – for so much of the time, I was always on so many committees.  Uh, um, but when I, uh, going back to Fitzsimons as Educational Coordinator, we had, um, an affiliation with Loretta Heights College and with, uh, Union College and, uh, with Mercy Hospital, Presbyterian Hospital.  And, uh, practically one of the things that almost drove me distracted when I got there was that, uh, all these people were coming in our their, uh, affiliations, and of course, we had many army schools, too, at phil-, at, uh, Fitzsimons.  There was the anesthesia school and the – then later on, there was a school, uh, for intensive care, training nurses for intensive care.  Well there were just many, many programs going on.  And here were all these, uh, civilian institutions bringing out their people, and, uh, so I immediately went over to the Judge Advocate and said, uh, I need a lot of help on all this.  I, uh, think that these contracts can be rewritten a little bit and made a little different.  So I worked very hard.  In fact, every morning I used to go to the [chuckle] Judge Advocate and, uh, revise these contracts so that all of them really read the same.  

	And also, uh, in the contracts that we had, when the st-, those student nurses were out there for their, um, experience that their graduate nursing instructor was with them and was responsible for everything that they did.  I've really felt that, uh, that was a big step.  Uh, we also at that time too, that they became on a regular, uh, rotation basis and that 3 months before each rotation for the entire year began that it was spelled out in the contract, and our contracts were made out for 1 year in advance.  Um, it seemed like, uh, Fitzsimons of course, just has a wealth of material.  and, uh, so the Indian service decided that they had many of their nurses out in isolated posts, and, uh, they were small little hospitals, and they decided that they needed some refresher work.  So we worked.  They asked us at Fitzsimons to help them, and so we worked with them and, uh, set up a rotation with the Indian service in, uh, pediatrics and then ob-, in obstetrics for a 3 months course.  And, uh, we took, uh, 2 nurses in pediatrics and 2 nurses in obstetrics and we started a rotation in the Indian service.  Uh, I was quite active in many aspects of nursing, and I had been at Fitzsimons before as Director of the Medical Technician School, which was s-, uh, 2 classes of 16, uh, people in each class each year.  

	And, uh, so I was active in the, uh, League for Nursing, and I was Chairman of the uh, uh, Practical Nurse Council and was very active in the Administrative, uh, Council of the Nurses in, uh, Denver. And, um. a-, another interesting experience which I had was I was sent out on the Bond Drive, and I had the great State of Alabama.  So every weekend, I went to Birmingham and, uh, received my assignment for the next week.  It was a most enjoyable experience.  I, uh, was a week in Montgomery and a week in Mobile and then a week in Jasper and so on and so forth.  And those southerners carried me around in southern hospitality with roses in my room when I arrived and worked very hard.  [As 54:56] I started in in the mornings, uh, with a 6:00 breakfast program, and then I went to the schools and talked with the schoolchildren and then went to the Women’s Club at 10:00 in the morning, and, uh, from there went to the Kiwanis and the Lions and all those clubs, and in the afternoon back again to the women’s bridge clubs and their teas and parties and then at night again to the rallies and so on and so forth. 

	 Anyway, we made our quota and our super quota and $100,000 over our super quota in the, uh, Bond Drive.  It had so happened that, uh, when I was going to quartermaster school we had a course in public speaking, and there were only 6 in each class.  We had 2 classes because there were only 12 of us.  We had a lawyer from Boston who taught us public speaking, and he was really rugged on us.  So it was right a-, about a month after that I went out on the Bond Drive, so I tried to put into effect, uh, all the things he taught us in public speaking.  

Margaret Duncan:	You’ve had some wonderful experiences as far as the service is concerned.  [56:15] Can you compare service careers then with what the service careers are like at the present?

Madeline Ullom:	Well I think there's a great deal of improvement in, uh, what has happened.  The hours of duty, the, uh, uh – of course when I was in the army in the early days if you were married why you had to get out right away, and of course now, you not only can have your husband but your children and so on and so forth.  The, uh – I think it's much more lenient and more humane, and, uh, I think that, uh, of course the pay scale is a, a great deal more.  Uh, I think probably right now, though, there’s something that I should mention, and, um, uh, that is that, uh, we always felt when we were over in the islands and so on and so forth that we had our duty to do and that was the most important aspect and that was it.  Uh, we came back and, uh, well I – we were in things like the Bond Drive and so on and so forth but nothing terribly spectacular.  And then, uh, uh, uh, 2 years ago, why the Veterans Administration, uh, 40 years later decided that they should recognize us.  So, uh, Dorothy Starbuck who was in charge of veterans’ benefits, uh, worked very hard and contacted each and every, uh, uh, one of us, and, uh, we were invited to Washington, and we spent, uh, 3 days you might say on cloud 9.  

	There'd never been anything before like it and probably never will again.  It was almost unbelievable.  It started in as a very simple, uh, affair.  I had, uh, been appointed a member of the Advisory Committee to, uh, uh, the administrator, the Veterans’ Affairs on, uh, former prisoners of war and, uh, had gone back to a meeting, and they had asked me if, uh, I would like to stay over 1 day and attend the POW MIA affairs at the Pentagon, and I said yes.  And they said we're going to invite all the, uh, people who were with you.  And I said well, I think that’s fine.  And then everybody sort of got on the bandwagon, and they all wanted to do something, and they would say well, what can we do.  Uh, we want to do something.  What can we contribute? What has to be done? Well this 3-day gala event was constant.  And, uh, the Assistant, uh, Secretary of Defense, uh, had a reception for us at the Pentagon, and, uh, Caspar Weinberger talked, uh, in general, and then he talked to each one of us individually.  We chatted and so on and so forth.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars had a gala celebration for us.  Mr., uh, Senate – Congressman Hammerschmidt had a flag flown over the Capitol and each one of our names.  

	The, um, commander gave us a huge parchment, uh, uh, r-, uh, commendation.  Uh, the, uh – and vets had a big celebration over in Baltimore, and, uh, we were their guests and they gave us books and many memorabilia.  Of course, uh, we went to the Whitehouse, and, uh, uh, the President, Regan, talked with us, and then, uh, he shook hands individually with each one and sent us an autographed picture of us shaking hands with him.  [tsk] And, uh, we wanted to go to the cemetery in Arlington because several of our girls are buried there.  And, uh, the curator, uh, personally conducted us on the tour through Arlington.  The Medical Surgical Department of the Veterans Administration had a beautiful luncheon for us at the Sheraton.  And, uh, well it was just 3 days of which we were on cloud 9, and Dorothy Starbuck said it's mighty quiet since you people left.  

Margaret Duncan:	[1:00:59] This is the time that – when you were, uh, a guest on, um, [tsk] uh…

Madeline Ullom:	The Today Show.

Margaret Duncan:	…Toda-, Today, Today Show.  

Madeline Ullom:	Yes.

Margaret Duncan:	[1:01:18] This – these are the things that you’ve b-, sort of been into since you retired from the service?

Madeline Ullom:	Correct.

Margaret Duncan:	You’ve done a lot of, uh, Veterans Affairs work and, uh, things like that.  [1:01:17] What else have you done since you’ve retired from the service?

Madeline Ullom:	Oh, I've been, uh, I was very active in many organizations, like I was Commander for the American Legion Post on the Executive Committee.  And I was, uh, on the, the American Association University Women’s, uh, representative to the Tucson Council for the Aging and [Inaudible 1:01:40] Council for the Aging, and I was the secretary, and I was on the Executive Board.  And, um, oh, of course, I was very active in Practical Nurse affairs and, uh, spoke at many of their national conventions and many of their workshops and, uh, when I was in El Paso why I was, uh, President of the League for Nursing and, uh, g-, uh, c-.  The army sent me to, um, University of Pittsburgh where I learned how to conduct workshops, and, uh, I conducted many of them in, uh, El Paso and was very active in doing things like that.  I've always been interested in art, and I always wanted to paint, so I took, uh, private lessons in painting. And I work in all media – oils and watercolors and pastels and inks and, uh, Conte crayons and, uh, uh, collages and every aspect of that.  Uh, I like to travel.  I took a trip around the world, and I had many – I've been back to the Philippines 4 times, and, uh, I was back in 1967 when we dedicated the cem-, the American cemetery and the Filipino cemetery and the, uh, shrine at, uh, Corregidor and also the Alter of Freedom from the Shrine of Valor on, uh, Bataan.  

	Uh, I was back, uh, with the, uh – that was when I was back with the headquarters of the Southwest Pacific, and, uh.  Oh, we went to many of the places I had heard about and, uh, and visited many headquarters.  Um, [tsk] of course, we m-, many times we always went to Malacanang Palace and chattered with, uh, President Marcos.  Uh, the last time I was back, I went back with the 503rd Regimental Combat Unit, which was the, uh, parachute group with, uh, General Jones who lives in Tucson, and, uh, they were the people who, uh, retook the island of Corregidor, and he presented it to General MacArthur, and, uh, so he said General MacArthur, I present to you Corregidor.  Well, you know, in the earlier days, why they had a broadcast station on Corregidor, and every broadcast always ended with Corregidor still stands, you know, the impenetrable fortress.  Well, when Japanese took over, why you know what the Americans said, Corregidor still stands under new management.  Well anyway, General Jones retook Corregidor and presented it to General MacArthur, and he said I see the old flagpole still stands.  It was, uh, the flagpole was made from the, uh, lead ship of the Admiral Dewey’s Spanish-American Fleet, and, uh, he said I see the old flagpole still stands.  He said hoist the colors to the top and let no enemy ever haul it down.  

	And, uh, of course, our big event in Santo Tomas was when, uh, uh, the Japanese went out of the camp and they raised the flag, the American flag, and, uh, we all sang God Bless America.  And, uh, one time in camp, why, uh, uh, we had a 4th of July a, affair.  We had to do it rather surreptitiously, but the children, the 600 children, our little children had, uh, prayed, and they were dressed as, uh, soldiers and sailors, and, uh, you had to know it was a soldier or sailor because, uh, it was just some little thing that was symbolic, but a little 4-year-old girl was the Indian maiden, and she had a feather in her hair, and, uh, she carried a little flag in her hand, and, uh, everybody knew it, and everybody gave appropriate recognition.  Uh, we had many exciting experiences and many very different.  You, of course, never knew from one time to another what was gonna happened next, and you, uh, just took everything for granted…

Margaret Duncan:	[Oh 1:06:22].

Madeline Ullom:	…did the best you could under the circumstances.  

Margaret Duncan:	[1:06:26] Well since you’ve retired, then you certainly have never been bored?

Madeline Ullom:	I don’t have enough…

Margaret Duncan:	[1:06:30] You’ve been busy?

Madeline Ullom:	I don’t have enough time.  I really don’t.  I just don’t have enough time. And, uh, uh, I've been quite active.  Uh, last year when I was out at the American Ex-Prisoner of War, uh, Convention in, uh, Seattle, I was on a panel with, uh, the Dean of the Medical School of the University of Washington and Dr. Cohen who was the Assistant Medical Director of the VA, and we all received beautiful plaques for our presentation and our work in medical research.  And being on the Advisory Committee of Former Prisoners of War is not only our meetings in Washington for a couple days about every 3 months, but we were constantly all the time, uh, it's nothing to get airmail express correspondence, and you return to so and so the, the – just the other day, I was down in, uh, Albuquerque.  I went to the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Convention, and General Flynn who is, uh, our Chairman, and he was a prisoner of the Vietcong for 5-1/2 years, and, uh, he was the guest speaker at the banquet, and, uh, uh, s-, there were 3 or 4 members of the Advisory Committee there, and of course, I'll be going back to Washington next month for – on the 15th of June for a meeting on the 16th and 17th.  Well that’s the way it goes.

Margaret Duncan:	[1:08:05] Looking back on your, uh, years in the service, what demanded the greatest adjustment, uh, the uniforms or living with others, regulations, lack of freedom [inaudible 1:08:18]? What do you think demanded the greatest adjustment?

Madeline Ullom:	I don’t know.  It's a, it's a, it's a little difficult to really say.  Uh, I had taught school for 4 years before I went in training, and, uh, after having been a teacher and then being a probationer [chuckle] in training at a very strict medical college hospital, and Jefferson was very strict, uh, that was a terrific adjustment.  And, uh, there was another girl in my class who had also taught school for 4 years, and, uh, really the 2 of us, uh, worked together, uh, very much, and [chuckle] we used to often look at each other and smile.  Uh, Kay also joined the Army Nurse Corps.  	

	Uh, I don’t know what was the greatest adjustment.  I guess probably, uh, when I went to the Philippines in peace time, uh, there was no air conditioning, and it was very hot in the tropics, and, uh, we worked what they call tropical hours.  All the main work was done in the morning, and at 12:30, uh, for the afternoon, it was a skeleton crew just like night duty.  And, uh, when we were in the Philippines, uh, we were supposed to be in perfect health and not get sick while we were over there because the boat only came every 3 months to take people back on rotation and bring the new ones.  So there was nobody to take your place if you got sick.  And that w-, it was supposed to go on your record if you ate something and got sick.  Uh, that was your responsibility.  There were only very few places in Manila that we could eat outside of the post.  And, uh, so it was very strange to us.  Uh, later on, when we were in camp, of course, [chuckle] all those things were gone to the wind, and our – in the early days in camp, they did give us rice bread, but the rice bread would be stacked up on the ground, and you dusted it off and ate it, and of course, later on, of course, we all had amoebic dysentery and bacillary dysentery, and we got Dengue.  We got all the tropical diseases.  

	I suppose that the way of life in the Philippines, uh, of course, at the time I went over there, it was very much, uh, like it had been in the earlier days, and, uh, no self-respecting white girl would be seen out on the streets after 6:00 in the evening without an escort.  And, uh, there were not too many white, uh, girls available over there, and, uh, really we had a wonderful social time.  We spent a great deal of time at the Army and Navy Club, and we went to Baguio for, uh, uh, rest and recreation, which did not count against your leave or you took a trip to the Southern Islands.  Uh, since, uh, w-, I had planned on coming back to the states of course, uh, shortly after the war began, which was before, why Miss Davison had said, uh – we had asked if we could go to Southern Islands either over Christmas or New Year’s, and she said why you can be gone over both of them on your 10 days.  [chuckle] [Inaudible 1:11:56] of course.  [chuckle]

Margaret Duncan:	[1:11:59] What was the, what was the most unpopular regulation that you think you ever encountered in the, uh, army, your army service?

Madeline Ullom:	Gee, I don’t know.  I don’t know.  It's just hard to say.  Sometimes there's parts of 1 that I didn’t like and o-, other parts that I could live with.  I, I really just don’t know which one I would say.  Uh…

Margaret Duncan:	Well I think really, um, you, you had such an interesting life in the service, and, uh, uh, parts of your service you enjoyed a great deal, parts of it were with shall we say great sorrow…

Madeline Ullom:	Well you know…

Margaret Duncan:	…but, um…

Madeline Ullom:	…one thing I could always console myself with was I asked to go over to the Philippines.

Margaret Duncan:	Yeah.

Madeline Ullom:	And, uh, one day the Chief Nurse at Walter Reed said to me, uh, do you still want to go to the Philippines, and I said oh, yes, it's exactly what I want to do.  And uh, she said, uh, well, uh, you sure you – that’s what you want to do.  Oh, I said, absolutely.  I want to, I want to join the, uh, I want to go over to the Philippines, and she said well, you'll probably go in June if you don’t in September.  I think probably maybe one of the hardest things for me was that after having taught school for 4 years, and I, I got through training because I wanted to be a nurse, and then I got to Walter Reed, and we had very few young nurses there.  And I looked the situation over, and, uh, we had quite a few nurses who had 14, 16, 18 years service, and we had the ones that were had, you know, 24 to 30 years and were gonna retire, and they were they.  And you know you were low man on the totem pole, and, uh, so, uh, uh, it was, you know, uh, well you got the relief.  You got the night duty.  You got all those things.  Well ordinarily they didn’t sent people to the Philippines unless you had about 10, 12, 14 years service, and there were, uh, 4 of us in Walter Reed.  

	Well Clara Mueller had 14 years service, but Adela Foreman and Sue Downing and I only had about 2, so we asked to go to the Philippines, and they sent us.  And, uh, the 3 – all 4 of us were stationed at Sternberg in Manila.  And we were working with doctors I just worked with at Walter Reed, and if they weren't there then, there were more that came.  So it was pretty much the Walter Reed crew that was over there.  Well of course, uh, we had a lot of extra rooms at Sternberg, and, uh, it was a tropical, uh, nurses’ quarters, and when the nurses came from the outpost, why they always stayed there.  So a little standing joke between the 3 of us was that when people would come down we'd be introduced to them, why, uh, we would say, uh, how many years have you been in the service, and of course, it was always oh, 12 or 14 or 16 or something like that, and then they’d say and how long have you been in the service? Two years.  [chuckle] So that was a kind of a standing joke, and of course, we sat at the last table in the dining room and our, [or our 1:15:32] rooms were in [inaudible 1:15:32], but we didn’t mind it.  

	And we had made a promise to each other, uh, the 3 of us when we were on the boat coming over that we would not get lazy in the Philippines, that we were going to do something interesting all the time.  So every day instead of taking the siesta when, uh, we weren't on duty, I – we would go to the hat factories and the tobacco factories and, and to the agricultural colleges and to the forest, and they were doing research work and everything in those places.  And really every d-, day we went out, and we really learned a great deal about the islands and had a marvelous time, and, uh, or course we’d been going on our third year of service [chuckle] at that time.  It was a big joke with us.

Margaret Duncan:	[1:16:24] Do you think you ever experienced any conflict between being feminine and being a military professional?

Madeline Ullom:	No, I don’t think so.  Uh, when, uh, when we went over the Philippines, of course, we were, uh, known as Miss.  They didn’t call you by your rank.  It was w-, relative rank we had, so we were Miss, but after we got out of [inaudible 1:16:48] why, of course, we, uh, the rules and regulations had changed, and we now had the rank office-, of an officer.  When, uh, we were in Hawaii, uh, they kept paging and paging somebody, and, uh, nobody answered this page. So somebody came up and said to this girl, you're being paged, don’t you know it? And she said no.  And they said well, didn’t you hear them calling Lieutenant so and so.  Well, she said, yes, I did.  Well they said that’s you.  Oh, she said, I didn’t know.  [laughter] So of course, uh we had a time on catching up on the rank because we weren't used to that, and, uh, at that time too, you know, the, uh, and the s-, men would call you Sir, you know, and we weren't, uh, accustomed to any of those things [inaudible 1:17:42].

Margaret Duncan:	Well, uh, I think this, uh, sort of concludes our interview, and thank you very much.

Madeline Ullom:	Well thank you very much.  It was great talking with you.


/lo