Interview of Mary Tener Davidson Hall on her service as an U.S. Air Force officer from 1951 to 1956 Ruth Stewart: Mary Tener Davidson Hall is being interviewed today at Air Force Village I, San Antonio, Texas, by Ruth Stewart. This is a project of the Women’s Overseas Service League and today is the, February 18, 2004. [0:20] Mary, how about starting by telling us a little bit about your background, where you were born and your early years, and then on up into getting into the military? Mary Hall: I was born in Modesto, California, and I was raised, um, until the 4th grade on a ranch between Modesto and Stockton. When I was 9 years old, we moved to Stockton and I finished school at Saint Agnes Grammar School, Saint Mary's High School, and then I went to the College of the Pacific. I had a double major in English and history. I always wanted to travel. I intended to go into foreign service. So after I graduated, I did some post-graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley. And then I taught for a year in Lodi, California, hoping to save money to go to Foreign Trade School in Thunderbird Field in Arizona. Ruth Stewart: [1:19] What did you teach? Mary Hall: Uh, I taught the 5th and 6th grades. And, uh, then I, uh, the air force came up with this offer that if you had a, a college degree and you had 3 years of work experience you could go in as a second lieutenant, or if you had 5 years’ experience you could go in as a first lieutenant. Well, I had worked part-time while I was in college, so they gave me credit for 2 years. So the 2 years of part-time plus the 1 year of teaching, I qualified. So I entered the air force as a second lieutenant. Ruth Stewart: [1:54] And what year was that? Mary Hall: That was in November of 1951. Ruth Stewart: [1:58] ’51? Mary Hall: Mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: Okay. Mary Hall: And, uh, I attended Officer BMOC, Basic Officer Military Course at Lack-… Ruth Stewart: BMO… Mary Hall: C. Ruth Stewart: C. Mary Hall: Mm-hm. Um, the – at Lackland, uh, Air Force Base in Te-, San Antonio, Texas, for – it was a 3-month course. Um, there were mostly women there. This was the second class that went through and, uh, there were maybe 10 men or so, but mostly women. And, uh, it was a very interesting experience. I traveled all over Texas as much as I could on the weekends. And, uh, we graduated in February of 1952. And from there I went to my first assignment at Olmsted Air Force Base in Middletown, Pennsylvania. And, uh, I was – I worked in non-appropriated funds as a services officer and I replaced a first lieutenant who went to Korea. And, uh, that was the beginning of my career. And, uh, we… Ruth Stewart: [3:24] And that was when then? Mary Hall: This was February of 1952. Ruth Stewart: ’52. Mary Hall: And we oversaw all money-generating things like the BX, the commissary, the officers’ club, NCO club, housing, BOQs, anything that generated money. And, uh, it was a great way to get acquainted with a lot of various aspects of the Air Force. In May of 19-, well, ‘53, uh, I think it was a rigged deal, they said they were going to do cross-training and so I should cross-train into personnel. So I went up to personnel and my assignment for that day was to, uh, see the new assignments that were coming in. And as I pulled all these telegraphs and things off, I pulled off my own assignment to Japan. And, uh, I think they had previously arranged that. [chuckle] So I left for Japan in May of 1953, and traveled across the United States. I started out, on the first day I went to Pittsburgh, and then I backtracked and went to Niagara Falls, and then I cut over through Canada and came down through Chicago, and finally got to Cheyenne, Wyoming. And I had planned to go up to Yellowstone and the, the car was snowed in under a couple feet of snow so I decided I’d go south. So then I headed south and finally got home to California and, um, Camp Stoneman. And I left from Camp Stoneman about 2 weeks later. I was able to go home on weekends and see my parents in Stockton. And so I arrived in Japan in the middle of May of 1953. And I was supposed to be assigned to the officers’ club, but they were short of supply officers, so I was moved to supply. The AFC numbers are very similar, 62, uh, 64324 and 6434, and so I became a supply officer. And I was what was called a [planned 5:54] account officer. I was responsible for all property offer-, uh, given to the different organizations like furniture, office equipment, things like that, items that were authorized by the Table of Allowances. And, uh, you were authorized so many things per number of people in the squadron. And I had to keep track and make sure that people got what they were authorized, and only got what they were authorized, and that they accounted for it and returned it when they signed it "officer departed." And one of my most memorable experiences was, I was fairly new on the job, and there was a terrible storm that night, and the chaplain was trying to clear the base in order to leave the next morning. His supply records were in terrible shape. And we were working at the, uh, supply building, trying to straighten out his records and all the electricity went off and we worked by the light of a candle. [chuckle] And he didn't get to leave the next day like he wanted. He had to stay another day or two in order to clear up his accounts, but he finally got them straightened and left. And it was a very interesting job. I had accounts in several places in Japan. And I was dating a pilot from [inaudible 7:29] Atami, down in Kyushu, and he was flying F-94s. And every once in a while he would come up and pick me up and take me to one of my supply accounts in Atami, or wherever it happened to be. And, uh, so I have some pictures of myself in an F-94 that I flew around in. And I'm not sure just how authorized that was, but it was a lot of fun. [chuckle] And, uh, I had a supply account in Korea, and, uh, they were very hesitant about letting me go there. And it made me unhappy because nurses and civilian workers, women, were allowed to go, but not the Air Force officers. And finally they relented and said I could go visit my account. And that was very interesting. I was only there for a short time, but I do remember that they had no water during the daytime. And the water would come on at 3:00 in the morning and they’d sound an alarm so everybody could get up and rush in and take showers. And then we would go back to bed again until it was time to get up. And, uh, then, let's see, oh, uh, th-, there was a lieutenant colonel was to be court martialed for – I can't remember the charges now – but they appointed me to the board. I kept insisting that I couldn't serve because I wasn’t his, of equal rank but they sent me to Niigata, and so I got to see that part of Japan. And there were a couple other lieutenants on the board with me and we found the lieutenant colonel guilty. But, of course, the verdict was thrown out later because we, as I said, we were not equal rank. But it was an interesting experience, and I got to see some more of Japan. I used to travel as much as I possibly could. I went to Hoki [inaudible 9:38] Kyushu and to everywhere possible in, on Honshu. We'd go down to Hamamatsu to go to the beach and we'd go to Kyoto and Nara and, of course, Tokyo. They had an overnight train to Tokyo. And you'd get up – get on it around midnight and go to sleep and the next morning they’d side car the, side track the car that you were in and you could get up at your leisure and go spend time in Tokyo and the same way coming home again. And I liked that very much. And I also did as much traveling by plane as I could. I'd hitch-hike rides to Okinawa, and Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong. And one time another gal and I were doing this and she had driven to the airport and in Japan we drove on the right-hand side, and we alternated every place we went. And when we got back, after stopping in 4 different places where they drove on 4 different sides of the roads, we couldn’t – we sat in the car and we couldn't remember which side of the road we were supposed to drive on. [chuckle] And we had to wait until somebody drove by before it came back to us that in Japan we drove on the right-hand side. And let’s see, then, um, [inaudible 11:10] about Japan. Oh, I went skiing in Japan where they later held the Olympic games. I was not much of a skier. I had not grown up in snow, but we could visit it once in a while. But I remember going down one of the slopes and my ski came off, 1 ski came off. And there I was in the middle of the slope with 1 ski on 1 leg, and that was the last time I’ve ever been skiing. It probably will remain the last time. Um, one of the interesting places in Nagoya was a little, tiny restaurant out on the street and it was called Seven Stools. And it was extremely popular with everybody. And there was always a waiting line to sit on one of the 7 stools. And about all you could eat was Kobe beef and fried rice. And the chef, a little Japanese man, would toss the steaks up into the air and catch them and it was really quite a sight to see and very, very popular. And I’ve talked with many other people in Japan and they all seemed to remember Seven Stools. It was a highlight. Ruth Stewart: [12:29] Back then there were only 7 stools for customers? [chuckle] Mary Hall: Only 7 stools. You had this little place and that was it. And I had several Japanese people work for me. My secretary was, we called her Baby San (I don't know what her real name was) and then there was Junior. And they were both extremely nice people and took me to their homes. Junior had just moved into a new home, he and his wife, and they were so proud of it. And I guess I was one of the first visitors and they showed me, showed it to me. Ruth Stewart: That's always special. Mary Hall: It was very nice. And, uh, it was a new area that had opened up. Nagoya had been bombed very heavily and, um, I always wondered why the buildings were so stretched out. We were in a supply building downtown, and then the hospital was a couple of miles away, and the headquarters was another way. And finally I saw a picture of Nagoya, and the thing was we took every building that was standing. And they had shuttle buses that ran through the different places. We were located where we were because that was the only, those were the only available buildings. And finally, toward the end of the tour, we had been doing extensive work out at Komaki Air Base, which was outside of Nagoya, and we moved out to there in a nice brand new supply building. And I remember ordering all the furniture for the BOQ. And, oh, I was so proud of the BOQs when I left. And they turned the base over to the Japanese within months after I left and I kept wondering what happened to my beautiful furniture. [chuckle] We lived in a hotel, all the women, the Chiyoda Hotel, and we each had a room. Ruth Stewart: [14:27] What was that hotel? Mary Hall: Chiyoda, C-h-i, Chi, o-d, C-h-i. There’s a y somewhere in there, I don’t know where. Chiyoda. I don’t know. C-h-i-y-o-d-a maybe, Chiyoda. And, um, the officers’ club was in another building. And that's where the men lived, in the officer's club. It was an old former hotel, a very nice one, much more elegant than our Chiyoda. But, uh, we had a nice room and there was a beauty shop there. And the maids did our laundry and ironed our uniforms, which was a plus. So I thoroughly enj-, enjoyed my tour there. There were at first I had a WAF Staff Sergeant who worked for me, and then they sent all the enlisted WAF home. The officers stayed, but no female enlisted people. I don't know why they did that. But, so there were, must have been about, hm, maybe 30 WAF officers in the hotel, maybe more than that. But we became quite close and had parties and entertained and traveled a lot. I left Japan in, uh, on new, uh, Halloween day, Halloween night, 1955. And another WAF lieutenant, Lieutenant Edith Evans, and I had saved up our leave and gotten permission to travel home by mean-, any means available rather than take our scheduled flights back to the States. And we had to have enough money to pay our way in case we got stuck anywhere. But mostly we hitchhiked on embassy flights, the planes that were regularly scheduled to fly from Japan all the way across Asia over to Europe. So we – the hardest part to get a flight was from out of the Philippines. That was a very busy place. We got from Tokyo to Manila and then we had to wait a few days there, and we'd been there before. And then we went from Manila to, um, Bangkok. We stayed there about a week. We wanted to go to Angkor Wat, but we could never get 2 vacancies on the plane at the same time, there was only 1. So instead we decided we’d go to Singapore. So we took a train down to Singapore, and, um, there were a few troops on the train and we didn't think anything about it until we entered Penang. And we stayed at Penang overnight, and the next morning when we left Penang, the train was absolutely filled with armed, armed, uh, forces and troops and out in front of the train was this little carriage that preceded the engine. And we asked, of course, what was going on. And they said, well, the little carriage was to blow up any bombs that were in the train tracks, and the troops were to repel any troops or any of the communist guerillas that came down out of the hillside and attacked the train. We had a wonderful time in Singapore, but we decided we’d fly back. [chuckle] And while we were there, we met this British correspondent for, I guess, the London Times. And he took us all over Singapore, and in boats out to the various islands. And we got to see the area around Singapore. And I really liked Singapore. It was clean and neat and well laid out and it’s probably my favorite Asian city. Um, from Singapore we went to Vi-, um, no. We went back to Bangkok, and then we went to Vietnam very briefly. So I got to Vietnam in '55 and, uh… Ruth Stewart: [18:52] That was just visiting? Mary Hall: Just visiting. A very short visit to – gosh, what the heck. We went to Tan Son Nhut Airport and just to Saigon very briefly. And then we went over, we flew over Burma, couldn't land there, and went to Bangladesh and were there for a couple of days, and then on to, uh, India. And, uh, and we stayed in India for about 2 weeks, and we toured all around the central part of India, um, of course, Agra and the Taj Mahal, and Delhi, and Red Fort, and Jaipur. And, um, I always remember that Jackie Kennedy rode an elephant from one spot up to the, I believe it was the abandoned city of Fatehpur, Sikri. And I rode that elephant before she did, or one of the same elephants. But that was a deserted city in beautiful condition, but they ran out of water. And it was just a wonderful glimpse, a look into the past to see how the wealthy people had lived. The area was filled with palaces. And we stayed in a palace one night. It was now a hotel, but it had belonged to a rajah, and, uh, we stayed there. And we went on to Jaipur and saw all the pink palaces. We tried to go to Kashmir. We went to the, I guess the State Department several times and tried to get visas to go to Kashmir. And we became such a fixture that finally one of the workers who was there came to our hotel at night and said, "You might as well give up on going to Kashmir. They're never going to give you permission. They think you're spies." [chuckle] So we never did get to Kashmir. From India we went to Iran – oh, no. We went to Pakistan first and were there for a few day then on to Iran and Kahran, and then to Saudi Arabia and Dhahran. And then we, uh, we stayed in these places no more than maybe 2 or 3 days. And then we went to Egypt and we went to Alexandria and then down to Cairo. And we, we were there must have been about a week or so and we really explored everything that we possibly could. We went to the largest mosque in Cairo. I always remember the stone work, how they formed these mammoth arches, the beautiful stone work that they did. And we went to King Farouk's place. He had recently been overthrown. I think it was the year before, 2 years. And, of course, to the pyramids and to the Sphinx, and to the underground temples or storage places where they had lots of bulls mummified. And we thoroughly enjoyed Cai-, um, Egypt. And I rode a camel for the first time there. And from Egypt we went to Libya, went to Wheelus Air Force Base. And we were only there a couple of days, but we did get into town and – Tripoli I believe it was. And then we took an air evac plane up to Italy and it went to Naples and we stayed in Naples for several days and went to Capri and lounged around in the sunshine. It was so nice. Somewhere in here we had been carrying 2 suitcases. One was summer clothes which we had worn until we left Egypt. And then we had winter clothes which we put on as soon as we got to Italy. And we shipped the summer clothes back to the States at that time so we didn't have to carry the extra suitcase. And we had a wonderful time in Naples. And then we took an Italian bus up to Rome and we met some Navy pilots there. And they took us sightseeing all over Rome on little motor scooters. And we saw all the regular sights, the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Forum, just everything we could possibly see. And we went around town on those little scooters. I don't think I'd do it today. [chuckle] But it was fun. And from Rome we flew up to Frankfurt and visited a lot of WAF friends up in that area that we knew, and took a train over to Paris and we met some more Air Force Officers over there. And I know we went to all check into this one hotel and we wanted 2 rooms, Edie and I and the other 2 male officers. And when we, we got to the rooms, the hotel people had put one man's luggage and one woman's luggage in one room and the same in the other one. [chuckle] So we had to straighten that out. And, oh, we saw all the sights of Paris. And the thing I'm afraid that we remember most is we were taking a taxi and it was noontime and we were in the middle of crossing a square and the taxi driver pulled to a sudden halt and he said, "Get out." And we said, "Well, this isn't where we were going. We want to…" I think we were on our way to the Louvre. And he said, "Well. it's lunchtime and I have to go eat." So we had to get out of the cab, [chuckle] flag down another cab, and continue on our way. And by this time it's cold, it's December, and very dark in the mornings. I remember waking up in Paris at like 8:00 in the morning and it would be pitch black. And, uh, but then we returned to Germany. We didn't get to see an awful lot of Germany outside of Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, but, uh, so we left Germany. We had saved up 75 days’ leave, but my – at the last minute my new assignment said that I had to report in on the 1st of January and that was – so we had to cut out 15 days. We had visas to go down to Australia and New Zealand, but we had to eliminate that part. But, uh, so it was getting, it was now getting close to Christmas, so we left Germany and started off to the U.S. And we took different planes because Edith had more time than I did. I had to get back. And so our plane landed at the Azores and we had brake trouble. We started leaving a couple of times and the plane would return for additional work on the brakes. And finally they said, well, we’re just going to stay here for a day or so. So we all got disembarked and got settled in the BOQ. I went up to the officers’ club. And when I'd been in Olmsted, it was an AMC base and the Portuguese officers from the Azores used to fly in to get their B-17s worked on and so I became acquainted with several of them then. I used to lend them my car. And so when we arrived at the Azores and I went into the club, lo and behold, there was one of my old friends who was now the base commander so, uh. Ruth Stewart: Real serendipity. Mary Hall: It was – yeah. It was wonderful. And so he introduced me to his family and I spent the evening with them and we had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas Eve Portuguese style. We sang lots of songs and ate and danced. It was wonderful. And so then I guess it was Christmas. No, it must have been the day after that. It was the 26th, I think. We left and we got back to the States on the 27th. And so I stayed in – I went to New York for a couple of days to see my aunt and then I went down to Eglin, Florida, and reported in I think on the 1st of January. And they said, "Oh. We didn't expect you until next week." I was very unhappy. [chuckle] Ruth Stewart: [27:58] Where, now, where was that? Mary Hall: Eglin Air Force Base. Ruth Stewart: Eglin. Mary Hall: In Florida. Ruth Stewart: [28:10] Still as a supply officer? Mary Hall: Mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: Okay. Mary Hall: So I was a squadron supply officer now, and I was supposed to take over as adjutant when the present adjutant left, which was going to be 3 or 4 months down the road. And after I was there about 3 months, um, I was sent to Squadron Officer School in Montgomery, Alabama, at Maxwell Air Force Base. And I was 1 of 5 women and 597 men, and that was a wonderful experience. I thoroughly – I like school anyhow, and I thoroughly enjoyed all the lectures and assignments and... Ruth Stewart: [28:54] Did you say that was Maxwell? Mary Hall: Maxwell, mm-hm. Um, I met a lieutenant, a first lieutenant. I outranked him by six weeks. When we'd go out on dates he’d give me second lieutenant bars to wear so he would be in charge, but – Lieutenant William Davidson. And by the time school ended, we had decided to get married. And we got married the day after graduation so all of our classmates could attend. And one of the other girls became engaged while she, we were there so we depleted the ranks there. And so after we, our honeymoon in Florida and Bill returned to Clovis, New Mexico, where he was a fighter pilot at Cannon Air Force Base. And I went back to Eglin and he would fly in every weekend or so. And lo and behold, I became pregnant. And so I was – I stayed in 3 months, the required 3 months, and then I was discharged and thus ended my... Ruth Stewart: [30:14] That was a requirement at that time? Mary Hall: Yes, uh-huh. Thus ended my air force career, but I wasn't away from the air force because my husband remained in for another 25 years and we traveled a lot. We, uh… Ruth Stewart: [30:33] What year were, were you discharged? Mary Hall: 1956. November of 1956. I was 11 days short of five years, I think. Ruth Stewart: Okay. Mary Hall: Now what? Ruth Stewart: Okay. Then, since then you, you remained an air force wife and.. Mary Hall: Mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: [31:01] Uh, did you stay then involved in any kind of veteran or air force related activities? Mary Hall: Well, um, at one point I used to. My husband was Student Squadron Commander at Enid Air Force Base and I used to address all the y-, young incoming wives and tell them about the air force and what they could expect. And I found that the best way to get them acquainted was to ask them how they met their husbands, and the fabulous stories that they used to tell. And they’d find out that they came from the same school or the same area of the country and so it was really an ice breaker. They got to know each other as well as becoming more acquainted with me. So that was very good. And then I volunteered in family services, the thrift shop, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, the libraries. I went back to school in, well, I started back in 1959 to get my master's in history at Eastern New Mexico University, but my husband was in Taiwan at the time. But when he came back home we went to Germany so I lost all those credits, but I did get some of the paperwork out that I didn't have to repeat again. And then I didn't get back to school again until 1972, and I went to Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, and I got my master's in library science. And I then – we went to – I was lacking about 4 units, 8 units I guess. We went to Columbus, Mississippi, and I took the last 8 units there at Mississippi University for Women. And I transferred those back and so I got my master's from Our Lady of the Lake in 1974, I guess, officially. And then, while I was – when my husband was attending Command and Staff at Maxwell Air Force Base, I started working again. I had 3 children and the youngest was then in the 1st grade, so I worked part-time in the educational office. And from that time on I usually tried to work part-time somewhere. I volunteered in libraries a lot, um, in, let's see, Enid, and in Wichita Falls, and Kaiserslautern, and everywhere I went I volunteered in the libraries. When I was in Turkey, my husband was the base commander at Balgat at Ankara, Turkey, and the librarian there suddenly left and so I took over the library for 3 months until they got a replacement. I couldn't be hired because my husband was the base commander, that would be nepotism, but it was a lot of fun working there. And one of the things I'm proudest of is that while I was in Ankara I used to go to these schools with the Turkish women. We'd go visit 3 little Turkish schools each week, every other week, and take them books. And I became acquainted with some of the, the profe-, uh, professor's wife of the head of the University in Ankara, [inaudible 34:54]. And they were, we were not on the most friendly terms with Turkey at the time. We couldn't receive packages except during December, and we couldn't send things out. So we had all these extra books from the schools and from the library that they wanted to dispose of and so, about 10,000 books. And I made arrangements with the Turkish American Association to have the books distributed to all the schools in Turkey, or in Ankara rather, that spoke English, from kindergarten on up through the universities. So we gave them about 10,000 books and they were most appreciative of them. And they put a plaque up in the university thanking Balgat for contributing the books. And so I’ve, I’ve also volunteered in the American Research Institute in T-, in Turkey which was an archeological institute. And I set up their magazine systems and cataloged their books. I had to have the archeologist translate the titles because most of them were in foreign languages. But I would volunteer there 2 afternoons a week, and that was really a fabulous experience. The archeologist would take me out to the digs sometime to Gordion and Sardis and Aphrodisias, and I really enjoyed that. Turkey was by far my favorite tour of anywhere that we went. The people were so friendly and they liked the Americans and there was so much to see. I'm a history buff and I really enjoyed everything from the Hittites through the Crusaders to the Ottomans up to present day Turkey. And we returned to the States in – we went back to Germany again, our second tour in Germany. My youngest son had been born there in 1961. And we, we left Germany and came back to Wichita Falls, Sheppard Air Force Base, and he was the base commander there. And we – I, by this time I had been playing golf off and on for 20 years, I guess. And we played a lot of golf and I thoroughly enjoyed life. I ran the thrift shop there and I managed to keep busy. And I went back to school and took real estate courses. And so after my husband retired in 1982, we went to Austin, Texas, and I started in real estate and that was, that was good just before the crash, like I think it was '85. And then I went into property management and leasing and I did that for the next 10 years or so, um, usually part-time. And my husband died in 1991 and… Ruth Stewart: [38:20] He retired in, at Wichita Falls? Mary Hall: Yes. Ruth Stewart: Okay. [38:23] And that was in? Mary Hall: 1982. Ruth Stewart: 1982. Okay. Mary Hall: February. Well, I guess the official date was March the 1st or something of 1982. Mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: Okay. Mary Hall: We moved to Austin in April of '82 and we – I stayed there until '95 and he had died in '91. And in '95 I moved to Air Force Village II and I met my soon-to-be second husband there and we got married in '97. Ruth Stewart: [39:12] Now when was it you moved to Air Force Village? Mary Hall: '95. August of '95. Ruth Stewart: Okay. Mary Hall: Mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: Okay. Mary Hall: Are you done? Ruth Stewart: Okay. So you, you, have had a very, very interesting life and made the most of the opportunities you’ve had. Mary Hall: Mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: It's been very, very interesting to hear all this. [39:40] Is there anything that you'd like to add to this, in terms of your special memories? Mary Hall: Well, I just like to keep busy. I read to the children at Saint Louis School now 1 day a week. And I volunteer in the library down at the Institute of Texan Cultures in their archives down there. And I've been taking classes, I'm not doing it this semester. But ever since I arrived, I usually take spring and fall classes down at the AlIr they call it, Adult Learning in Retirement, down there. And I've taken anything from geology and art appreciation to computer science and lots of history courses, Texas and World War II and Indians and things like that. Just keep busy. And I've been active in the AFWOA, Air Force Women Officers Association, for the last 15 years or so. And I belong to the Women's Overseas Service League. Ruth Stewart: Which is why we’re here today together. Mary Hall: Mm-hm, mm-hm. Ruth Stewart: So. Mary Hall: That’s it. Ruth Stewart: Um, I really appreciate your taking the time to do this. This is a wonderful story that we have here. And we’ll be getting back to you later, but this will go to the Library of Congress. Mary Hall: Okay. /mlc