Cpl Mary Blakemore Johnston Oral History

title:

Cpl Mary Blakemore Johnston Oral History

creator:

Johnston, Mary "Ginny" (Blakemore) (1921 January - )

subject:

Women's Army Corps (WAC)

description:

Mary “Ginny” Johnston (Blakemore) was born in Christiansburg, Virginia in January 1921. Her father was a lawyer, banker, politician, and farmer, and her mother died when she was only 2 weeks old. Her father remarried when she was 3 years old. She grew up on a big farm in Emory, Virginia. She went to Agnes Scott College after high school, but left because she didn’t think her grades were good enough, later going to Emory College in 1941. Her father had served in World War I, but was too old to get back into the Army immediately during World War II. He eventually rejoined as part of the Allied Military Government as a lawyer to bring government to areas in Europe after the US Army left. She remembers being angry by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in December 1942. She was sent to Daytona Beach, Florida for basic training. She was assigned as an interpreter because she could speak French, German, and Spanish. Her first duty was at Norfolk Army Base where she processed German POWs. Next, she went to Fort McClellan and then to Vint Hill Farms, Virginia with 19 other women for cryptology training. There she learned codes, cyphers, and Japanese. As part of her Japanese training, she focused on water/shipping messages to decipher. She did overseas training at Fort Oglethorpe and then traveled to the west coast to take a ship to Ora Bay, New Guinea in 1944. She remembers taking a plane to Hollandia and flying over Japanese flack. In Hollandia as part of the GHQ she decoded for 8 hours a day and worked with a chaplain in her free time. Malaria was a problem and there was the risk of Japanese snipers. She got jungle rot, but was able to cure it on a visit to the Philippines. After V-J day, she left the Pacific around Thanksgiving and was out of the military by December 1945. She went back to Emory & Henry and graduated shortly thereafter. She met her husband (William Johnston, a physicist that worked on the Manhattan Project) in Charlottesville, Virginia and had four children (three boys and a daughter), later getting a degree in Licensed Professional Counseling. When she left the service Johnston reached the rank of corporal, and for her service she was awarded a Women's Army Corps Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with a Bronze Star, and World War II Victory Medal. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Greenwood, Anne

date:

2004-06-10

type:

Moving Image

format:

Hi-8

identifier:

491; 2004.491

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

046714

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1942-45

rights:

Unrestricted