CPT Anna Urda Busby Oral History

title:

CPT Anna Urda Busby Oral History

creator:

Busby, Anna Urda (1912 March 14 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps

description:

Anna U. Busby (formerly Urda) was born in Jermyn, Pennsylvania on March 14, 1912 and grew up there with her parents, six brothers, and her maternal grandparents only a few blocks away. Her father had been ill and the private duty nurse that attended to him inspired her to go to nursing school after graduating from high school in 1929. By 1933, she had graduated from the Hackensack Hospital School of Nursing and began working as a float nurse at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey. By August 1939, Busby enlisted into the Army Nurse Corps at Fort Jay on Governor's Island, New York, hoping to see more of the world. In 1940, she became the only Transport Duty Nurse on the Chateau Thierry and the Hunter Liggett ships in the Panama Canal Zone. The first time she made the trip she was excited to see how the Panama Canal worked, but the second time around she didn’t want to be there, thinking once was enough. She was then stationed in Newport, Rhode Island in 1940, and in 1941 Busby was transferred to Tripler Hospital in Pearl Harbor. On the morning of the Pearl Harbor bombing, she had been admitted as a patient for an infection. When the bombing began, she saw Madelyn Dougherty, the nurse in charge at the time, running towards the porch and followed her there. They saw fire and smoke from Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor, and a pineapple oil drum next to the hospital was struck and went up in flames. Busby immediately jumped to action, taking charge of the women's ward with other local women coming to assist. On the morning of December 8, she was getting ready to go back to work on the morning shift when she saw Japanese planes fly over the hospital and bomb the Denville Clinic. She continued working nonstop in the women’s ward, trying to do all the most important tasks on her own. After serving throughout the entirety of World War II, Busby was then discharged from the Army Nurse Corps in August 1946 with the rank of captain. For her service, Busby was awarded an American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2004-04-01

type:

Audio

format:

CD

identifier:

135; 2003.135

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

013894

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1939-46

rights:

Unrestricted