2LT Monica Conter Benning, ANC USA Oral History Part 1

title:

2LT Monica Conter Benning, ANC USA Oral History Part 1

creator:

Benning, Monica Euphemia (Conter) (1914 November 14 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps

description:

Part 1 of 2. Monica Euphemia Benning (formerly Conter) was born on November 14, 1914 in Chattahoochee, Florida and grew up in Apalachicola, Florida. She graduated from St. Patrick’s High School in 1930 at the age of 16 and wet to Spring Hill College. She then took a civil service exam and went to a public health program in Baltimore. In 1940, as the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) expanded, she decided to enlist. She was in the papers and magazines with several other women who also joined the ANC in the same class she did, and she was very involved in PR and Recruiting. She was one of six nurses (very publicly) selected to go from Walter Reed Army Hospital to Hickam Station Hospital at Hickam Field in Hawaii. All of the women who made it through this highly selective process were told to bring their uniforms, swimsuits, and evening gowns with them. She was on duty at this station, which was only a few miles from Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese military bombed the harbor on December 7, 1941. Hickam had only been opened the month before the attack, so it was still not fully supplied. At first, as people were being brought in, many nurses and doctors were going to surgery, but at some point Major Lane decided Hickam would act as an evacuation hospital which freed up those doctors and nurses for emergency care. In the second wave of the attack, the headquarters across the street from the hospital was hit directly. Wives who were stationed in Hawaii, some of whom were nurses, continued to volunteer to do anything they could, from rolling bandages to giving morphine injections. She left the Army Nurse Corps after three years and had reached the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. She was awarded the American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. A restricted transcript of her 1982 interview is available to some by request. A transcript of her 2006 interview is not currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Sloane, Patricia

date:

2006-06-07

type:

Moving Image

format:

Mini-DV

identifier:

066.01; 2006.066

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

104301

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1940-42

rights:

Unrestricted