Luella Te Harter Oral History Side A

title:

Luella Te Harter Oral History Side A

creator:

Harter, Luella (Piozza) (1920 April 22 - )

subject:

Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) | Women's Army Corps (WAC)

description:

Side 1 of 2. Luella Harter (formerly Piozza) was born on April 22, 1920 in Buffalo, New York. When the United States entered World War II she was working at Curtis-Wright, but she wanted to do more so she enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1943. She went to basic training at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia, and had enlisted early enough that all of the trainers were men who were not very welcoming. She was then sent to Admin School in Texas, and the instructors there also gave her and other women a hard time. She was then sent through a crash course on radio code for pilots at Langley Air Force Base, where she was the only woman present. She then began working as a voice to Tower Command for pilots going through training. She remained there teaching radio, code, and flight communications to American and foreign pilots until her discharge. Her brother had entered the military around the same time she had, and he had been taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge. He was kept in a camp that the Air Force bombed without knowing American were present, so while that happened, he and two other men just walked out. They were found by an American girl who had been forced to stay in the country when the war broke out, and she led them to the nearby Russians, who promptly brought him to a Russian hospital. Her mother had a nervous breakdown upon finding out about this, and her brother had been experimented on in the camp and was still in very poor shape when he returned to the US, so even though Harter wanted to stay in the Army, she left in 1946 to take care of the both of them. After doing so for some time, she interviewed for Special Services and was sent to Manila, Philippines on her way to Okinawa, Japan. In Manila she worked in GI Service Clubs, and in Okinawa she ran a canteen. While there, she got malaria and was sent home for three months to recover. She then ran the GI Service Club at Langley Air Force Base, which is where she met her husband. They married in 1950, and she used the GI Bill to attend Syracuse University. For her service, Harter was awarded a Women’s Army Corps Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Driver, Wanda

date:

2005-01-06

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

403; 2005.403

source:

Greensprings Collection | CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

039487

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-46

rights:

Unrestricted