TECH4 Victoria A. Wukitsch Oral History

title:

TECH4 Victoria A. Wukitsch Oral History

creator:

Wukitsch, Victoria A. (Szulga) (1919 December 16 - )

subject:

Women's Army Corps (WAC)

description:

Victoria Wukitsch (formerly Szulga) was born on December 16, 1919 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She had three siblings, and both her parents worked and maintained a garden to get them through the Great Depression. She graduated from Allentown High School in 1937, and began working at the same sewing factory as her mother. She enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps in January 1943 since one of her brothers was disabled and the other had a family. She shipped out from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for basic training. After six weeks of basic, she was sent to Army Administration School in Nacogdoches, Texas for another six weeks of advanced training. Her next station was at Fort Devon, Massachusetts where she was an acting sergeant for a barrack of WACs in training. That station was closed, so she spent two weeks in Daytona Beach, Florida waiting on a new assignment, which turned out to be in the Army Directory Service at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. After 8 or 9 months there, an officer came to the office and said that two women could volunteer to go overseas, or he would volunteer two of them. She decided to be one of the volunteers because it sounded interesting. She went to six weeks of overseas training at Fort Oglethorpe, which she found much tougher than her previous rounds of training. She especially remembers being terrified going into the gas chamber to practice using a gas mask. They went to Camp Stoneman, California to wait two weeks for their ship out, and their trip to New Guinea took around 17 days. There were around 200 WACs there with her, and she worked in the records section of the Army Signal Corps. After 8 or 9 months there, they moved to Manila to work out of the Signal Corps Headquarters. She remained in Manila until the war ended and she returned home a few days before Thanksgiving in 1945. She met her husband, who was also in the Army, while they were both stationed in New Guinea, and they had four children together after they returned home and left the service. Several pages of the transcript cover Wukitsch and her interviewer, Kate Scott, going through her memorabilia from her service, including medals, newspapers from the Pacific, and photographs. When she left the service, Wukitsch had reached the rank of sergeant, and for her service she was awarded a Women’s Army Corps Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three stars, World War II Victory Medal, and Philippine Liberation Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2004-08-18

type:

Moving Image

format:

Hi-8

identifier:

1019; 2004.1019

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

095915

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-45

rights:

Unrestricted