COL Marion Kern Kennedy, USA NC Ret. Oral History

title:

COL Marion Kern Kennedy, USA NC Ret. Oral History

creator:

Kennedy, Marion (Kern) (1919 October 11 - 2010 December 27)

subject:

Army Nurse Corps

description:

Marion Kennedy (formerly Kern) was born on October 11, 1919 in Myersville, Pennsylvania. She finished her nursing program shortly before Pearl Harbor was bombed, and she signed up for a reserve unit with many other doctors, nurses, and other personnel at the hospital. The unit filled and was activated in May 1942. She went to Camp Clairborne, Louisiana for indoctrination, and remained there until January 1943 when they were sent to California. They got on a ship from there, but didn’t know where it was headed for most of their journey. They landed in Wellington, New Zealand and traveled to Perth, Australia, where they stayed and explored for several days waiting for an escort, still unsure of their final destination. They shipped off after four days, arriving in Bombay, India on March 3, 1943. The nurses onboard were sent to Poona, which had been a resort town for British officers before the war, for about a week before taking a train to their station. She worked at the 20th General Hospital on the Ledo Road, India. For the first few months they mostly treated troops in the immediate area, and in the fall they began getting more patients from China and combat casualties. When they arrived in March 1943 there were around 125 patients in the hospital, but within a year that number increased to well over a thousand. She was stationed at this hospital until she returned to the states and was discharge in August 1945. She reenlisted in August 1953, towards the end of the Korean War, and was assigned as an instructor to an enlisted specialist at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland. She then served in Germany for two years, the returned to the states to work as an instructor at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio. She was then assigned to Washington, DC to work as a recruiter in the Department of the Army, one of the first Army Nurse Corps officers to be assigned a staff position there. She then returned to Fort Sam Houston and worked there for several years before retiring in January 1972. Kennedy retired with the rank of colonel, and for her she was awarded a Defense Distinguished Service Medal with an oak leaf cluster, Legion of Merit, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with a bronze star, World War II Victory Medal, and National Defense Service Medal. Kennedy passed away in December 2010. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Weigand, Cindy

date:

2003-07-08

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

518; 2003.518

source:

Weigand | CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

105603

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | Korean War (1950-1953) | 1942-46 | 1953-72

rights:

Unrestricted