Cpl Anita L. Clay Oral History

title:

Cpl Anita L. Clay Oral History

creator:

Clay, Anita (Lippit) (1922 April 23 - )

subject:

Women's Army Corps (WAC)

description:

This is the original, unedited interview audio. Anita L. Clay (formerly Lippit) was born on April 23, 1922 in Scheveningen, Holland. When she was five years old, her family moved to Savannah, Georgia, which is where she grew up with her parents, two brothers, and one sister. She went to several secondary schools up and down the east coast, graduating from Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut. She then enrolled at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, receiving a BA in music in 1944. She decided to join the Women’s Army Corps while at this school, choosing it over the Navy WAVES because she had been planning to go to Europe with her parents after graduating before the war began, and figured the Army was more likely to get her to Europe. She first went to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for basic training, and they happened to be trained by Jeanne M. Holm, who later became the first woman to reach the rank of general. While there, she took classes on all the different types of planes in the Air Force. She and one other woman decided from to go into the Army Air Force from there, and were stationed at an air base between Wilmington and Newcastle, Delaware. Clay worked as a statistician and plotting the locations of planes of maps that came from the China-Burma-India area and went of to Europe. After being stationed at Newcastle for a year, she was moved to Westover Field, Massachusetts, which was much larger than Newcastle had been. While there, she would interview people like generals and Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter when they landed at the base, write up those interviews, and put them in papers at the base and in Springfield. Clay was discharged in 1946 with the rank of corporal, and returned to Savannah, Georgia where she met her husband. For her service, she was awarded an American Campaign Medal and World War II Victory Medal. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Summer, Virginia Barrum

date:

1992-11-11

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

156; 1992.156

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

017489

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1944-46

rights:

Unrestricted