LTC Hattie R. Brantley, USA NC Ret. Oral History Tape 1, Side A

title:

LTC Hattie R. Brantley, USA NC Ret. Oral History Tape 1, Side A

creator:

Brantley, Hattie H.R. (1916 April 4 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps | Army Nurse Corps Reserve

description:

Tape 1 of 2, side 1 of 2. H.R. Brantley was born on April 4, 1916 in Jefferson, Texas. When she was a kid, her father would go to town to sell produce and come back with magazines where Brantley would read about frontier nurses. She went into nursing because of these stories, hoping to ride horses while nursing. By the time she got her nursing degree, frontier nursing didn’t interest her anymore and neither did private nursing, so instead she looked into Army nursing in the hopes she could nurse, ride horses, and travel the world. Brantley joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1939 and went to training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where she signed up for overseas duty. In 1941, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was sent to the Philippine Islands and was stationed at Fort McKinley. When bombing of the Philippines started, she and her hospital didn’t initially get any patients. When the Japanese army began their invasion of Manila, they were ordered to the Bataan Peninsula where they set up Hospital #1 at Limay. At this hospital, they did most of the surgery before sending patients to Hospital #2. At one point, there were so many casualties that H.R.’s head nurse told her to set up another ward nearby, which was targeted in bombings despite the red cross painted on it. After a few months, they were ordered to Corregidor Island, where they set up a hospital in a tunnel system from World War I called the Malinta Tunnel. She worked there until the Japanese took over, when she was then sent with the others to the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. There were 67 other Army nurses and 11 Navy Nurses interned at that same camp. While there, she worked with someone else to bring in extra food, waiting for a signal to drop a ladder out of a window, collecting a bag of food, and adding it to the food for distribution the next day. She remembers the Japanese finding the ladder under her bed while looking for a contraband radio, but no one mentioned it. Brantley never lost hope that they would be rescued from the islands, and vividly remembered the tanks rolling into the camp. When she returned to the United States, Brantley married and left the service in 1949. The marriage didn’t work out, however, so she reenlisted in 1953 and served until leaving the service again in 1969. She had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and had been awarded a Bronze Star with one oak leaf cluster, Prisoner of War Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Presidential Unit Citation with three oak leaf clusters. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Weigand, Cindy

date:

2003-08-04

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

101.01; 2003.101

source:

Weigand | CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

011267

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1939-69

rights:

Restricted