2LT Nancy Jamie Munro Oral History Tape 1, Side A

title:

2LT Nancy Jamie Munro Oral History Tape 1, Side A

creator:

Munro, Nancy Jamie (Ewing) (1920 July 31 - 2005 December 15)

subject:

Army Medical Service Corps

description:

Tape 1 of 2, side 1 of 2. Nancy Jamie Munro (formerly Ewing) was born on July 31, 1920 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a drudging contractor and her mother was a homemaker who ran a girl’s club at their church. Although her family didn’t have a history of military service, Munro, her two brothers, and her sister’s husband all served. After graduating high school in 1938, she attended Iowa State College and studied home economics, focusing on nutrition since she saw it as the most scientific option and graduating in 1942. In 1943 she went to Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois for her dietic internship. In 1944 she went home for a weekend and saw the boy she had her first kiss with in a body cast after going to the South Pacific. She went to the Army recruitment station that same day, and went to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin for basic training with enlisted nurses since she was the only dietician there. After training, she went to a Missouri replacement bureau to work with people who had been wounded overseas. Her next station was at a general hospital in Ohio, which she Nancy could not remember the name of in the interview. The head dietician was very controlling and wouldn’t let her do almost any important work, so she requested a transfer. Her request went through and she was transferred overseas, shipping off to France in January 1945. They landed in Le Havre, France and were brought to their landing area at Rouen, France. During the Battle of the Bulge every available man was put on the front lines, so she and three other dieticians that arrived at the same time as her were primarily responsible for getting over 1,000 people, including soldiers and German POWs. Her special duty was to create special diets, like soft, diabetic, and liquid diets. They built a general hospital around 20 miles outside Reims, France in an old barn. They didn’t have any nurses, so the dieticians and corpsmen had to work together to fill that gap in their staff and services. They remained at the hospital near Reims through V-E Day and trained in tropical medicine to prepare for the possibility of being sent to the Pacific. When she was traveling to her new station in Biarritz, France she met a man who recognized her from Iowa State. This was one of the first men she dated who wasn’t married while in the Army, and he became her husband a year later. In April 1946 she returned to Le Havre, France to return to the United States. When she returned, Munro was discharged with the rank of 2nd lieutenant, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal, European-Africa-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. Nancy passed away in December 2005 at the age of 85. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2005-07-18

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

672.01; 2005.672

source:

OHP | CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

066080

coverage:

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

rights:

Unrestricted