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Helen Seay

Posted 08.28.06 at 11:46 AM

Transcript of Oral History

NAME: Helen Seay
ADDRESS: Paris, Texas
BRANCH OF SERVICE: U.S. Army Nurse Corps
DATES OF SERVICE: 1943-1945
LOCATIONS SERVED: 186th General Hospital, Fairford, England
INTERVIEWER: Allen Williams
DATE OF INTERVIEW: October, 14 2005

Williams: OK, we’re here today with Helen Seay, who was part of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. She was a Second Lieutenant, in the Nurse Corps, and she was stationed primarily in England during World War II. My name is Allen Williams. I’m a history teacher at Paris Junior College, and we would love to start today by asking, Mrs. Seay, if she could tell us, roughly when she went into the service.

Seay: It was in the early summer of 1943. Earlier, when I was in school, I came out of a room and, two interns were walking up the hall. They asked me if I heard the news. I said, “What news?” They said, “We’ll we’re at war.” So I made up my mind then that as soon as I graduated, I would go to nursing school.

Williams: And so you did?

Seay: And so I did.

Williams: OK, where were you then?

Seay: Keystone, Nebraska, not far from Lincoln. My parents lived in Omaha.

Williams: OK, and so then from there you enlisted in the U.S. Army, Correct?

Seay: Correct.

Williams: Do you remember where your first station was?

Seay: We went to Clarksville, Colorado for basic training for nurses. And then from there, we were taken by train to New York City, to get on a troop ship bound for Europe.

Williams: Did you enjoy the ride over to the continent?

Seay: Well, once my stomach got used to the ocean. I don’t think I suffered too much from motion sickness or sea sickness. But some of them did.

Williams: When you got to England, you ended up at?

Seay: A little town called Fairford, England.

Williams: Do you know how much training you had state-side before you were shipped out to England?

Seay: No! It must have been, at least a month.

Williams: So, it was several weeks at least.

Seay: Yes, yes.

Williams: What kind of training did you have? Was it all just medical training perhaps?

Seay: No, I, I guess it was just, how to react in case we were involved in an incident or something like that and how to be military. I think that was it. Learn to salute, recognize rank, and keep you mouth shut.

Williams: (Laughs). You said you already had prior medical training, correct?

Seay: Oh yes, I had three years of nurses training.

Williams: Where was that?

Seay: That was at Brian Memorial Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. I was a registered nurse when I joined the service.

Williams: What year did you graduate from high school?

Seay: Oh, let me see….1939.

Williams: As soon as you graduated from high school, did you go straight to nursing school?

Seay: Went directly to Western University. At that time nurses had to have a year of pre-nursing, up at the college, before they could go in the program at Brian Memorial.

Williams: How long were you there?

Seay: A year.

Williams: Did you work at any hospitals in that area or spend time in the hospitals in that area when you finished?

Seay: No, I went directly to Brian Memorial.

Williams: OK, so, needless to say, the war started a little bit later?

Seay: Yes.

Williams: Then you joined the military?

Seay: I graduated from nurses training, then went straight to the program.

Williams: Did you have any friends that worked with you at the time?

Seay: No I was the only one. My parents weren’t too happy about the situation, but it was something I felt I needed to do, and wanted to do.

Williams: So then, not long after that, you volunteered for the military?

Seay: Yeah.

Williams: So you landed in England. Was this the summer or fall of 1943?

Seay: I think it probably was in the fall.

Williams: When you went to work at the 186th General Hospital, what kind of cases did you primarily have?

Seay: Most of the patients were patients that were so severely injured that they would not be going back to active duty. They were sent from our hospital back to the States for their treatment. And of course they wouldn’t be going back. That is where I met my husband. He had a hernia repaired. We also had a ward with some German prisoners.

Williams: Interesting!

Seay: I remember one day I was assigned to that ward with the prisoners and I was making my rounds when I saw this young man. I don’t believe he was more than sixteen or seventeen, and he loOKed at me. He seemed to be afraid that I was going to hit him, and my heart just brOKe. He was just a child, just a child.

Williams: He had a lot of fear did he?

Seay: Oh yes, he probably may had been mistreated at some point in time. Of course I couldn’t speak German. But I tried to reassure him, that I would not hurt him.

Williams: How long were you in the hospital? Were you there the balance of the war?

Seay: No! I married my husband and later got pregnant so they sent me home.

Williams: And so, he was from here in Paris?

Seay: From Paris, Right. He met this beautiful Yankee girl. (Laughs).

Williams: (Laughs) What branch of the service was he in?

Seay: He was in the Army, the field artillery.

Williams: Field artillery, OK. And so you met him there. Do remember if this was prior to D-Day?

Seay: I think it was… D-Day was when?

Williams: June of 44’.

Seay: I think it was after that.

Williams: After that. Had he already been in combat or? Had his unit been in action?

Seay: Yes, and then like I said, he developed this hernia.

Williams: So, he found himself back in the hospital. I guess he had been in France somewhere, probably?

Seay: Probably.

Williams: And then was evacuated back to England?

Seay: Yeah, to have his surgery and then he went back.

Williams: Do you remember seeing increasing numbers of troops, or more and more supplies?

Seay: No, because, because we were situated in a very rural area. So, we didn’t see anything like that. And I didn’t leave the base very long. Sometimes we walked into Fairford which was not to far.

Williams: And, the small town of Fairford, how large did you say it was?

Seay: Um, probably a thousand or so. I remember this one time I got so tired of the powdered eggs. I was on one of my walks, there was this farmer with fresh eggs for sale. We bought some and scrambled them in our mess kit where we were staying. (Laughs)

Williams: I bet that was a plus.

Seay: Yep.

Williams: OK, so, you lived on the grounds of the hospital?

Seay: Yep, we stayed there.

Williams: In a Quonset hut?

Seay: Yeah, I think so. There were several of us to a hut.

Williams: How about the British weather?

Seay: It rained quit a bit. It was cold certain times, but the weather was pretty.

Williams: What was the typical shift like?

Seay: I think we worked twelve on, twelve off.

Williams: Wow! And that was every day?

Seay: No, I think we got a few days off, but there wasn’t anything to do.

Williams: What’s your impression of the British people? Did you have much of a chance to interact with them?

Seay: No, I didn’t. I really didn’t, because we were busy at the hospital. And then, when we got off, we were tired. But those we did meet, we were impressed with.

Williams: And so, you were saying you never got to go visit London. Did you ever have any long time periods off that would allow you to travel away?

Seay: No, I guess we probably could have asked for it, but I don’t like going places like that by myself. I don’t think they encouraged us to go to London, for fear of an attack.

Williams: Once the big invasion started, did you notice that the number of patients in the hospital increased?

Seay: Yes. Often, every bed was full.

Williams: What would be an estimate of the number of beds the hospital had?

Seay: I have no idea, I really don’t.

Williams: What would you say, probably hundreds?

Seay: I suspect.

Williams: Couple of hundred maybe?

Seay: Probably, hundred, hundred and fifty. So terrible --young boys --arms gone, legs gone, head wounds. It was really bad.

Williams: How were most of those casualties brought into the hospital? Did they come in on trains? Did they come in on ambulances?

Seay: I guess they came by ambulance.

Williams: Can you describe some of your typical duties were?

Seay: Cleaning them, changing dressings, moral support, reading letters for wounded boys, writing letters for those who could not write. Some of them had to be feed. Just routine nursing care.