“Your Momma Wears Combat Boots”

  It’s been too long since I cracked open the first of those seven boxes. But I had no excuse when faced with  some forced sedentary time this Fall while I recovered from knee surgery and the offer from a genealogy journal editor  asking me to write about my Mom’s experience on WW II.

So. In short order, here’s the full piece I submitted to the “Beaver Briefs” Western Oregon’s genealogical journal.

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“Your Momma wears combat boots!” Surrounded by a circle of big boys in the playground, I was taunted with this refrain. At home that night, my Mom opened up a green footlocker stenciled with her maiden name, “Katherine Seelye, US Army Medical Department”. I learned that I was probably the only person in our town whose mother not only owned U.S. Army issued boots but had worn them while serving in New Guinea, one of the most dangerous combat zones of World War II. Together we carefully pulled out musty stacks of tiny letters, photographs, a white uniform and once crisp starched cap, an Army green wool cap, a bronze medal, a grass skirt, brightly hued sweeping bird feathers, cook books and lots of mimeographed papers. This was a treasure box of memories that smelled and shouted of lands, people and adventures far away from anything I'd ever known. What I did not understand then was that these artifacts represented a part of my mother's life that had been pivotal not only for her but for a rare group of women who volunteered their professional experience to the service of their country. I remain awed to understand why she and my grandparents and uncles were so fiercely proud of her wartime sacrifice and how this time period impacted her life and generations to come. From then on that playground taunt dropped weakly from the mouths of bullies. I knew now those combat boots were a badge of courage and pride.

World War II came belatedly to hearts and lives in the American Midwest. Only just emerging from the dreary deprivations of the Great Depression, most families were finally getting their feet back under them. My mother's family had been no exception through the 1930's. My grandfather Mike was in and out of work as a chemist at a cement factory while my grandmother Marguerite filled in the gaps as best she could by taking in sewing. The boys Gene and Harold worked various jobs bringing home what they could. Katherine babysat in high school and after graduation worked in the student union cafeteria and the dorms at Michigan State College.

But by 1942, life for the family was beginning to improve. The cement factory was back in business. The boys were working in “real jobs” planning their futures with their own new careers and families. Dietitians along with many other clerks, technicians, physical therapists, dental and medical assistants, mechanics and more were brought in to “free as many able men as possible for the armed services”.1 During that time, Katherine was hired at Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. This was her first salaried position past her 1939 graduation from Michigan State College and an internship at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston as well as journeyman stints at New York City and Montclair, NJ hospitals. She had an academic understanding of food chemistry, special medical diets as well as varied experiences in planning quantity recipes and meal preparation.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941, several hospital facilities were quickly converted from civilian to military. Percy Jones Hospital, now under military order in 1942 was originally the site of the Battle Creek Sanitarium which was originally established by John Harvey Kellogg in 1866. As a military facility nearly 95,000 patients were treated from its opening until its closure at the end of the Korean War in 1953.The patient load at Percy Jones was as high as 8000 in the middle of the war. It serviced the wounded as a “last stop” in medical care for soldiers before discharge.2 Katherine's work there included preparation of special diets for soldiers wounded in battle from all war zones.

Soon the war effort created a need for more able bodied medical personnel to be pulled from the civilian population. At the onset of the War, there were only 200 dietitians who served in the military. Newspaper appeals were published across the country for as many as one thousand.3 A military commission status was bestowed upon dietitians who enlisted. Katherine made her decision to join up in the U.S. Army Medical Department and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. She continued to work at Percy Jones in this new role, which included additional Army training and regulations. On Oct 30 of 1943, she was ordered to report for overseas active duty. Her point of departure was at Camp Stoneman in California where her records indicate that on 30 Nov. she left for an “Unknown Destination”. On 23 Dec., she reported to the 128th Hospital Staging Area at Camp Columbia and celebrated a shockingly hot Christmas near Brisbane Australia.

Mom often told me about that long ocean voyage to the South Pacific. She had to provide her own foot locker, her uniform, gas mask, shoes and underthings as well as personal toiletries and other daily needs. She also packed her special diets and food preparation book 4, recipe index cards Fig.1, and a tiny New Testament she'd received from her home town Methodist church. She mentioned being happy to be assigned a berth with a bunk side porthole where she could watch the waves and weather as the troop ship voyaged under San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge into the open ocean for those long weeks. In her saved remembrances from that time is a Hammond's Self Revising War Atlas and Gazetteer: War Edition5 penciling out her journey from Southern Michigan, across the United States, to California and across the Pacific Ocean on a troop ship to Brisbane. Like most seagoing military, as she crossed the Equator, she was presented with a “Order Of Neptune” certificate Fig. 2 It seemed to me a wonderfully exciting sea adventure. What I didn't understand then was that ominous, and gratefully unrealized, sense of fear she must have had at the real possibilities of Japanese Zeroes buzzing above, torpedoes below or the sight of enemy warships on the horizon.

Katherine spent a month at Camp Columbia in preparation for her assignment. She was issued canvas leggings, worsted khaki trousers and shirts and boots. These were all more useful in a tropical jungle environment. Her white oxford shoes, caps and uniforms were packed away. After that month of staging and getting acclimated to what must have been a disconcerting new country, climate and culture, she boarded the “Tasman” hospital ship bound for her new assignment. On 23 Jan.1944, she arrived in New Guinea at the 62nd Station Hospital Base B, APO 503 on Oro Bay.

Before Pearl Harbor, New Guinea had been thought of by most Americans as a mostly unknown, uncivilized and barbaric jungle island populated with aborigines, cannibals and headhunters. But, because of location, it emerged as a critical strategic Pacific outpost. The second largest island in the world, it lies North of Australia, in a direct line South of Japan, Guam, and Southeast of the Philippines, Borneo and Indonesia. Japan hoped to dominate the South Pacific from that location as well as provide continued forays against any attempt of General Douglas MacArthur to retake the Philippines. The Allies were fully aware of the threat that a Japanese occupation of New Guinea might pose to Australia and the Pacific fleet.6 South West Pacific Area or SWPA became the designated term for this part of the Pacific conflict. Fig 3

Oro Bay is located in the S.E corner of the island of New Guinea. By the time Katherine arrived, it had become a major Allied troop resupply station from the Australian mainland to Milne Bay and out into the interior of New Guinea where fighting still continued. One of the worst naval battles of the SWPA had occurred at the May 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea Northeast of Australia and East of New Guinea. Japan attacked the American and Australian fleet in a fight for taking Port Moresby. A year before Katherine arrived, U.S. Soldiers and Australians had marched across vast miles of jungle and mountains to clash with the Japanese in a struggle for Buna, only fifteen miles from Oro Bay. At Buna, Australian battle casualties totaled 11107 while American ground troops suffered 9500. 7 The Allies took control of Buna and were finally able to stand firm against the Japanese incursion.

Because of heightened security for several weeks, her family and friends had no information about where Katherine was stationed. With her West Coast point of departure, they probably surmised that she most likely would be heading into the Pacific Theater. They'd sent along wrapped Christmas gifts – a radio, film and a camera, knitting yarn and needles, magazines, a fruitcake and promises of letters as soon as they had been given an address for her.  Reading through the letters that Mom saved, a clear relay of mail and packages took at least two weeks between the front and home. With my family's voluminous letter writing propensities it must have seemed like a fearsome communication void on both ends.

They soon realized that Victory Mail, or V-Mail was the best way to connect with their faraway daughter. Having been introduced in June 15, 1942, this system promised to streamline “communication between troops and the home front. Individuals used special forms for messages that were reduced to microfilm, flown to a v-mail facility nearest the addressee, and printed out to one-forth the size of the original”. V-Mail ensured that tons of space could be held for military use. 150,000 ordinary one page letters could be reduced from 37 mail bags to one.8


In that old footlocker I found hundreds of those v-mail letters written by my grandparents, uncles, Katherine's friends and even her 3 year old niece. Fig 4 that she brought home and stored away. If typed, the form could accommodate 400-700 words. Using her Parker pen, Marguerite often had to send at least two at a time to keep her daughter up on the everyday gossip and happenings at home. As were most communications during this time,V-Mail was censored. Several blacked out words show up in a message received from a fellow G-I colleague stationed in Europe which must have named locations or operative movements which might have created a risk if in enemy hands.Fig. 5 Packages flowed out to this tropical outpost as well. She wrote of sending 10 yards of yellow sprigged cotton fabric she'd found on sale that Katherine could use for curtains and pillowcases for her quarters. Vegetable seeds and newspaper clippings, pictures and recipes were prized upon opening. Best yet, however, was the package with Planters Peanuts. Always a family favorite snack, she must have been ecstatic the day that box arrived!

Gardening, decorating and letter writing would have to be delayed. Lt. Claus, USAMD Dietitian was on duty. Her training and experience were to be put to the test in this hostile jungle war zone. Soldiers with medical issues filled the wards of her station hospital. Malnutrition, stress impacted diabetes, and injuries were issues, but the primary medical challenge there were insect-borne disease.

“malaria, dengue fever and scrub typhus were endemic and hyperendemic in the tropical areas of northern Australia, Papua and North-East New Guinea. Of these diseases, a variety of malarias, all spread by mosquitoes, posed the greatest threat to the health of the military forces.” 9 

Her kitchen and special diet areas were limited by equipment shortages, make-do appliances, fuel and safe water issues. She was armed with her Percy Jones Hospital menus and quantity recipes but hampered by the lack of fresh meat, vegetables and dairy. Instead, dried eggs, butter, milk and meat supplies were delivered to the station hospital's storeroom, challenging her food preparation expertise. As an officer, she was in charge not only of the cafeteria for ambulatory patients, but also distribution of special restricted diets on the wards. She supervised enlisted men and worked with supply officers as well as medical staff to ensure the best nutritionally appropriate and palatable meals for the soldiers under her care.

When she could grab a few moments, she wrote of the exotic beauty of New Guinea: the lofty volcanic spine of mountains running through the island; the brilliant flame trees outstanding in the darkness of the jungle and the elegant plumage of birds of Paradise seen before only in magazines or on the hats of well dressed women back home; the tall and angular Aboriginal native New Guineans who worked as local support crew at the base; then the references to a certain handsome Lt. George Claus Fig.6 who had captured her heart the very day she had arrived at Oro Bay. She wrote little negative or mentioned the sometimes terrifying conditions that must have often closed in on her.

Her Michigan family was surely aware of the danger she faced. Her folks assiduously followed the strategic maneuvers of Generals MacArthur, Eichelberger and Kenney. They heard about battles plagued by the tenacity and determination of the Japanese military. They found a fearsome familiarity about how hand combat in the unfamiliar setting of jungle and swamps made the going slow and dangerous and how wounds were exacerbated by disease, parasites and infection. Regular dispatches reported how gangrene was adjoined by malarial mosquito attacks and a disturbing mythic suggestion of Japanese cannibalism threatened sleep at home as well as on the front. A month after Katherine had arrived at Oro Bay, her parents could have read this worrisome description of New Guinea's in a “Detroit Free Press” article shortly after Katherine arrived at Oro Bay.

“ Wet, wild, rugged, vast, tropical...towering mountain ranges, whose snow-capped summits in the west are higher than any peak in the United States, extend through the length of the island. Lower ranges parallel them, creating waves of choppy peaks. Thick forests matted with creeping and climbing vines cover the slopes. All nature steams in the tropical sun between torrential rains.”10

A background piece in the”Saturday Evening Post” brought the conflict close to home recounting the bravery of Company E 26th Infantry, 32nd Division as they had marched over the Owen Stanley mountains in Sep. and Oct. of 1942. Many of the men in this group had been sent to New Guinea from their homes in Big Rapids, a small town located less that 100 miles from where Katherine had grown up. When the 32nd had began the march nearly a year before, there had been 81 men. Their mission was to build a road to establish a flanking attack against the Japanese who had been engaged in battle with the Australians. Conditions were grueling. When the mission was done, 66 men survived and all of them were either wounded or sick with malaria.

“Day after day, the battalion plodded on through some the worst and wildest jungles in the world. 'They climbed to 9000 feet, to the top of the gap through which they stumbled over the Owen Stanleys and it took them seven hours to crawl the last 2000 feet...Before going into New Guinea, (one soldier) weighed 184 pounds. When Company E straggled into Natunga and reassembled there before going on toward Buna and battle, he remembers that he could encircle his waist with his hands”.11

Marguerite wrote in a V-Mail Fig 7 that she had read several articles in the “Free Press” by Raymond Clapper, a nationally syndicated columnist. His column “Observations on Current Events: Somewhere in New Guinea was dated Feb. 3, 1944. Clapper described the 171st Station Hospital near Port Moresby.

“I hope it will give comfort to many parents, wives and sweethearts at home to know that, bad as conditions are where the fighting must be done, the wounded and ill in New Guinea are in the more serious cases evacuated back to station hospitals which are the opposite of what I had imagined jungle conditions here to be...The big thing about the hospital is the bright, open, cheerful atmosphere. When one group of patients came in after a long stretch in the jungle at the front under severe conditions, one of them said to a nurse: 'Gosh! White sheets, and women!' Bright flowers are planted in little gardens all around the hospital tent. Many of the boys are sent seeds from home. I saw zinnias in bloom, and marigolds and poppies, and native poinsettias, and morning glory vines over the nurses' tents. Everything possible is done to help the men forget the gruesome sights of the front.”12

Although this more light-hearted article must have made the folks at home smile, thinking of Katherine in a similar hospital, it must have been a shock when on Feb. 4, 1944, the very next day after he'd sent out the article about the hospital, Clapper's death in a plane crash in the Marshall Islands was announced.13

My grandmother might have found another connection with her daughter's life when she read First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's column “My Day” written as a representative of the American Red Cross. While visiting Brisbane Australia, Roosevelt told her readers about conversations she had with nurses who had served in New Guinea that must have worried the family tremendously. 

“I tried to make some of them tell me of their experiences and they were slow to speak of them, but gradually, one after another contributed something to the picture of day to day heroism. One of them found a rat in her bed on waking.  Another woke to find a rock python on the floor beside her bed. Rats steal your socks if you leave them out and the crickets eat your clothes. When these nurses first went to New Guinea, I know they slept on Army cots. Their evening uniform there is a one piece slack suit with socks into which the trousers are carefully tucked. Clumsy GI shoes are a final protection against the mosquito that may lay a nurse low with malaria as easily as it attacks a soldier.”14

Katherine's family had to expect their daughter was in rough jungle hospital conditions similar to those Mrs. Roosevelt had written about. She too was treating soldiers like the Big Rapids troops at her hospital at Base B every day. Young men she could have known in high school.

Katherine remained stationed at the 362nd at Oro Bay for ten months. Though most of her time was spent planning and supervising patient meals, she and George were able to get away from Base B for a trek in the jungle and up the Dobodura Road.Fig 8 She recounted that their jeep was driven by a tall, (hair processed a brilliant red) native named Charlie. Mom always told me that this fellow was Mom's constant chaperone and protector with or without my father. She laughed when she told that my Dad had hired Charlie to guard over her 24/7 to protect her “not from the natives or the enemy but from the other G-Is”.

As the hot season ensued, Katherine suffered with the intense heat and humidity, becoming more and more fatigued. Her menstrual periods were painful and struck often with severe bleeding to the point of anemia. In the Autumn of 1944, Katherine was admitted to the station hospital as a patient herself numerous times. She was diagnosed as having menorrhagia. In this compromised state, she, like so many of her patients, developed malaria, despite continual dosing of atropine. Though she had no choice, she must have been torn to have to leave her assignment and even more to say goodbye to George, now her fiance. He had also contracted malaria but was forced to remain on duty in the SWPA. By the middle of October, she was sent out from Base B with another detachment of patients to be shipped stateside aboard a hospital ship to recross the Pacific and last sail back under the Golden Gate. She traveled back to Percy Jones Hospital and was admitted like so many she had treated in earlier times.15 After several weeks of care there, then a rest at home with her family, she returned to San Francisco to finish her war career at the Presidio. 

As World War II ended, she was decommissioned as a1st Lt. She was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and headed home to Michigan to move into the next stage of her life. The footlocker was stored away. Katherine now collected items in a hope chest her father, Mike had made her for her upcoming wedding. On April 6, 1946, she'd marry that dashing George she had met and fallen in love with at far off Oro Bay.

The war years were pivotal and life changing for so many women who had enlisted. In the SWPA 5000 women and in comparison over 330,000 men served.16 Most were decommissioned and went back to a life radically different from that they had recently experienced. Katherine now traded a fulfilling, adventurous and sometimes dangerous career for the life of a housewife and soon to be mother. She had no regrets and happily anticipated this new role as did most of her colleagues.

Not only the thrill of that Army life, but a specter of war and illness, fear and uncertainty, loneliness and deprivation impacted her future. After setting up their home and the start of a family, all seemed ideal. But in only a few years, she and George found themselves unable to maintain the romance and adventure of the war years. Both seemed to have periods of depression and disillusionment. In hindsight, they, like many World War II veterans might well have suffered PTSD after the intense war experiences they had witnessed.

“Our conceptualization of the Greatest Generation is that [the soldiers] came home and got to work. Many of them looked okay because they went to work, got married, they raised families — but it doesn’t mean they didn’t have PTSD.”17

George fought demons of the past which seemed intensified by experimental malaria treatments he had received. He attempted to self medicate with alcohol and created painful distances from his family. As much as Katherine loved home and her young family, she could not cope with a husband with mental issues on top of dealing with her own darker memories and raising a small daughter in that chaos. In 1946, divorces in the country were 610,000, the highest number ever recorded.18 My parents were part of that unfortunate trend. In 1949 they too divorced.

As a single mother, Katherine hearkened back to her professional experience and with time and fierce effort was able to transition into a life which was fulfilled by career success and respect. She determinedly moved on to serve as a well respected dietitian for school districts and hospitals. In the 1960s she received a masters in Public Health and was hired as the nutritionist at the Oakland County Michigan Health Department. She retired from that position then moved to Idaho where she enjoyed her daughter and grandsons and continued her work as a professor at Idaho State University. She died in September 1984. 

Her footlocker opened up a realm of understanding of the proud,strong and brave woman she was. Those memorabilia along with her and her family's stories of the War Years are testament to her tenacity, independence, courage and pride. Figs 9, 10, 11

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As her only daughter and having no one alive to confirm what I remembered being told, I started this research poring through the primary source material that had been saved in that footlocker. I read and notated every V-Mail, photograph, military document, train ticket, recipe file, book and scrap of paper I found.. I documented feathers, medals, uniforms and other details of the treasured Katherine had saved. Then I looked at online sources leading me to publications contemporaneous to Katherine's and her family's experience during the War Years. Historical online websites were treasure troves. My local library's online databases were invaluable for discovering archival issues of magazines that must have informed the home front family about Katherine's experiences in New Guinea. Last I consulted background historical references which offered a perspective of New Guinea and its role in the War in the Pacific tempered by years of evaluation. 

In digging for details, I discovered a deep and fulfilling appreciation of every man and woman effected by the challenges of serving in the Pacific Theater. More importantly, I revealed the voice of one strong, determined and brave woman-- my Momma who indeed proudly wore combat boots.

Referenced Materials

1. “Many Civilians are Given Jobs.” Battle Creek Enquirer 21 February 1943: Page 21.
2. “Jones Hospital is a 'Last Stop' for Wounded from War Zones.” Battle Creek Enquirer 21 February 1943: Page 20.
3. Women Dietitians Needed.” Battle Creek Enquirer 17 November 1943: Page 5.
4. Army Food and Messing: The Complete Manual of Mess Management. Third Edition. Military Service Publishing Company. 1943.
5. Hammond's Self Revising World Atlas and Gazetteer. C.S. Hammond and Co. 1943.
6. The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II: New Guinea. U.S. Army Center of Military History. 2014: Page 3.
7. Ibid: Page 3
8. “V-Mail.” Smithsonian National Postal Museum. https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/past/the-art-of-cards-and-letters/mail-call/v-mail.html. 9/15/2018.
9. Greenwood, John T. “The Fight against Malaria in the Papua and New Guinea Campaigns.” Revised. U.S.Army-Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force Military History Exchange. Tokyo, 2001.
10. “N. Guinea Life is Rugged.” Detroit Free Press 20 February 1944: Page 35.
11. Kahn E.J. “Terrible Days of Company E.” Saturday Evening Post 8 January 1944: Page 51
12. Clapper, Raymond. “Observations on Current Events: Somewhere in New Guinea.” Detroit Free Press 3 February 1944: Page 4.
13. Provost Clifford. “Raymond Clapper Killed in Invasion of Marshalls.” Detroit Free Press 4 February 1944: Page 1.
14. Roosevelt, Eleonor. “My Day.” Detroit Free Press 11 September 1943: Page 15.
15. “Percy Jones Hospital.” Battle Creek Enquirer 29 November 1944: Page 10.
16. Dear, Ian. Editor. “New Guinea Campaign.” The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001: Page 791.
17. Madigan, Tim. “Their War ended 70 Years ago. Their trauma didn't.” Washington Post 11 September, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-greatest-generations-forgotten-trauma/2015/09/11/.
18. Ibid.

Other Works Consulted:

Duffy, James P. War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea, 1942-1945. New American Library. 2016.

Harmon, Thelma A., Lt. Col. AMSC, USC. “Professional Services of Dietitians, World War II.” U.S. Army Medical Department Office of Medical History. http://history.amedd.army.mil/corps/medical_spec/chaptervii.html 9/19/2018.

“History of Military Dietitians: Program History.” Baylor University. https://www.baylor.edu/graduate/nutrition/index.php?id=68073

Paltzer, Seth. “ The Other Foe: The U.S. Army's Fight against Malaria in the Pacific Theater, 1942-45.” U.S. Army Historical Foundation. https://armyhistory.org/the-other-foe-the-u-s-armys-fight-against-malaria-in-the-pacific-theater-1942-45/ 9/23/1018.

Taafe, Stephen R. MacArthur's Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign. University Press of Kansas.1998.

Figures:

1. Index Recipe Cards
2. Order of Neptune “Imperivm Neptvni Regis
3. Map of SWPA
4. V-Mail from Sharon “To KIKI.”
5. V-Mail censored.
6. George by Jeep
7. V-Mail about Clapper's Death
8. Pass to Dobudura Rd
9. Katherine's military ID