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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton 
May 7, 1993 
Cassette 3, Side 2 
 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:01 
And the first-- maybe it was a cartoon, the first one. And then in intermission, what you call it, is 
when you get the newsreel, and it lasts for about 30 minutes, I guess. Maybe longer. When you 
went there, you had a good show, and then you had the movie. 
 
Barbara Wright  00:19 
We switched the tape over. This is side B of May 7, 1993. And once again, kind of going back to 
like those Warner Brother cartoons, was there any like, for instance, like in the so called kind of 
comedy themes, were the Germans depicted in any sort of way, like sort of a slurred accent, you 
know? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  00:47 
Not that I remember. I don't remember that, because most of your cartoons, like [inaudible], 
Mickey Mouse, those kind of movie-- cartoons. 
 
Barbara Wright  01:05 
You didn't have Bugs Bunny?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:06 
Yeah, he would be one, I guess. 
 
Barbara Wright  01:07 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:10 
I wasn't too much [inaudible], so I really don't [inaudible]-- 
 
Barbara Wright  01:13 
So then you didn't get-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:14 
At the intermission, at those times, I would go out and get a drink or something. 
 
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Barbara Wright  01:18 
Okay. Was going to the movies a regular sort of pastime for you, or is it every once in a while?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  01:24 
No, I never had much time for it, tell you the truth. Maybe at weekends I'd go with a gang. We'd 
go and-- group of friends. But it wasn't every day occurrence or every week. I was busy with 
other stuff. 
 
Barbara Wright  01:44 
Also, too, in America, there were sort of, like, drives for things. There would be, like a rubber 
drives, you know, steel drives, any sort of that over there? Okay. What about the black market? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  02:02 
Oh, there was a lot of that. 
 
Barbara Wright  02:03 
Okay. What certain things could be found on the black market and how expensive were they? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  02:04 
Oh, I think you can find-- maybe could find your butter, I don't know. Butter wouldn't surprise-- 
we never did. An extra meat if you wanted, if you knew the proper person, getting a little bit 
extra money. You could get maybe a steak, but then you didn't know if it was a horse, pig, or a 
cow [laughs]. I mean, you took-- it was a gamble, what you got, but you got a little variety. We 
didn't, as far as I know, we didn't do that. We had a neighbor that-- their family was on a farm 
quite a bit, and they had all those kind of things. So they helped Mom and Dad, it helped us out a 
bit with the extra. They'd bring us fresh rabbits, stuff like this to the stale ones. 
 
Barbara Wright  02:58 
Did your mother get very creative with the rabbit? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  03:02 
Oh yeah, oh yes. Yeah, we had to. But don't ask me, I was never a cook [laughs]. 
 
Barbara Wright  03:14 
Okay, so you were drafted-- well, you were called up into service-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  03:19 
Yeah. 
 
Barbara Wright  03:19 
But it wasn't drafted per say? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  03:21 
Well, it was the same letters that they got over here. I don't think they'd want to call it drafted, 
because very few people know about it. Nobody really knew about it. In our group-- the first 
group, there was about a little over 30 of us, we were the first ones. And we got called, we got 
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the letter, and the next week, we had to go get our physical. That was a hospital in-- outside of 
Belfast, and I, to this day, I don't remember where it was. I did talk to Marie, the girl I was with, 
a few years ago, and I asked her, and she told me, and I forgot to write it down, so I still don't 
know. But we went-- and as I said, that table was just magnificent. We'd never seen food like 
that in years. So, then we went home-- 
 
Barbara Wright  04:07 
What kind of things were on the table?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  04:12 
Oh, there was-- good butter is the main thing. And jelly-- well, still, we could eat jelly, though. I 
can't remember, did we have the steak then? I think we had a steak then, and we just sat there and 
drooled over-- I mean, we just-- we took forever to eat because we had to keep the taste. [?I bet 
we are?]-- I'm sure the guys there thought we were nuts, but we were so thrilled at what we were 
getting. Oh, eggs, that's-- we went into breakfast first. That's right. When we got there, it was 
breakfast, and we hadn't seen eggs in I don't know how long, and we saw a fresh egg. And bake, 
now that's what-- that started it off, and then we went to lunch, and that's what they had the steak.  
 
Barbara Wright  05:44 
And this was all just for the physical? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  04:12 
This was while we taking physicals, yeah. Yeah, it was great [laughs]. All right, so then we had 
to wait. We went home. 
 
Barbara Wright  05:45 
How long did you have to wait for? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  05:47 
I think it was about two weeks. Well it had to be, because... We got the letter the first of August-- 
no, last of July. Last week in July is when we got the letter. We had to go the following week, so 
that'd be in August, and it'd be about two weeks later. Yeah, because this all happened in August, 
it's boom-boom-boom-boom. And we got notice to report at Lichfield, England, and that's when 
we got into the service, August, 1944. 
 
Barbara Wright  06:16 
What was your mother's reaction to this?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  06:20 
She didn't like it at all. She didn't like me going at all. 
 
Barbara Wright  06:24 
What'd she say?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  06:26 
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She thought I was silly going. There's nothing she could do about that, it was one of those things. 
She got over it. 
 
Barbara Wright  06:34 
What about your father? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  06:35 
Oh, he wanted it. He thought it was great.  
 
Barbara Wright  06:36 
Really?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  06:37 
Oh yes. He was gone at the time. He was in Southern Ireland, working on an organ-- big organ 
down there, and he couldn't get home, so I called him, asked his advice. He said, Well, you don't 
need advice. You know what you're going to do. So that was all there was to it. 
 
Barbara Wright  06:58 
Very progressive man for his day. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  06:59 
Yeah. But he came-- he did come up and see me-- see us all off. Least the whole family came, 
mine, as I saw. Exciting. 
 
Barbara Wright  07:13 
What about your sister? Was she happy to see you go? Or was she kind of...? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  07:18 
I don't know. 
 
Barbara Wright  07:19 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  07:20 
There's five years difference between us. So, she had a different-- her teenage years were a lot 
different than mine, and her way of thinking was a lot more-- I don't think she was-- you know, 
Oh, great, my sister's going to serve, I don't [inaudible] saying that. 
 
Barbara Wright  07:40 
Okay, so you went to basic training. What would, yeah, so what was it like, you know, going to 
that camp? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  07:47 
Well, it was really a silly-- even calling it basic training, because we didn't really do anything, 
except they had a lot of reporters there from every state that was represented in our group, and 
even-- each of us got interviewed and pictures taken to be sent to the particular time that we 
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came from, like they sent one to Baltimore and one to Hagerstown [?online?]. And I know it did, 
because my father got the clippings from the friends of ours that'd been over there, saw us in the 
papers. So each girl at that-- and the only thing towards war was we went on the firing range. We 
had to fire and we had to take a carbine rifle apart, clean it, put it together again, and fire it. And 
that's the training we got. Then-- that was a little hard too. Oh, and then we went on marches too, 
with our duffle pack-- backpacks and all on our backs, and we'd go a couple miles marching. 
That was comical, because it really wasn't that hard. When I hear these other poor girls, what 
they went through, we had a picnic [laughs]. 
 
Barbara Wright  09:18 
Good food, yeah. You mentioned-- like, you called your comrades girls, and so I'm wondering, 
about what in your mind would make a girl to a woman? What was the differentiation there? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  09:38 
I don't know. We're all girls.  
 
Barbara Wright  09:40 
Okay. When did you-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  09:44 
You had your eyes opened after a while, yeah, I mean-- you learned a lot of things about 
different people. Because I've always enjoyed meeting people, so that part of it didn't bother me. 
I love meeting people. So that was just an-- part of my life, because I've met-- through my music, 
I've met people. I was kind of used to it. Some of them got a little homesick, and maybe had 
never been away from Mommy for a long time-- never been away from Mother, and it took them 
a while to get. But you see, I had. I'd been traveling quite a lot. So those-- they had a little 
trouble, just the same as the girls [inaudible] women, then women, because there was a lot, you 
know, was-- I guess that's-- maybe 21? I don't know if there was an age. I don't know, because I 
was over 21 anyway, 
 
Barbara Wright  10:51 
When did you consider yourself to be a woman as opposed to a girl?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  10:57 
Never thought of it. 
 
Barbara Wright  10:57 
Okay. You also too, in one of the-- you shared an autobiography, you mentioned that none of the 
women got any medals or marksmanship. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:16 
Yeah, well, I come to find out that's because we didn't have to fight. We didn't have to fight, only 
people that fought get that. Which makes sense when you think about it. Infantry would get it 
[inaudible]. 
 
Barbara Wright  11:36 
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When you were interviewed by the press at basic training, what sort of questions did they ask 
you?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  11:46 
What we'd been doing? Why we'd left the states in the first place? Just like you have, a [?bunch 
of?] questions, that's the same as what you've asked. Why were we living over there? Because 
then-- I hope what I've told you, and what we've been doing. Just the same as what you asked. 
 
Barbara Wright  12:13 
Describe your uniform for me. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  12:14 
Well, if I'd known, I'd have brought it out, but I got one in there, maybe you can tell what you 
want. The one I've got is what they call an Ike Jacket, and that was worn with a skirt or pants. 
 
Barbara Wright  12:37 
Actually, I'll-- how about if we-- say that for the next time, we can take a picture of it. I'll put it 
in the archives with the rest of it. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  12:43 
Alright. We had on our boots, we called Little [?Aveners?], and they were comfortable. Oh, they 
were comfortable. And we had...  
 
Barbara Wright  12:43 
Were they like the-- were the boots like the men's boots, combat boots? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  12:44 
Not as big, not as tight. Have you seen Little [?Avener's?] boots? They're much the same as-- 
 
Barbara Wright  13:02 
Okay. Yeah, alright. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  13:05 
Yeah, okay, they were [inaudible] like those. And dress shoes with about two inch heel. 
 
Barbara Wright  13:13 
Any sort of platform on the...?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  13:15 
No. And we had regular-- they call it shoes? Lace shoes, you know, flats. We had those. Now, 
this is what we were given because we didn't wear them too much. We wore them that-- when 
we got-- when we entered into the service. You know, we got a special performance there, but 
we had to wear a Class A uniform, which was a jacket, and skirt, and flat heels. But then we had 
fatigues. I think you [?bed?] about my fatigues, but they didn't know my size at all, and were 
closed. And helmets. We had a helmet and a liner. They had blankets. 
 
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Barbara Wright  14:02 
Was it wool?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  14:02 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Barbara Wright  14:03 
Very scratchy? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  14:49 
No, it would be-- never bothered us. Always just clean-- we'd be so tired, we didn't care. Rain 
gear. And this all went in our duffle bag. I think that's it. 
 
Barbara Wright  14:57 
Did any of the women wear makeup? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  14:58 
I don't think so. I never saw anybody that did it. I very seldomly did. The only thing I've used 
was lipstick. Never had any mirrors to look in, for one thing. And the other thing, I don't think 
anybody really bothered. 
 
Barbara Wright  15:12 
How-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  15:12 
I'm a very-- I'm not an observant-- I really don't [inaudible] [laughs] and I'm still bad at that too. 
 
Barbara Wright  15:27 
Oh. Now, when you were going from Ireland to England, I'm not sure if this was when you were-
- before, traveling, or another time, that there was a German sub nearby. So, was this when you 
were traveling for pleasure or— 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  15:47 
Mm-hmm. It was when-- it was before I got into the service.  
 
Barbara Wright  15:46 
I see.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  15:46 
It was to do with business. 
 
Barbara Wright  14:06 
Okay, good. All right, and so you were in, I'm sorry, basic training for how long there? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  15:13 
Three weeks.  
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Barbara Wright  15:58 
Three weeks, okay. And then you were shipped to Paris? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:05 
Shipped to Cherbourg. From Southampton, England, to Cherbourg, France. 
 
Barbara Wright  16:12 
Okay. What was-- tell me your recollections going into Cherbourg. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:16 
Now I-- I'm going to interrupt, because now I think what you-- what you're saying about a 
submarine. It was when we were traveling right now from England-- I had that experience before 
I got in. This experience was when we were going from Southampton, England, to Cherbourg, 
France, and we couldn't go out on the decks or light cigarettes, and no lights were on the ship. 
But they did crawl. There was a submarine in the waters there, too. But... 
 
Barbara Wright  16:55 
Did you stop? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  16:56 
No, we didn't stop. We just crawled. 
 
Barbara Wright  16:58 
And what was the tension level like then?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  17:01 
[Inaudible]. Just took as part of what was going on. We got over. No mishaps, nothing happened, 
but that submarine was there the whole time we were going over, I guess, from what they said. 
Now, why they didn't fire on us, I don't know. 
 
Barbara Wright  17:15 
So when you got to Shorebook? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  17:32 
Cherbourg. Cherbourg, S-H-E-R-B-O-U-R-G. That's in France, a port. 
 
Barbara Wright  17:39 
Were you immediately signed-- assigned as a chaplain's assistant, or? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  17:44 
Yeah, I was-- I was heading for the chaplain's division at that time, because our assignment was 
done in London, before we left. All our assignments were. Because I didn't know where I was 
going. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:00 
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What were some of the other women assigned to do?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:02 
Mostly Signal Corps, like telephone, field telephones, office work. I guess a lot was office work. 
We had a few medical girls there, that worked in the medical [?field?]. We didn't have a hospital. 
But mostly the signal girls and office workers. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:28 
And they were known as signal girls? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:30 
Yeah, the signal girls. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:32 
Okay. And now, were they on the line? On the front lines? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:35 
No, no no. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:35 
Okay. Also too, in a prior conversation, you mentioned that there were women actually fighting 
on the front line.  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:47 
No. No fighting. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:49 
All right. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:49 
No, they were driving. Driving the trucks for supplies to the front line, but none of us had to 
fight. No. 
 
Barbara Wright  18:57 
Okay, you didn't-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  18:58 
We were have-- we were supposed to carry rifles or a gun, because we had snipers the whole 
time we were over there. I never did. You didn't have to, but they preferred you to. I never did, 
not too many of us did, I don't think, except maybe the ones that were driving the trucks, maybe 
they had them to keep them in the truck.  
 
Barbara Wright  19:24 
Do you-- were you ever-- did you ever hear of any instance where a woman was driving a truck 
and you had to use the gun? 
 
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Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  19:31 
No, no. There was one that was shot at, and she got shot in her leg when we were in Cherbourg, 
and that was just walking down the street. 
 
Barbara Wright  19:42 
And you never heard also of any woman-- women who had sort of just kind of decided to fight 
anyway, you know or-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  19:49 
No. 
 
Barbara Wright  19:50 
Okay. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  19:53 
No, you did what you were told. 
 
Barbara Wright  19:58 
What were-- describe a usual day for yourself as a chaplain's assistant. You get up and then? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  20:05 
Well, let's see. I'd go get up, and we'd have what they call revelry, and sometimes you'd be out 
there in the morning, at 4:30, lining up. The officer would come check your-- you'd be in 
fatigues. I mean, that's all we wore while we were there. And she'd kind of see if you-- now, we'd 
be in mud too, most of the time, and she check, see if our boots were clean. I mean, how can you 
clean boots when you're [?rolling?] in mud? But this kept our spirits up, I don't know. We used 
to laugh about it, we still do, some of the crazy things that you had to do or supposed to do, but 
you couldn't possibly, and then we go and have breakfast. And then-- 
 
Barbara Wright  20:53 
What was there for breakfast? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  20:55 
Oh, we had WAC cooks, but delicious. Oh, we had the best food ever, because they were all 
rationed food, you know, dehydrated stuff, but they'd make them into-- almost tasted like the real 
thing. I was very fortunate, I was always attached to some of that good food, and all the guys 
used to love to come over and be invited over and eat with us. We had our WAC cooks, we got 
the best food ever. 
 
Barbara Wright  21:25 
So you-- the men and women ate separately? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  21:27 
Oh yes. Oh yeah, we ate-- we only had a little place. It was only 60 of us, and we only had 
broken down buildings to go into. I mean, that's all we slept in. And the mess hall was just a 
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small-- it was an old dwelling of somebody's, and we kind of took it in turns to eat [inaudible] 
when we were in Cherbourg. Now, when we got further out a bit, we got better. 
 
Barbara Wright  21:55 
You mentioned dehydrated food, like, what sort of-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:00 
Powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered potatoes. Whatever. 
 
Barbara Wright  22:06 
Starchy. All right, so then you'd have breakfast, and then? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  22:19 
Then I'd go and, generally, I think we cleaned up our room. That was another stupid thing, but 
we had awful places to sleep. While we were in Cherbourg, the guys had made bunk beds out of 
all the wood that they found, they made me several bunks, and they were so shaky. And when I 
first had it, they had the slats too far apart, so when I'd turn over, my arm would fall right straight 
to my neighbor's [?bed?] [laughs]. So they got those fixed, extra ports, and then you cover up 
with your blanket. And-- but it was better than sleeping on the floor, like the guys had to do. I 
don't know, so we did have that treat. They get hot water. They had water radiators, and we take 
the water out of those radiators to have warm water so we could wash. And everything was done 
in our helmet. We washed our hair in our helmet, we washed our faces out of it [laughs]. It's 
weird, but when I think about it, I don't know, it didn't bother us. I-- you-- really, I don't 
remember anybody griping about it. Except maybe at the radio. It just weren't working and it was 
cold, and maybe then they get one of the guys-- there was always somebody there could fix it. 
Then after I get my bed made-- you have to make your bed, you know, with a blanket. Didn't 
have no mattress or anything, it's just the wood slats and a blanket on top of it. And your pillow 
was what you made, whatever kind of pillow you made out of your overcoat, whatever you had. 
Then, after I got that-- got tidied up, and then we walked to work. And it was only about block 
away, my office, and I'd just start regular office work, writing letters, filling out forms for 
different things. Oh, there's just too much, I couldn't tell you all the-- but we worked, and 
sometimes I'd work overnight too. 
 
Barbara Wright  25:01 
Hmm, as a chaplain's assistant, would it ever be your duty to write letters to the parents of dead 
soldiers?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  25:09 
That's what I did. 
 
Barbara Wright  25:12 
How was that emotionally, or was it just simply-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  25:18 
Simply did it.  
 
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Barbara Wright  25:19 
Okay. So there was never any sort of emotional... 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  25:19 
I got beautiful letters back home, not particularly to me, to the chaplains often. 
 
Barbara Wright  25:19 
Did you compose any of these letters?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  25:19 
Uh-huh. Yeah, if the chaplain was extra busy, he'd make me do it-- or let me do it, or whatever. 
But generally, I transfer it just with him talking. I type it right away. I never used my shorthand. I 
just type it, and that's what I did. And then any boys that wanted to get in contact, maybe with 
their parents, and they couldn't do it, because, you know, when you're on the front, it's hard to get 
things mailed, so they'd come in and we'd get to them through-- maybe sometimes through the 
Red Cross. We work closely with the Red Cross [?for those writing?]. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:10 
What was Red Cross's capacity then? What would they do? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:15 
Well, help guys find parents, or if-- they'd tell them if some of the friends had died, or some if 
their wives had died, or if they were in trouble. Then we would give involved. It was like a 
circle. Really was. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:36 
Any difficulties working with the Red Cross? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:42 
No. 
 
Barbara Wright  26:42 
You mentioned, like you read, you had kind of slats for beds, so was it like the slats, like, that are 
under a mattress, usually, and so there'd be, like, these big-- 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  26:56 
Wooden, wooden slats-- 
 
Barbara Wright  26:57 
Big gaps? Okay. So would there be gaps from where you would, kind of, like, sleeping?  
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:00 
Yeah. They were like the slat here, and then there'd be space here on the other side of 
[inaudible].  
 
Barbara Wright  27:04 
Page 13 of 13 
 
Okay, all right. That looks comfortable. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:09 
Well, yeah, except when you-- I was so skinny, my arm-- when I turn over, my arm will go down 
and hit her in the face. For one thing, they didn't put them high enough. [Inaudible] sizing. I 
think it was like here, and then one of them went like this. But, bless their hearts, they did-- 
 
Barbara Wright  27:29 
That's true. 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:30 
They did that instead of us, as I say, hang on those damn floors, because sometimes our roofs, 
you know, were just so cracked, and if it rained, you have to keep moving anyway to get out of 
the raindrops come in.  
 
Barbara Wright  27:44 
Describe-- yeah, describe the quarters. You describe the bed, but what were the quarters like? 
 
Olive Mary Milbourne Carlton  27:49 
Well, they're all-- they were all confiscated homes. They'd been big homes that had been 
bombed, just demolished, practically, and they just cleaned the mud and made it safe that we 
could stay in them. 
 
Barbara Wright  28:06 
Okay. This concludes the end of tape one of the second interview. 