Anna Marie Hulick

Anne Marie Hulick [detail] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: WAC (Women's Army Corps) Unit: Section 22 Service Location: United States; Australia; New Guinea; Leyte Island (Philippines); Luzon (Philippines) Rank: Technician Three

Anna Whelan was a young single woman living in Rushville, a small town in Nebraska, when the U.S. entered World War II. All the young men in town were enlisting, and she decided she wanted to make her own contribution in uniform. Though she could not type, the Army assigned her secretarial duties. Her desire to go overseas was fulfilled when a general took her on his assistant and made the necessary arrangements. She shipped out to Brisbane, Australia, and was one of seven women picked to work in General Headquarters, home to General Douglas MacArthur’s office. When MacArthur and U.S. forces returned to the Philippines, Whelan and her colleagues were housed in primitive conditions in a boys’ school; one night they heard Tokyo Rose claim their building was going to be bombed, but only one explosive went off nearby.