Jane Heinemann was born on September 25, 1917 in Wausau, Wisconsin. Her parents, both Wisconsin natives of German descent, made their home in Merrill, Wisconsin, where Ms. Heinemann and her sister were raised. Ms. Heinemann attended local schools, through high school, in Merrill. She then attended Northwestern University where she received her bachelor's degree in Music Education in 1940. After receiving her degree, she taught elementary and secondary school music in Earlville, Illinois and Hammond, Indiana until 1942. Ms. Heinemann then joined the Red Cross in 1943, and was sent to Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. Because of her music background, she was assigned as a staff recreation worker, charged with entertaining the recovering GIs in the station hospital. She remained there for about one year before requesting overseas duty. She was then sent to the Western Pacific in 1945, first to Tinian, in the Mariana Islands, with one of five general hospitals to be set up for the invasion of Japan. However, the first A-bomb left Tinian one week later, and the war soon ended. As many troops had to stay until they had enough points to come home, she stayed on, and moved to club service, working on Guam and Saipan, with her overseas weapon--an accordion.

Ms. Heinemann returned in early 1946, but later that year the Red Cross called her back to William Beaumont General Hospital, in El Paso, Texas, where she worked with long-term battle casualties. A return to teaching was peripatetic--jobs in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arizona, Maryland, and Iowa, doing a master's degree in summers. She then signed up with the U.S. Army's Special Services in their Club Services division and was sent to Germany. There she worked as a program director in Turenne Kaserne, Zweibrücken, Germany. There she organized a GI chorus while in Germany, from 1953 to 1954. Her father died in 1954 and Ms. Heinemann returned home to stay with her mother during the fall of that year. The following semester, Ms. Heinemann obtained a teaching position with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, teaching methods courses for music majors in elementary music. She remained at UW-M until her retirement in 1986. She now resides in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale.

Ms. Heinemann begins by recounting her experience as a teacher in rural Illinois at the beginning of the war. Her then boyfriend was listed at 1-A, and was drafted in the military within a month after the attack at Pearl Harbor. She continues by describing changes in the community including rationing and learning to knit for the GIs. She describes the changes in the type of music used in the schools--incorporating more American folk songs. She then talks about her early years of teaching and the students' reactions to the war.

Following a teaching assignment in Hammond, Indiana, Ms. Heinemann decided to join the Red Cross. She talks about her brief training in Washington, D.C. prior to being sent to Camp Chaffee near Fort Smith, Arkansas. At Camp Chaffee, she describes her quarters, her duties, her co-workers, the patients, and the Grey Ladies (volunteers). She also talks about her exposure to race relations in the South for the first time. She describes her job as a recreation worker, playing (and pushing) the piano through all the various wards at the camp. Ms. Heinemann describes the effect that her music had on some of the patients and the stories of seemingly miraculous recoveries as a result of their exposure to music. She also recalls playing music for the German prisoners of war who were being held at the camp.

Ms. Heinemann talks about her interaction with the GIs, and as well as some of the more remarkable incidents during her stay at Camp Chaffee. She then describes her decision to go overseas and her preparation for that transfer, including the gift of an accordion from her father. She recalls her work at St. Elizabeth's hospital prior to going to the Pacific. She talks about slowly learning to play the accordion, yet quickly enough to utilize it to entertain the patients. She then describes her trip across the country prior to being shipped to Tinian, as well as the voyage across the Pacific in a converted cruise ship, including a stop at Pearl Harbor, and the precautions taken aboard ship. She injured her leg during the landing at Tinian, and she talks about her hospitalization and recovery. She then describes the parties and picnics, and the make-shift decorations made by the GIs and the Red Cross workers. She also describes trading liquor for other goods and services overseas. She also mentions the arrival of the first M & M's on the island.

Tinian was used as the site for storing the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and Ms. Heinemann talks about the rumors surrounding the arrival of the bombs. She talks about her feelings about the dropping of the bombs, as well as her reaction to the war in general. She then talks about her trip home from the Pacific, including a stop-over in Hawaii, running across a disabled ship, and playing bridge on board ship. After returning to the states, she went to El Paso, Texas, and she describes the differences among the patients at this hospital. She talks about the celebrities she met over the years in her service with the Red Cross including Harpo and Groucho Marx.

Ms. Heinemann then describes her experiences following the war, teaching in a variety of places, and finally signing up with the army's Special Services and being sent to Germany. She concludes by talking about her expectations regarding the post-war period, and the ways in which the war changed her life.