The Independent-News, Volume 121, Number 10, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 20 July 1995 — Page 2

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- THE INDEPENDENT NEWS - JULY 20, 1995

Veterans Recall World War II 50 Years Later MARTHA CLINGENPEEL United States Army Nurse 91st Hospital Evacuation Unit I was inducted in March of 1942 at Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis,lndiana. My first eight months were spent at Billings General Hospital in Indianapolis. On November 25, 1942, 15 of the nurses from Billings met with 33 other Army nurses, doctors, and a few administration officers, and our enlisted men and we were sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Our unit was known as the 91st Evacuation Hospital. We soon sailed from New York Harbor on the US Transport Argentina as an army band played “We won’t be back ’til it’s over — over there.’’ It was quite an emotional moment. We landed at Casablanca, French Morocco, North Africa. And the very first night we were introduced to German air raids. We were housed in a building that had been used as a school for little French girls. The enlisted men set up pup tents in a nearby field. The ship that our equipment was on had engine trouble and did not arrive until much later. Our nurses and doctors helped the 7th Evacuation Hospital as their equipment had arrived but their nurses had not! Their unit was set-up in a building several blocks from us. Since it was dark in the morning when we went to work we were

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always escorted by U.S. Army personnel. We left Casablanca for Bizerte, North Africa, in a convoy of 6x 6 Army trucks. I can recall it being very bumpy. The trucks were loaded to capacity with 400 Gls, nurses, doctors, and office personnel, and all of our equipment. The first night our unit arrived at Port Lyoutey. Here we were housed in several small buildings, but had crude facilities, portable showers were set up in tents, with nurses using them at certain hours only, and the army personnel at other hours. There also were outside toilet facilities for both men and women. The second night we spent high in the Atlas Mountains in Mostoganen, Algeria. Here we had to endure several German air raids. We finally arrived at Bizerte, North Africa on July 17,1943. We spent eleven days at Bizerte in an olive orchard. We lived in small pup tents only three feet high awaiting transportation to Sicily. We finally set sail on an LST for Palermo, Sicily. There we cared for 10,600 sick and wounded in just three months time. During this time, the Germans would fly over and drop flares at night. One morning there was an airplane propeller laying in front of our quarters. When the time came for us to leave to go to England to participate in the invasion of France, we i sent our patients to a station hospital and waited for our ship to i come to get us. We sailed through i the Straits of Gibralter and arrived in England at Tortworth Court. ; We called this our castle because it : looked like one. It was a very large

building. All of our nurses and doctors had rooms in it. We were here at Christmastime — it was our first anniversary overseas. There was a big Christmas tree in the lobby. We had a Christmas party and the Queen of England attended. We were here at this location for the rest of the winter. We were here awaiting the invasion of France. Finally on June 4, 1944, we received our orders to leave, we waited in a coal mine. We had on smelly coveralls that had been treated to protect us from poisonous gas in case it was used by the enemy. We arrived at the sandy beach of France on June 10, 1944, D-Day plus 4. They put a rope ladder up along the side of the small landing craft we were on. We had to get out of the boat onto the ladder, which was moving up and down with the waves. We had our packs on our back and our helmets on. It was really scary, as we didn’t know if we would miss the next rung of the ladder and fall into the water below, but we all made it safely. Once we got on land, we were told to set-up our hosptial and living quarters in tents. Half of the nurses had to work taking care of the wounded while the other half slept so they could relieve those who had been working. Our shifts were 12 hours on and 12 hours off but it was hard to sleep because of the guns and cannons going off continually. We left this battle front the next day and moved farther inland to Boutenville, Normandy. At this set-up our hospital and living quarters were in tents also. In 17 days we treated over 2,000 soldiers. There were air raids here too, but our tents were marked with red crosses on the roofs and the enemy did respect them, as we did not receive any direct hits. We were working less than two miles from the fighting front lines. We saw planes in combat and a gasoline dump get hit. General George Patton with the 3rd Armored Division moved in, and the ground shook all night long from the movement of the heavy armor. On July 31, we moved to Marigny, France. We set-up our tents in a cow pasture. But first we had to wait for the area to be cleared of enemy mines, dead Germans, and dead cows. The smell of death was all around us. Here in just nine days we treated about 1,200 soldiers. The wounded at this time seemed to be coming in a never-ending stream. We had to improvise many of our operations, but with the aid of our carpenter shop, we did the best we could, though, often only a temporary patch-up job until the patient could be moved to a more permanent station hospital. We were working continually in tents which you know could not possible be the best of conditions. We left here and went to Brecey, France, where we treated about 1,300 soldiers. I was assigned to work with gangrene patients. Many times soldiers would have to lay on affected limbs for a long time before the medics were able to get to them and bring them to us. I had to administer penicillin every two hours and 50cc of medication to fight the gangrene every hour for 6 doses. It was tiring, and I was kept very busy. Again we worked DUAN^RAKE’S TREE SERVICE TREE REMOVAL TREE TRIMMING STUMP REMOVAL Estimates Phone (219) 936-6546 Plymouth

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12 hour shifts during the time here. After traveling through Guyancourt and LaCappele, France, we arrived in Liege, Belgium. One thing that I can vividly remember here is seeing an ice cream stand operating among chaos and destruction. And our truck stopping and everyone having an ice cream cone, the first one for all of us since we had left the good ole U.S.A. Our next move was to Wiepke, Germany. It was while here on May 8, 1945, that the war in Europe ended. We had enough points to go home, but trained medics were still needed. Our next stop was at the Robert Bosch Memorial Hospital in Stuthgart, Germany. The 91st ran half of the hospital for American soldiers and the Germans ran the other half for civilians. After a few weeks our outfit was split up. The nurses and doctors were sent to a bivouac area, and enlisted men were sent to another one to wait for orders to go home. While we waited, the doctors and a couple of us nurses decided to take a trip into northern Italy and southern Germany. We

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J, travelled up a mountain top 1 1 where Hitler and his officers had A meeting place to work out their wt«J plans. It was a small stone building called the “Eagle’s Nest” with lots of underground bunkers and passages. However, our sight-seeing tour came to a sudden halt when we were informed that the 91st had been sent home. I was just sick to have missed the ship. But when we got back to the staging area, this was not true, and we still had a 10-day wait before boarding the ship for home. We finally departed on September 9, 1945, and arrived in the U.S.A, on September 18, 1945. I was sent to Camp Grant, Illinois, to receive my separation papers, but was not discharged until March 4, 1946 as I had a lot of ‘leave days’ coming. The 91st Evacuation Hospital was like one big family, we worked, played, ate, and lived together for almost 3 years. It was an incredible experience! The first hospital to use ambulances was Bel’evue in New York City in 1869.