A R M Y   D A Z E

1942 - 1945

Hello Army --- be seein’ ya!

When I was about half way through chiropractic college, Uncle Sam decided I should be in the Army. I told him what you see is what you get. He said they had scraped the bottom of the barrel before, they would do it one more time.

Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, had two sizes of mosquitoes; the little ones pulled the covers off, the big ones came along and bit you. I assume they walked in during the day when the door was open, and hid under the bed until dark. During basic training we lived in large tents, wood floors, small gas heater and six persons to a tent. It had swinging doors on all sides that could be opened up for cross ventilation. Each tent had a fine mesh wire netting the same width as the doors, to keep varmints out when doors were swung upward.

One of our boys had a radio that he liked to play too loud and too late at night. He had the aerial hooked into this wire netting. One night, just by accident, my ring happened to rub against the wire netting, back of my head. Although the radio was 20-25 feet away, it created static, and by rubbing a little harder I could drown out the music altogether. So every night about 9:00 - 9:30, the static started, radio would be turned off, then we would listen to the graphic terminology he used in describing the negative value of his radio. Don’t think he learned some of the words in his Sunday School class. This continued a few nights and he finally sold the radio, as no one could figure out the static problem. Ah, peace and quiet! (Electrical engineers, explain!)

"Piece of cake, nothing to this." But that was the only bull’s eye I hit all day. I didn’t mind shooting at a dummy, but we had to plunge a bayonet into him, too. Didn’t like that too well. For a while, I was leader of a mortar squad. We practiced a lot and could hit a six foot target ¼ to ½ mile away. We used high powered binoculars to watch the target.

One night, the Company Commander asked me to give him a treatment on his aching back. As I was working with him, he said, "You ought to be in the Medical Corps." I said, "That’s where I would like to be." Within the week I was transferred to the medical unit. I remember giving a lot of foot treatments. It seemed that a 25 mile hike, with a full pack, did something for the feet. "Oh, my aching feet!" was the slogan of the day.

One weekend, I went to New Orleans. Once was enough -- there was too much noise on Bourbon Street for me.

We always enjoyed having company, dear friends and family members were always welcome. The camps all had visitor’s quarters. Leola came down for a few days, and I remember how it boosted my morale. Amelia and Omer came one weekend, too, and we drove to Galveston, Texas that Sunday.

I was a member of the 82nd (AA) All American division. For some reason, after a few months they split up the 82nd and made two airborne divisions, the 82nd and the 101st (Screaming Eagle). Our medical unit became attached to a glider regiment of the 101st, and soon we were introduced to our first glider. Now, there is a difference between a glider and an airplane - the glider doesn’t have a motor. Oh yes, and we were told to be sure and step on the cross bars, they didn’t want anyone going through the floor.

Soon after the split, the whole division moved to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina (near Fayetteville), to continue training, and we were in close proximity to an airfield there. Something had to get those paratroopers and gliders up in the air. The C-47 was the workhorse for this job. The glider was pulled by a tow rope 100 feet long or so. You felt like a duckling trying to catch its mother in flight. The glider would be ten feet high before the plane was off the ground. After while someone decided it was time to come down, and he would disengage the tow rope, and you’re on your own, brother! If you are trying to land a glider and you see a tree coming at you, you might miss the tree, but what if it’s a barn 30-40 feet high and 100 feet long and you’re coming broadside? Crash, bang, splinters, headache?!! Of course, in practice, we always tried to get back to the landing strip.

The weather was good and the mosquitoes weren’t so big in North Carolina. We continued taking care of the medical needs of soldiers, going to classes, foot treatments, scheduled glider flights. Often on Sunday, I would fly with some of the Air Corps pilots who were getting in their required flying time. Whether it was hedge-hopping or at regular altitude, I saw quite a bit of North Carolina and the southeast from the air.

Leola visited me once at Ft. Bragg, and my parents and Junior came down one weekend. We drove over to the coast on Sunday and put our toes into the Atlantic. What a pleasure it was to have loved ones and family come, especially since we knew we would soon be given overseas assignments. I met a family there who used to invite me quite often for Sunday dinner. If you haven’t had southern fried chicken the way they do it in N.C., you’ve missed something. Really!

So a few weeks later, one midnight, we found ourselves in New York City getting on a boat for Merry Olde England. We crossed the ocean in a ship convoy, going in a zig-zag fashion. The trip took eleven days. Our training and activities there continued about the same, except we used English gliders. They were much bigger and heavier than the American ones -- 30 to 35 men and equipment to maybe half that for ours. On one training mission, I became deathly sick. And I mean deathly. I was the only medic on board, supposed to look after the other guys. They all took off after we landed, and I didn’t know where to and I cared less. That was a blank afternoon for me, I remembered nothing and had no idea how I got back to camp. Maybe a wandering Jeep picked me up, I’ll never know. English hedge rows all looked the same, too.

We were stationed not too far from London, so I had a chance to visit the city a few times, Buckingham Palace, Changing of the Guard, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the London Bridge before it was torn down and moved to Arizona, re-assembled as a tourist attraction -- were my favorites. I always enjoyed reading Shakespeare, so saw his home at Stratford-on-Avon.

D-DAY was approaching. We knew the invasion by the Allied Forces would soon take place. The 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were to play major roles in this and in the following days. I was still a member of the 101st. But a few weeks before the invasion, I was transferred to the 298th General Hospital. I am sure this was a Godsend for me; sure, I would gladly fill the vacancy in that unit!

We were the first General Hospital to go in, just a few days following the invasion. General Hospitals had more equipment, stayed farther back from the front line and were more permanently established. Field Hospitals could move on short notice and they had to do this many times as the fighting progressed. We were equipped to receive the more severely injured and keep them for a longer recovery period.

How well I remember D-DAY. As I stood in the safe environs of the hospital and saw the many planes and gliders overhead, I said a silent prayer. Many of my friends were on those planes. I was told that my former Company Commander was beheaded by a low flying glider as they landed.

When our hospital went into France a few days later, we were told to stay strictly on the road and be aware of land mines and snipers. On the way to Cherbourg where we set up the hospital, we stayed overnight in a bivouc area. The next night, the Germans strafed the area with machine gun fire. Glad we were gone! They weren’t supposed to shoot at units displaying the big, red cross anyway. Come on, you guys, play by the rules! We stayed in Cherbourg about three months, then moved to Liege, Belgium, where we remained until the end of the war.

Hospital work might have been monotonous for some, but to me it was interesting. We were always meeting new people and were confronted with various mental and physical problems. I especially enjoyed the physical therapy department where I worked for quite a while. We were given physicals and lab tests ourselves periodically. After one of my tests, the nurse came running in and said, "Hey, George, you’ve got diphtheria, get out of here." So, I was put in isolation for about a month. Rest, radio, reading, good food -- nothing wrong with that. Then there were penicillin shots -- they weren’t bad either. When the doctor asked how I felt, I said, "fine," he said, "Good. We’ll keep you another week or so." He thought I was lying. They had to do more tests. I did feel fine. Personally, I think the whole thing was a mis-diagnosis.

We called them "Buzz Bombs." Little unmanned German airplanes carrying a lot of TNT. Liege, being an industrial city, was the target. They had just enough gas to get there, then they would fall. Where, was anyone’s guess. From about 10:00 PM to midnight was their usual time of arrival. Quite a few would come in during that time period. This went on for several weeks until the underground launching site was discovered, and they were put out of action. One did fall a few rods from the hospital one night with quite a bang. It made a hole five to eight feet deep, 20-30 feet in diameter in the field. What a relief when they quit coming!

Sure, I saw the Follies Bergere in Paris, the world’s most beautiful women, standing room only. I climbed the Eiffel Tower, walked under the Arc de Triomphe, saw the Sunken Gardens and the Palace of Versailles. I visited Cologne, Germany to see the Cologne Cathedral. The city was bombed severely, but the Cathedral was standing almost untouched in all its beauty.

One day in Holland, I went into a store to buy something. In my best French, I tried to tell the young clerk what I wanted. She said, "If you’ll speak English, I can understand you better." Poor girl. I couldn’t help it if she didn’t follow my good French. All through school, the Europeans study English. Many could speak it better than we.

Several weeks prior to and at war’s end, I was Wardmaster of a neuro-surgery ward. We handled head and back injuries. I will always remember one young man, about 21, his spinal cord severed in the lower back. He would never walk again. Of course, he was sent back to the States and given a medical discharge as soon as possible. Most of the patients weren’t that severely injured, however.

Then, too, I took advantage of the G.I. Bill. It paid my college expense and that of two good post-graduate schools I attended. It gave me $75.00 monthly for living expenses. After we were married (I still had 4-5 months for my chiropractic degree) it gave me $90.00 a month. Come on, Uncle Sam, how can I feed Leola on $15.00 a month? Well, it really wasn’t that hard -- hamburgers were still a nickel!

But, back to live action. The war was over -- fewer and fewer patients were trickling into the hospital, soon it would be disbanded altogether. Feelings of happy anticipation and bridled emotions were evident in all of us. It took only four days to come back. We didn’t zig-zag and we chose a faster boat. Of course, we were in a hurry! How well I remember the day I was discharged. I think I was so excited I could scarcely sign my name. I probably felt like a bird let out of a cage.