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The U. S. Army Hospital, Plant 4178, was pleasantly situated
in the beautiful countryside of southwest England. The newly
finished hospital had been empty, waiting for the first flood
of casualties that would pour across the English Channel after
our forces had landed somewhere on the Continent of Europe.
But now D-Day had come and gone, and the Allied Armies had
landed on the beaches of Normandy. In the weeks that followed,
Army ambulances would make their endless circuits between the
docks of south England and the hospital to unload their mutilated
cargo. As soon as the airstrip was completed on top of Omaha
Beach, airfields in south England were added to the collection
points for the casualties that were flown to England and brought
to the hospital by ambulance. It was by the route of the Omaha
Beach airstrip that I found myself in this hospital. I had suffered
a gunshot wound of the abdomen and some shrapnel wounds from
a Panzerfaust on July 10 in Normandy.
The weeks that I spent in the hospital were a tranquil interlude
after the tumultuous preceding weeks of rapid movement and intense
action. The large, freshly painted ward was already filled to
capacity and was always alive with the banter of unquenchable
G.I. humor and ongoing teasing with the nurses. If there seemed
to be an air of exaggerated laughter, even among the more seriously
wounded, it was simply the outpouring of sheer joy, the exhilaration
of just being alive. After all, these men were the survivors
of that still perilously clung-to Normandy Beach-head.
There were men from the 1st, the 4th, and the 29th Divisions,
who had made the assault on Omaha and Utah Beaches. There was
a Ranger or two who had participated in taking the German position
on the precipitous Point du Hoc. There were glidermen and paratroops
from the vaunted 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, who had fought
in isolation, exploiting enemy weaknesses to gain their vital
objectives. There were men from other units, such as the 3rd
Armored Division, who joined the battle later, and who had their
baptism of fire in the fierce battle of the hedgerows, where
every field was transformed into an enemy fortress and the murderous
crossfire took an unconscionable toll of lives.
In the bed beside me was a young soldier who still trembled
with fear. After being seriously wounded, he had lain in his
foxhole beneath the dead body of a fellow soldier for two days.
In another bed, close by, was a gliderman with an extremely heavy
accent, from the 82nd Airborne. He told us how he had paraded
before Mussolini as a young soldier in the Italian Army, until
his mother was able to smuggle him out of Italy to the U.S. He
told us about his glorious entry into France, how, when his glider
hit the ground, it broke up on impact and he was hurled through
the air, only to come to a sliding halt with his face buried
in the manure of a Norman cow. There was another man across the
aisle from me who filled only half his bed. He had been run over
by a tank and had his legs amputated below the hips. He stared
stoically at the ceiling for hours on end to avoid the painful
downward glance at the flat, taut blanket where his legs and
feet should have been.
A special bond quickly developed among the men in the ward.
Strong friendships were quickly forged. The ambulatory patients
would move among those who were bedfast, encouraging them, asking
about their units, hoping to find mutual acquaintances within
their ranks. They would light cigarettes for those who were helpless
and run small, necessary errands.
There were men in all manner of casts, some in body casts,
others in leg casts that were elevated in traction, and still
others in arm casts, with the arms locked forward of the body
in crooked positions, appearing like mimes frozen in mid-performance.
There was always a significant change of mood among the men
in the ward as night approached. It was a puzzling phenomenon.
Was it the fear of the isolation that quiet and darkness bring?
Was it the apprehension of each man receding into his own private
arena of hell, where in sleep, the subconscious mind would resurrect
a thousand different scenarios of torment that he had already
endured?
During the night there were frequent periods of unusual quiet
when I would suppress sleep and in an almost childlike manner,
surrender myself to the marvelous security of the ward. I would
try to fasten my mind on enjoying the soft, clean comfort of
the hospital bed. Lying in the silence, I would listen to the
gentle rhythm of my own breathing, the most elementary and gratifying
reminder of being alive. For me, to be awake was the dream; to
sleep was the nightmare.
Often my reverie was intruded upon by the audible torment
of those who slept. There would be a sudden outburst as someone
in a nightmare gave out a pathetic cry for help. Another would
curse loudly in a frenzy of helplessness over a weapon that would
not fire; someone else screamed orders to a squad that did not
exist. To hear, welling out of the darkness, the pleading, plaintive
cry of a man calling for a friend who would not answer, was almost
heartbreaking.
Meanwhile, up and down the long, darkened ward, deep into
the night, there would be sporadic clicks and flashes of cigarette
lighters, as trembling hands tried to light unsteady cigarettes
held between the quivering lips of men who had become hostages
to that felt clutch of sleeplessness. For the sleepless as well
as the sleeping fell victim to the torments of the night. Unrepentant
darkness, which knows neither truce nor armistice would relentlessly
do its demon work, constantly awakening the fear-laden memories
of battlefield terror. Unforgetting, unforgiving darkness, with
a sly viciousness, would again and again lacerate those tender,
unsutured inner wounds and would not let them heal. And those
nights would be the cruel harbinger of decades of similar nights
to come, when time and distance would neither diminish nor assuage
the unremitting pain.
During the night there was always the sound of nurses on constant
patrol, quietly and efficiently moving among the beds with their
flashlights, checking on each man. At some beds, there were extended
pauses as they whispered consolingly to those who could not sleep.
To others, with the same comforting tenderness, they administered
medication when the pain was no longer bearable.
The flick of the light switch in the morning, accompanied
by the cheery voices of the day nurses, signaled the distinct
change of the mood that would restore the easy light-heartedness
that made the days so different and almost pleasant.
One day the daily routine of the ward was interrupted with
a great stir of excitement. A full Colonel and his party had
come to the hospital. When the Colonel and his entourage entered
our ward, we found out that he had come to present the Purple
Heart to each of us. What made this particularly auspicious was
that this was the first time the awards had been made in that
hospital since the Normandy invasion.
Those of us who were ambulatory were ordered to stand in front
of our beds, while the Colonel's Aide read the names and the
serial numbers, and then the Colonel made the presentation. What
a motley and unmilitary looking group we must have been, standing
in front of our beds, dressed in our pajamas, bathrobes and canvas
hospital slippers.
When the Colonel, followed by his splendidly attired entourage,
took his position in front of me, he paused and looked at me.
He then asked, "How old are you, son?" "Eighteen
years old Sir," I replied. "What the hell are you doing
over here?" he bellowed out across the ward! I replied,
"I'm just very proud to be here."
Some weeks later, I underwent another operation. In Normandy,
in the field hospital, when the projectile had been removed from
my abdomen, the wound was stuffed with Vaseline gauze to ensure
proper healing. Now that the wound had healed properly, a second
operation was needed to close the wound.
Following the operation, I was placed alone in a room. One
day, the door suddenly opened, and several nurses burst into
my room singing, "Happy Birthday." One of the nurses
had seen on my records that August 7, was my nineteenth birthday,
so they had brought me small gifts. Such thoughtfulness and personal
concern in the midst of their uniquely busy and demanding schedules
was a most moving experience. It showed what a special breed
of people they really were.
For my period of rehabilitation, I was transferred to a hospital
near Hereford, England. It was there that I received some sad
news. During my stay in Glastonbury, Somerset, at Abbey Camp
prior to the invasion, I had been befriended by the Mapstone
family, a wonderful, solid, English family. The warmth of their
home had been a comforting refuge from the austerity of camp
life. Having learned of my injury and subsequent hospitalization,
this kind family had hired a car at great expense and, in gas-starved
England, had traveled many miles to visit me in the hospital.
Unfortunately, they had arrived at the hospital the day after
I had left to begin my rehabilitation program. It was with a
heavy heart that within a short time I began my journey across
the Channel without having seen my dear friends. The balancing
consolation was that I was eager to rejoin the men of "D"
Co, the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Armored Division
where I belonged.
END.
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