大象传媒

During the first week of January we nurses who had enlisted were ordered to report to Fort Barker for physical examinations and from then on the days were like Lewis Carroll's "Mad Hatters Tea Party". There were meetings, discussion, vaccines, parties, more meetings, X-rays, shopping and lots of advice. It was suddenly painful to think of leaving - how could one leave such good friends?

One Saturday morning in Jan 1942 when the New England fathers had decided to play chess on the weather chart for the second time within the week, a very unusual thing happened in Boston, Mass. Against this snowy back-drop, forty four ladies of varied ages, not too old and yet not too young, arrived at the station to board a southbound train before time! They were not there in time to purchase their tickets graciously; they were not there in time t kiss their relatives soundly and clamour aboard looking for just he right seat; they were there one hour before train time. This was an unprecedented event but bears out the fact that once moved to action they outdid themselves. Although they wore a wide variety of costume and had nothing of the leaving look about them. They were off to the wars with thermometer and bandage. They were to sail for foreign soil accompanying fifty gentlemen of unquestionable medical ability.

At the end of ten hours of studied nonchalance and sandwich munching they set foot on the red soil of Wrightstown New Jersey. Their induction into the army was one of gentle, orderly persuasion. When recording privates asked them what colour their eyes were at one o'clock in the morning they told them politely. They waited quietly and patiently for life in the army to begin and thereby hangs a tale. What a happy day it was when my friend, Helen Esther Fitzgerald and I decided to be mates for the duration. For some reason which has slipped my mind we called each other "Josie" and this went on for the rest of our lives. We wisely had a bottle of Southern Comfort in our rucksacks to stay us in times of crisis. We were issued with uniforms and cases and a suit and overcoat and a hat. Next came a gas mask and a helmet. Did the helmet go on top of that hat? No-one knew. There was speculation as to our destination and Josie felt that long underwear and yellow-fever shots were contradictory.

Because of having done psychiatric nursing I was assigned to a psychiatric ward of 23 patients of low mental age and emotionally unstable - not an unreasonable number from a few thousand. It is interesting that a disturbed personality could adjust to army life for as long as two years without symptoms.

"Another meeting" went up the shout when our C.O came back from a meeting in Washington. It seemed there was too much ability in the 5th General and the unit was to be split in half; half will go to Europe and half to the Pacific. If you ever thought you had any control over your fate - forget it, you haven't.

So on the gloomy day of 18th Feb 1942 after what we were told was a great deal of secrecy we boarded one ancient train and ended up in Trenton, New Jersey. There is nothing like a cold dawn and a baloney sandwich in Brooklyn to move you into action, so we clutched our order papers and marched up to Troop Transport #6. The plan was that there would be four nurses and two doctors assigned to each ship in the convoy - Convoy? What does a convoy do? Patricia Baldwin, Hilda Zulick, Helen Fitzgerald staggered aboard the USS Barnett formerly the Grace Line's "Santa Maria". A diner party was held in Brooklyn that evening attended by 1,200 G.I.'s 100 officers and Mr Pomeray, Lt Commander US Navy, his staff and crew and four little maids from school. A pleasant time was had by all. It seemed that seventeen medical officers from the 5th General Hospital were scattered throughout the convoy. Scattered was the operative word.

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