IV. Othelia's Story - 95th Evac: Salerno to Monte Cassino

Italian Campaign: Salerno - Naples - Monte Cassino

Lt. Rosten

Operation Avalanche

Nurse Mary Fischer

Editor note: After the bombing of the HMHS Newfoundland on the 12th of September, 1943, the 95th nurses were returned to Tunisia for medical attention and refitting. On Sept 24th, they returned to the Salerno beachhead.  Being part of VI Corps, 5th Army, the unit landed at Paestum, Italy, in support of Operation Avalanche. The landing was expected to face little resistance, as Italy had agreed to an armistice with the Allies and Mussolini had fled. It was not to be.

Editor note: The following narrative is compiled from personal accounts from personnel of the 95th Evac Hospital Unit including those of Nurse Mary Fischer, Sgt. Stanley Polanski and others.

Salerno beachhead

On September 22, 1943 we again started out for Italy. This time the trip was uneventful. On Sep 24, wading ashore from a LCI, we climbed onto trucks once more on Red Beach near Paestum and joined our officers and men. They looked like ghosts of their former selves. They had been working night and day. Two notations in a hospital diary during the days at Paestum are worthy of note. Sep 13, 1943: “The fact that our nurses are still not with us is costly”. And Sep 15, 1943: “The fact that our nurses are still not with us has proved a serious handicap to our medical and surgical staffs.” It was a happy bunch of individuals that set to work together the next morning. Tales flew thick and fast.

Oats, Pete, Si @Paestum

Our 11 month tour of duty in Italy was interesting - at times pleasant, at times most hazardous and tragic. Our first hospital setup was in Paestum, Italy, where we received many patients. We always functioned as an evacuation hospital and always in tents, as were our living quarters. The weather wasn’t always on our side. In late fall there was a lot of rain and we wore high topped overshoes to work, not so much because of the cold but because of the mud. In our living quarters, we were able to put straw on the ground. The rain and high wind was often very destructive. One night, around 3 AM, a near hurricane forced us to hang onto the tent poles for dear life. That night several tents blew down as well as the mess hall and kitchen and some wards. Fortunately, most of our patients had been evacuated as we were getting ready to move on.  In any high wind we always had to be alert for fire, as tents sometimes caught fire from sparks from our pot bellied stoves.

Nurses quarters

"Pete" in operating theater

At Paestum our wards were set up by putting 2 ward tents together. The bed capacity in each ward was 40. The desk was placed between the ward tents. This method of ward placement saves greatly in nursing and other ward personnel. For the first time our ward plans also included a shock or pre-operating tent for cases needing immediate and extensive surgery, and a post-operative tent for receiving cases, if necessary, following an operation. Surgical teams admitted these cases to the pre-op tent, saw them through the operative procedure and cared for them either in their wards or the post-op ward. These two wards were well staffed, both night and day by corpsmen and nurses.

Evacuation of Salerno casualties

Our total admission at Paestum totaled 2443 as compared with 1362 at Ain El Turck, and 1470 at Oudja. The length of time we operated in the 3 places was approximately the same. The nurses worked in the hospital at Paestum from Sep 25 - Oct 6, 1943. our cases were largely surgical and were battle casualties ready to be evacuated. For the first time, here in Italy, we wore our new beige seersucker uniforms and caps.

Naples 

On Oct 7, we moved to Naples, Italy. The 5th Army was fighting near the Volturno River. The small town of Capua was much in the news. At 5:30 each evening we anxiously searched the skies for night raiders. The came over frequently.

Editor Note: Yet another brutal battle against took place on the Volturno Line near Capua.

 

Naples

On Oct 9, we again went to work, this time in buildings. The hospital, “The 23rd of March”, named I believe, for the date of inception of Fascism in Italy. This hospital had been previously occupied by the Germans and they left behind some of their equipment which we made use of. Our hospital proper occupied 4 floors of one building. Three wards and one operating room on each floor. The x-ray, pre 7 post op wards, receiving and the main operating room were on the ground floor. 3/4ths of our work in Oct was surgery. 2 1/2 floors were given over to the care of surgical patients. Convalescent and ambulatory patients were cared for on the 2nd floor of our administrative building located a short distance from the main hospital building. 




We had our first unit fatality when one of our enlisted men was killed by a mine in Naples. Our patients were largely the result of mine and bomb accidents in and around Naples. Later we received patients evacuated to us from the hospitals near the front. The Germans had destroyed the water and electric plants before they left Naples, and our equipment was not adaptable without these facilities. Nurses, doctors, corpsmen worked 12 hours/day from Oct 9 - Oct 19. At this time things began to ease just a bit and we went back to 9 hr a day. We were functioning as a station hospital, more or less as we had done before in both Oudja and Oran. The American 5th and British 8th Armies were not too far ahead of us and at this time were were anxious to go ahead and work as an evac hospital. 



During the month of Nov the type of cases changed and we were treating many malaria and jaundice cases. our records show 2/3 of our patients were medical and 1/3 surgical during this month.

The 17th General Hospital took over our work in Naples and we were gradually relieved.

Monte Cassino campaign

Editor note: The Allies were nearly pushed back into the sea at Salerno and the drive to Rome turned into a bloody stalemate with the Germans defending the "Gustav Line" in the Appenine Mountains, particularly around Monte Cassino, a mountain top abbey that was a natural fortress. Initially, the Allies tried to avoid damage to the historic monastery, but it was ultimately reduced to rubble. From the History Channel commentary: http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battles-of-monte-cassino  "The 3rd Battle of Cassino in mid-March 1944 was preceded by a thunderous artillery barrage from 900 guns and massive aerial bombardment of the town. Follow-up ground attacks by New Zealand troops once again ended in failure. Only with the launch of "Operation Diadem" in May did the Gustav Line finally collapse when the 2nd Polish Corps succeeded in capturing the abbey on May 17, thus ending one of the longest and bloodiest engagements of the Italian campaign."

On Nov 27, near the little village of Capua, we set up our hospital for the 5th time. The battles were being fought around the heights of Monte Cassino, not far away. Artillery fire could still be heard plainly during the day and the sky was brilliantly lit up at night. Groups of bombers flew overhead night and day, and the battle casualties kept coming in. Some of these were Italian troops who went into battle on Dec 11 and some were German prisoners. In Capua, the casualties were very heavy. Here we took care of 3800 patients in 35 days.Our cases were serious - our doctors, nurses and corpsmen worked long hours every day. A sign “When did you eat last?” was placed outside our receiving door. Hot soup, sandwiches, coffee, a good warm fire and the best medical attention that we Americans could give was had by these boys once they reached our hospital.

Below the Monte Cassino heights

Monte Cassino

Our nurses dressed in fatigues, field jackets and field shoes. One distinguishes them from other soldiers in the field by the appearance of a few blond or brunette curls that aren’t tucked under their small green caps. Our vocabulary changes - it is no longer “Bon Jour” rather “Buon Giorno”.  

Christmas came and we celebrated by putting up a tree. The mud was deep, so we scattered straw in our temporary tent church. We decorated the tree G.I. fashion. We made balls from rubber gloves, painted them with dye from the lab, and to make them shiny and snowy we dipped them in epsom salts. Test tubes, connectors from transfusion sets and penicillin bottles got the same treatment. Tin cans were used to cut out angels, santas and stars

Editor note: 95th Evacuation Hospital Stations Sep 1943 to Jan 1944

Paestum, Italy – 12 September 1943 > 7 October 1943

Naples, Italy – 9 October 1943 > 28 November 1943

Capua, Italy – 28 November 1943 > 8 January 1944 
departed Capua for Caserta in preparation for“Operation Shingle” – boarding LST 163 for Anzio, Italy 23 Jan 44)

Pete , Oats @ Naples staging for Anzio

On January 27, 1944, we were at a Naples staging area when orders came to pack and move on. We set sail and 5 AM on an LCI in a convoy. 

Destination - Anzio beachhead. 

There we were to experience a thing of which we had no conception.

To be continued ...



Copyright © 2015 Dave Hoplin