The Secret Rescue (4 page)

Despite well-publicized risks to nurses and the country’s overall nursing shortage, Grant had little trouble recruiting young women for the program, officially designated the School of Air Evacuation in June 1943. Five hundred nurses had put their names on the waiting list to join by that summer despite the deaths of two of the program’s recent graduates.

The first member of air evacuation killed was a flight surgeon and member of the 801st MAETS. First Lt. Burton A. Hall, a married thirty-year-old from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a three-year-old son, died in January 1943 in a plane crash over the South Pacific. His body was never recovered. In late July, 2nd Lt. Ruth Gardiner, a 29-year-old from Indianapolis, Indiana, became the first flight nurse to die when she was killed in a plane crash while on an air evacuation mission near Naknek, Alaska, with the 805th. Gardiner, who posthumously became the first woman or nurse to have an Army hospital named after her, had graduated with the first class of flight nurses in February.

Though accidents were a major threat and would take the lives of several air evacuation personnel in the course of the war, the dangers of being captured or caught in the line of fire were also very real for all medical personnel. One of the most publicized events occurred when dozens of military nurses became Japanese prisoners of war in 1942 as Bataan and Corregidor fell. Malnourished and ill, they remained POWs until February 1945 while they cared for other sick captives under grueling conditions.

To help ensure that the nurses willing to volunteer for air evacuation could handle the physical demands of the job, they were required to be between 21 and 36 years old, weigh between 105 and 135 pounds, and stand between 62 and 72 inches tall. The AAF also wanted women who had experience flying, but it wasn’t deemed essential, as the instructors quickly figured out in training who was suited for the rigors of flight and who wasn’t. As with the nurses in the 807th, those who showed interest were “taken aloft and flown through various maneuvers until they have proved themselves ‘air-worthy’ and capable of giving efficient service.”

With their instruction at Bowman behind them and the sound of whistles from nearby trains filling the air, the men and women of the 807th were one step closer to their journey overseas. As the train chugged out of the Louisville station, the squadron’s commanding officer, Captain McKnight, revealed the 807th’s port of embarkation—Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Word spread fast through the two cars as those on board settled in for the long ride.

CHAPTER 2

Destination Unknown

T
he squadron traveled for nearly twenty-four hours in the scorching summer temperatures before arriving at Camp Kilmer. When their last train finally stopped in New Jersey, their uniforms were covered with soot. They’d had to choose between opening the cars’ screened windows to get fresh air and getting blasted by the coal-fired locomotive’s smoke or keeping the windows closed and suffering in the heat.

It was about ten in the morning when they first glimpsed Camp Kilmer, a 1,500-acre staging area for troops going overseas that had been completed in mid-1942. Named after the World War I poet Joyce Kilmer who was killed in action in the Aisne-Marne offensive, Camp Kilmer and its rows of wooden barracks functioned more like a small city, with a post office, telephone centers, chapels, theaters, libraries, and a thousand-bed hospital. To help keep the troops entertained, young female volunteers, dubbed “Kilmer Sweethearts,” served food and danced with soldiers at a USO club. The USO also hosted shows, which included occasional performances by Hollywood stars such as bombshell Betty Grable and the “King of Swing,” Benny Goodman.

During their six-day stay, those in the 807th were given final medical exams, their gear and records were double-checked, and they received instructions on what not to reveal in letters back home in case their correspondence was to fall into enemy hands. After being repeatedly told to avoid giving any details, one of the nurses sitting near Jens at dinner announced, “I wrote my boyfriend today and told him the wind was blowing, but damn if I’ll tell him which direction.” Even the long-distance calls they were allowed to make were monitored, with military operators prepared to end them if those on the phone mentioned the camp or their orders. The 807th still, however, did not know exactly where they were headed.

It was a busy few days, but after passing final inspections they were given twelve-hour passes. “Many fellows took advantage of passes… and the only regret was that the time limit was against them and they couldn’t put enough liquor on board for the long journey ahead,” wrote one of the 807th’s enlisted men. While some spent their time blowing off steam, others, like Jens and Rutkowski, visited the sites in New York City. Patriotic well-wishers surrounded Rutkowski and another nurse when they stopped for cheesecake at the landmark restaurant Reuben’s and enjoyed a night at the celebrated 21 Club, where they chatted with new friends until four thirty in the morning. They barely made it back to Camp Kilmer by their curfew at six a.m. The break was short-lived, however, and when the members of the 807th returned, they were restricted to the camp in anticipation of their departure.

Close to midnight on the evening of August 16, they received word that they were leaving for the ship that would take them overseas. Nurses, medics, and everyone else in the 807th strapped on their helmets, slung their canvas musette bags and gas masks over their shoulders, and grabbed their barracks bags. If any of them had any doubts about whether they were going off to war, all they had to do was glance in a mirror.

After a mile hike to the train station, a train ride, and a ferry ride across the Hudson River to a pier in New York, the 807th arrived just as the sun rose over an eerily dark city. The U.S. Army had ordered a nightly dim-out along the East Coast to prevent ships in the harbor from being silhouetted against the bright lights after Germany had deployed a series of successful U-boat attacks in attempts to damage the vital supply line to Britain. The attacks had started with the mid-January 1942 assault on the British steamer
Cyclops
as it sailed near Cape Cod and continued throughout the Atlantic. U-boat commanders called their victories the “American Shooting Season” and the “Second Happy Time,” referring to their earlier success in the second half of 1940 when U-boats had sunk three million tons of Allied shipping. In the first six months of 1942, U-boats destroyed 171 ships off the East Coast of the United States, 62 in the Gulf of Mexico, and 141 in the Caribbean Sea. Most of the ships attacked were slower supply ships, but troopships were also targeted.

At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had agreed that winning the U-boat battle had to be the Allies’ priority if they were to complete the buildup of troops and supplies necessary to liberate Europe. Within months, the Allies had a new strategy in place that incorporated increased sea and air escorts and advanced radar. Though the tactic was successful in curtailing the attacks on the American East Coast, German submarines continued to pose a threat to Allied ships.

Loaded down with gear, the 807th approached the gangplank that led to the
Santa Elena,
a former Grace Line cruise ship. A brass band on the pier belted out the hit song “Pistol Packin’ Mama” while young women serving as Red Cross volunteers handed the men and women coffee and doughnuts.

Once on board, the nurses and flight surgeons were crammed into staterooms. A few of the nurses were assigned quarters in the brig, while the medics bunked in one of the ship’s holds, which, in its civilian days, would have stored cargo. Though the officers had their own bunks, the enlisted men were assigned two to a bed and had to take shifts sleeping.

For the next twenty-four hours, more troops boarded the
Santa Elena
in the August heat until several thousand were squeezed onto a ship built for a few hundred, and it took on the smells of a locker room. By noon, the ship’s lines to the pier were finally raised, the sound of whistles pierced the air, and the
Santa Elena
gave a slight lurch before sailing into the harbor and becoming part of a large convoy of ships.

Navy airplanes and blimps flew over the convoy initially as it sliced its way through the water. The sight of the Statue of Liberty faded in the distance as emotions on board ran high. Some, including Rutkowski, were filled with thoughts of their parents who had told stories of first seeing the Statue of Liberty when they arrived in the country as immigrants, while others wondered what it would be like to go to war.

The convoy soon entered the open sea and began to zigzag across water as smooth as glass to make it more difficult for U-boats to project its course and successfully fire on it. On board the
Santa Elena,
wild speculations on its final destination ran from one end of the ship to the other.

Time on the ship passed slowly, with the exception of the required abandon-ship and battle-station drills, which kept the passengers on alert. Officers walked the decks reserved for their use, while enlisted men cleaned their weapons or played poker games in the ship’s former library. Though they couldn’t officially play for money, they stuffed cash into tin boxes under the tables. To avoid sleeping in the suffocating hold, many of the enlisted men fought for space outside each night, while the officers sweated in their fatigues; the portholes in their rooms were covered because of blackout regulations.

By the time the
Santa Elena
passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow channel between Spain and northern Africa that connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea, ten days later, the large convoy had broken into smaller ones. Those still traveling with the
Santa Elena
were joined by two camouflaged British aircraft carriers for increased security. When the former cruise line ship was well into the Mediterranean, the personnel were given olive-drab bags filled with cans of foot and louse powder, a booklet of Arabic, French, and Italian phrases, and a copy of
Reader’s Digest
magazine that featured an article on penicillin. It was the first time Hayes had read about the use of this newly available antibiotic.

In the early evening of September 1, as many on board watched a movie featuring beloved actress Alice Faye, other ships in the convoy sent up red flares into the night sky. Some on the decks of the
Santa Elena
marveled at their beauty, unaware of their significance as warning signals. Jens was sitting on one of the boxes stashed with life preservers and was trying to glimpse the coast of Africa when she heard aircraft approach. Seconds later, fighter planes dove toward the convoy and fired at them, and the ship reverberated as its guns fired back. Alarm bells pierced the night as a voice came over the loudspeaker and ordered, “Clear the decks! Clear the decks! Air raid! Get below!” Those who weren’t wearing their life jackets as ordered rushed to put them on. Jens sprinted down a staircase, and Hayes, who was already below deck, reported to his battle-aid station. The station was below the anti-aircraft guns, and every time the powerful guns fired, the room shook.

Another short burst of gunfire exploded into the air before the raid ended. One of the destroyers in the convoy had received a direct hit, and several men were wounded. Though the
Santa Elena
was unharmed, the baptism of fire left those in the 807th wide-eyed and wondering what else was coming their way.

The following night at dusk, they found their answer as the ringing of another alarm sent everyone on board running for cover. As the moments passed, there was no sign of enemy planes, but word spread that they were under a submarine attack. After an all clear sounded, they learned that a torpedo fired by a submarine had just missed the bow of the ship as it changed course.

The
Santa Elena
may have had luck on her side on that trip, but three months later that luck ran out when a German plane dropped a torpedo that struck her hull while she navigated the Mediterranean. Roughly seventeen hundred Canadians, including some one hundred nurses, were forced to abandon her and were rescued by another ship traveling in the convoy. The following morning the
Santa Elena
was accidentally rammed by another transport under tow and sank, killing several crewmen.