From Military.com:
“Let's Help a WWII Vet Celebrate
Her 100th Birthday”
Second Lt. Willie Evelyn Webster
served as an Army nurse during World War II, and she's turning 100 years old on
Dec. 14. Let's all send her a birthday card in honor of her service and for
reaching birthday triple digits! Webster graduated from Celina High School in
Texas and then from St. Paul Hospital's nurses training course in Dallas. She
received her Army commission in January 1944. Evelyn deployed to Europe and
served with the 168th General Hospital, which was actually a tent hospital set
up in an open field in rural France. In the field hospital, she administered
penicillin and sulfa drugs. Nurses changed dressings on wounds and gave the
injured hot packs and alcohol rubs while working closely with the ward surgeon.
"There's nothing we could do for our wounded men that would be too
much," she said in an interview with her hometown paper during the war.
"They come in from forward area hospitals, many with deep wounds,
amputations, bad burns -- but they never whimper or complain." Like many
World War II veterans, her unit made a complicated journey to the front. From
Camp Grant, Illinois, they took a troop train via the southern route. After
they arrived at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, in the rain, her group took the ferry
to Hoboken and boarded the Queen Mary. Winston Churchill was aboard for their five-day
trip to Scotland. They took a train to Southampton, England, and crossed the
English Channel aboard a ship called the Neuralgia (seriously, that's what they
told us) and climbed a ladder down to transfer to a Landing Craft Infantry.
After coming ashore at Omaha Beach, they traveled to Cherbourg in open trucks.
During their trip, rain soaked everyone to the skin. The nurses lived in tents,
and mud was everywhere. And, since it was life near the front, everyone had
armed escorts to the latrine. Like the soldiers they were helping, nurses took
their baths with helmets. Since they were in France, wine was plentiful and
Saturday nights at the club got very loud. The hospital treated wounded from
the front lines and paralleled the 56th Armored Infantry Battalion so it could
move forward. After a stockade was built around the hospital, they oversaw
German prisoners as they did work. One carved a pair of wooden shoes for
Evelyn, and she has them to this day. Later, the unit took a train to Paris and
then to detached service in Reims. Once V-J Day arrived, they were sent home
before they could be redeployed. After Evelyn returned from the war, she
married Bryan Tucker in 1947. He served with the 2nd Marine Division in the
Pacific, including the Battle of Tarawa. He died in 1994. Bryan and Evelyn had
three children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Here's the address where you can
send her a card:
Evelyn Tucker
4602 Bridlewood
Austin, Texas 78727
^ I hope everyone will send her a
birthday card and show their support for what she did during the war. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.