The Evacuation Hospital (In the Korean war, these Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals were called "MASH" and made Alan Alda a fortune) was a collection of tents heated by gasoline stoves and lit with lanterns. Our trip there had been over impossible French roads in an impossible American ambulance completely devoid of springs and possessing what certainly felt like solid tires, so I was pretty sore. Shortly after I arrived, they placed me on an operating table and a medic began to scrub the wound area with alcohol. I had never been operated on since I was a little kid when my tonsils had been removed, and remembered the panic when the ether made it impossible to breathe, but I asked them when they were going to give me the ether. The doctor laughed and said "count down from 100" while he injected the then-new Sodium Penathol. I got all the way down to 94 before passing out, and they operated to remove the shrapnel, a 1/4-inch cube of steel, from my right calf.
Back in the comfort of the cot in the recovery tent, a guy smoking a cigar came through the tent and tossed Purple Heart medals on each bunk. I felt kind of cheated. In the movies, a General always pinned the medal on the proud hero. But the medal did say "for valor" it earned me an extra $5 a month, and made me eligible in 1991 for free license plates for my car, so I guess the General wasn't needed.
On November 20th, I was moved by ambulance from the Evacuation Hospital to the 23rd General Hospital, which was in a converted spa and hotel in the resort town of Vittel, about 90 miles SW of Bitche.
There, French movies notwithstanding, I was given no opportunity at all to commit a significant sin. But I did get to be one of the first to receive the new miracle drug penicillin, which they administered with a dull, quarter-inch diameter needle every ten minutes (this may be exaggerated somewhat, but it certainly felt like it), leaving the injected area feeling like it had been struck with a 2 x 4. It was so sore, in fact, that when the next shot was due, maybe four hours later, they would give it in a different place. It wasn't much worse than the wound, but it did seem to work.
This Army hospital had no private rooms; we were all in wards, and ours had nine beds in it. We were always griping about something or other, until finally one morning as we were griping about the food, the nurse said: "you guys would bitch if we fed you ice cream and straight whiskey," to which we replied "I don't know...what kind of whiskey?"
One of the room's occupants was a Japanese-American (A member of the famed 45th Regiment of Neisis) whose arm had been shot off by a German machine pistol (The German Schmeisser fired at a rate of 1,200 rounds per minute - v. the 900 of my M-1919-A1), who never complained or made a sound. The nurse finally asked him if it hurt. He nodded. She asked him why he never said so. "Noboby asked me."
There were two notable events during my hospital stay. The first was a visit to our ward by General Patch, commander of the Seventh Army, and General Devers, commander of the VI Corps, of which our division was a member. The other was a visit by Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine - I had never seen them perform, but everyone knew they were the cream of the theatrical crop. We were all impressed.
There was a third memorable event. We had a Negro lieutenant in the room with us. He was from Houston, nice, friendly - and black. The very first I had ever met on equal terms. Maybe all I had been taught about negroes wasn't all that true...
By the middle of January, 1945, those of us who had recovered enough to be able to hobble around some were moved to the spa area of the former hotel. Our cots had been set up around the perimeter of the empty swimming pool, and we were free to move around as much as possible, play checkers - not cards; the only game we had in common was poker, and that required money ( the only source of money in the hospital was selling blood. A pint donor got a $10 bill and a water glass of whiskey! Most of us were too chicken, so no one had any money) and entertain ourselves with musical instruments furnished by the USO. The guys around my cot turned out to be the country western type, although the term hadn't yet been invented (we called it hillbilly back home), and someone gave them a guitar. (It has been my lifetime experience that the volume of music played and the number of verses sung varies inversely with the talent of the artists involved. This was certainly true on that occasion) These guys never slept, apparently, and this traumatic experience left me with a lifetime distaste for country western music, and thus, an instinctive distaste for current day rock and roll.
I heard while in the hospital that Company A had distinguished itself in the days that followed, but was caught in a trap in the town of Wingen on December 3, and most of the company was forced to surrender (only one platoon, the cooks and supply people were spared).
(1994 Insert: I learned only recently that the town of Wingen figured prominently in an incident that could have had far reaching consequences for the war effort. According to the Holiday, 1993 edition of 100th Infantry Division Association News, General Eisenhower had issued an order on December 26 for the 7th Army's front line in Alsace-Lorraine to be shortened by withdrawing nearly 60 kilometers from Lauterbourg on the German border north of Strasbourg to Bitche on the west edge of the Low Vosges, in order to free two divisons for reserves to be used in Operation Northwind, the counteroffensive to the Battle of the Bulge. General Jacob Devers, 6th Army Group commander, violently objected to giving up the Rhine Plain without a fight, supported by 7th Army commander Sandy Patch (Generals Devers and Patch visited our hospital ward about that time, and I met them, but they may not remember me). During the arguments, which culminated in a personal argument between Eisenhower and Charles DeGaulle, who threatened to pull the French First Army out of SHAEF entirely rather than abandon Alsace-Lorraine.
(Note: In a study of the Strasbourg Crisis, as historians now call it, the U.S. Army's Histories Division noted that "ordering the French to withdraw from Strasbourg was equivalent to asking the Texans to give up the Alamo without firing a shot" This reference to the Alamo is interesting, because in fact Travis was ordered to do just that a little over 100 years earlier).
The article goes on to say that Devers described to Eisenhower the strong enemy attacks that had started the previous night in the Sarre Valley west of Rimling and in the Low Vosges southeast of Bitche.
"Devers and Patch were extremely gratified at the way the 44th and
100th Divisions of General Haislip's XV Corps blunted the main
enemy effort west of Rimling, with the help of the reserve
divisions plus the 63rd Division and Leclerc's 2 French Armored
Division. (Note: At the time, 100th Division's front line
ran from Rimling Southwest to near Bitche). Devers sensed that
his main problem was in the Low Vosges, where four Volksgrenadier
divisions had broken through and the 6th SS Mountain Division had
captured 250 members of the 179th Infantry's First Battalion \ I was discharged from the hospital around the first of February
and sent to the Replacement Depot (known generically as a
"ReppleDepple"), where newly arrived soldiers from the States as
well as people who had been separated from their units could be
collected and reassigned as needed. It was a nice, relaxing few
days - a lot of books were provided, and I read Max Shulman's
"The Feather Merchants," some of which is quoted herein, and the
biography of Van Gogh "Lust for Life." I was again assigned to
Company A, 398th Infantry, 100th Division, and left the
ReppleDepple on February 3, 1945.
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