The Secret Rescue (37 page)

42. As Rutkowski ran
Eugenie Rutkowski to her daughter, undated and unpublished letter.

43. Watching the raid
Ibid.; “[807th] War Diary for September 1943.”

44. One bomb
“[807th] War Diary for September 1943”; Hayes, interview.

45. dug foxholes
“[807th] War Diary for September 1943”; Hayes, interview.

46. “The great news that you have heard”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(Teddington, UK: Echo Library, 2007), 136.

47. climbed in the back of military trucks
“[807th] War Diary for September 1943”; Hayes, interview; Mangerich’s undated and unpublished notes about her experiences in the 807th.

48. Roman arches and a German fighter plane
Hayes, interview.

49. twenty-five nurses
Ibid.

50. While most in the 807th
“[807th] War Diary for September 1943”; Stakeman, “807th (US) Medical Air Evacuation Squadron Unit History.”

51. old apartment building
Hayes, interview.

52. women spent their days
Mangerich’s undated and unpublished notes about her experiences in the 807th.

53. three weeks after their arrival
“[807th] War Diary for October 1943,” Roll A0323, AFHRA.

54. successfully delivered [patients]
Untitled and undated account, Roll A0323, AFHRA; Stakeman, “807th (US) Medical Air Evacuation Squadron Unit History.”

55. turned the tide
Bruce Robinson, “World War Two: Summary Outline of Key Events,” BBC, History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/ww2_summary_01.shtml; “Timeline of World War II: 1943,” PBS, http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_war_timeline_1943.htm.

56. medics were stationed
Hayes, interview.

57. so picturesque
Mangerich’s undated and unpublished notes about her experiences in the 807th.

58. four flight surgeons
Robert F. Futrell,
Development of Aeromedical Evacuation in the USAF, 1909–1960
(Air Force Research Institute, 1960), 79.

59. up to twenty-four patients per flight
Hayes, interview; “Douglas C-53D Skytrooper,” Aerospace Museum of California, http://www.aerospaceca.org/museum_aircraft/douglas_c-53d_skytrooper.html,

60. responsibility for the patients
Hayes, interview; Futrell,
Development of Aeromedical Evacuation,
92.

61. required the teams to split up
Stakeman, “807th (US) Medical Air Evacuation Squadron Unit History”; Futrell,
Development of Aeromedical Evacuation,
79.

62. 807th’s primary responsibility
Futrell,
Development of Aeromedical Evacuation,
197; “[807th] War Diary for October 1943.”

63. casualties pouring in
“[807th] War Diary for October 1943.”

64. On one of Hayes’s first flights
Hayes, interview.

65. On one of Rutkowski’s flights
Eugenie Rutkowski to her daughter, undated and unpublished letter.

66. on their own
Hayes, interview; Mangerich’s undated and unpublished notes about her experiences in the 807th.

67. caught rides on combat planes
Untitled and undated account, Roll A0323, AFHRA; Lois Watson McKenzie, lecture, Nurses in War symposium, Washburn University School of Nursing, February 7, 1991, McKenzie family papers; Hayes, interview.

68. 1,651 patients
“[807th] War Diary for October 1943.”

Chapter 3

1. November 8
Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) No. 1147, Roll A6544, AFHRA; operations officer 61st Troop Carrier Squadron to commanding officer 314th Troop Carrier Group, memo attached to MACR No. 1147, November 13, 1943, Roll A6544, AFHRA; “[807th] War Diary for November 1943,” Roll A0323, AFHRA; statements by returning personnel, Roll A6544, AFHRA. Hayes believes the plane crash-landed in Albania on November 7, 1943, and the AAF did not consider the thirty Americans missing until November 8 because they were present for the November 7 Morning Report, which recorded units’ personnel changes.

2. boarded jeeps
Agnes Jensen Mangerich’s undated and unpublished notes about her experiences in the 807th; Hayes, interview.

3. sky was clear for the first time in days
Hayes, interview; World Data Center for Meteorology, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wdc. Agnes Jensen Mangerich,
Albanian Escape
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 10, indicated that it was raining while the nurses were driving to the airfield, but data for that day in Catania shows no precipitation.

4. galoshes
Hayes, interview.

5. Simpson
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
10; Robert L. Simpson, 90, “District Pediatrician,”
Washington Post,
January 13, 2002.

6. Storms had grounded the 807th
Hayes, interview.

7. Bari and Grottaglie
Untitled and undated account, Roll A0323, AFHRA.

8. 807th’s medics dressed in
Hayes, interview.

9. military leggings
Ibid.

10. On one of the mornings
Ibid.

11. former medic who refused to fly
Ibid.; “[807th] War Diary for October 1943,” Roll A0323, AFHRA.

12. Hornsby
Hayes, interview; “[807th] War Diary for November 1943.”

13. C-53D Skytrooper
Missing Air Crew Report No. 1147; Hayes, interview.

14. C-47 Skytrain
“C-47 Skytrain Military Transport,” Boeing, History, http://www.boeing.com/history/mdc/skytrain.htm; Jim Winchester, ed.,
Aircraft of World War II
(San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2004), 80-81.

15. the C-47 was considered by Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1948), 163–164.

16. every theater
Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen,
World War II: The Encyclopedia of the War Years 1941–1945
(Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 183; “C-47 Skytrain Military Transport,” Boeing.

17. Almost identical
Polmar and Allen,
World War II,
183; “Douglas C-53D Skytrooper,” Aerospace Museum of California. http://www.aerospaceca.org/museum_aircraft/douglas_c-53d_skytrooper.html.

18. Among a few other planes
Futrell,
Development of Aeromedical Evacuation in the USAF, 1909–1960
(Air Force Research Institute, 1960), 95; Bruce Green, “Challenges of Aeromedical Evacuation in the Post–Cold War Era,”
Aerospace Power Journal
15 (Winter 2001): 14–26.

19. never flown together
Hayes, interview; Lawrence O. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
ed. Clinton W. Abbott (Lulu Press, 2010), 10.

20. 61st Troop Carrier Squadron
Missing Air Crew Report No. 1147; 61st Troop Carrier Squadron War Diary, Roll A0984, AFHRA.

21. dropped paratroops
61st Troop Carrier Squadron History, Roll A0984, AFHRA.

22. pilot… had canceled the trip
Charles Thrasher, statement, Roll A6544, AFHRA.

23. prominent Daytona Beach, Florida, family
David F. Mitchell, e-mail interview, July 17, 2012; Dana Ramsey, e-mail interview, June 4, 2012.

24. Bolles Military Academy
David F. Mitchell, e-mail interview, July 17, 2012;
The Eagle
(Bolles Military Academy Yearbook), 1939, 29.

25. enlisted in 1941
Charles B. Thrasher record, U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938–1946, NACP, http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=WR26.

26. promoted the previous month
61st Troop Carrier Squadron History.

27. Baggs
William Hunter Baggs, phone interview, December 20, 2011; James A. Baggs record, U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938–1946.

28. Foster Field
“Commissioned at Randolph Field,”
Savannah Morning News
, February 16, 1943.

29. one hundred missions
“Lieut. Baggs Has an Unusual Record,”
Savannah Morning News
, December 21, 1945.

30. Shumway
Bill Shumway, e-mail interview, May 24, 2012.

31. filled in for
Hayes, interview.

32. Lebo
Clifford M. Lebo, Craig D. Lebo, Gayle A. Yost, e-mail interviews, August 26, 2012.

33. first of the medical personnel
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
9.

34. Headstrong and independent
Mangerich family video; Jon Mangerich, Karen Curtis, interviews, Naples, Florida, February 18–19, 2012.

35. training of ANC nurses
Robert J. Parks and William S. Mullins, eds.,
Medical Training in World War II
(Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1974), 127–130.

36. dinner dates and dancing
Mangerich’s undated and unpublished notes about her experiences in the 807th.

37. including Rutkowski
Lee Whitson, telephone interview, October 11, 2011; “Detroit Nurse Is Missing in Italian Area,” NPN, 1943 newspaper article, Harold Hayes papers.

38. required stewardesses to be nurses
Futrell,
Development of Aeromedical Evacuation,
91.

39. Dawson
“Former Stewardess Missing in Action,”
The Era
(Bradford, PA), November 30, 1943.