Wharfie,
You're right..your Dad was lucky! I had a great-uncle who was a surgeon , a career man in the Army Medical Corps. He was being posted to the Far East from San Francisco aboard the Pan Am Clipper and had the misfortune to be on Wake Island on December 7, 1941. The Japanese bombed the hotel he was staying at just as everyone sat down to dine...he ran outside and hit the beach where they were bombed and strafed. Luckily, my uncle survived and treated many of the wounded before reboarding the Clipper and heading back to Pearl. I have the letters he wrote to his wife about that experience. He said the Japanese planes were looking for them all the way back to Pearl but they were flying through cloud cover ,praying all the way,and made it back safely .
He spent the war years in India as Chief Surgeon of the China-Burma -India Theater, then went to Heidelburg,Germany after the war and was Administrator of the hospital for released American prisoners-of-war.
Another uncle,also a surgeon, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps to help the Brits before the US became engaged in the war. He spent time in London during the Blitz, then time in India.
It's hard to believe that was 60 years ago!! |
