The army nurses who comprised the first unit of black nurses in Europe did not receive the most prized assignment. They had been sent to England to relieve a unit of white nurses who had been caring for Nazi prisoners of war. It was not a duty most American nurses cherished. While it was the responsibility of all nurses to tend to the wounded and help them recover, it was difficult to show compassion for the very men who had wounded and even killed American soldiers. And some black citizens in America believed that the black nurses had been assigned to prisoner of war hospitals intentionally—to keep them from serving in hospitals where they would treat white American soldiers.
First black nurses in England, 1944. National Park Service; Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site; National Archives for Black Women’s History/Photo by US Army Signal Corps
After a few months, the army decided to change the assignment of the black nurses. Rather than holding the prisoners in hospitals staffed only with black nurses, the prisoners were transferred to other installations. The nurses continued to serve in England and France—but they cared for American soldiers.
Lt. Florie E. Gant tends a patient at a prisoner of war hospital in England, October 1944. National Archives, AFRO/AM in WWII List #152
The Hospital in the Clouds
A picture of a black soldier lying in a hospital bed with a leg and both arms in slings caught the attention of Hazel Neal as she picked up a copy of the black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier. It was the summer of 1945, and Hazel lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, while her husband, Grady, served with the US Army somewhere in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of operations. Hazel couldn’t believe her eyes when she read the print under the picture—the soldier was Grady!
From the newspaper account Hazel learned that the truck Grady had been driving had plummeted 350 feet over a cliff and landed at the bottom of an embankment. He was carrying supplies over the newly constructed Ledo Road when his truck slipped off the muddy trail and over the cliff. His fellow soldiers pulled him from the truck, called an ambulance, and within a short time he was on his way to the 335th Station Hospital at Tagap, Burma—a hospital staffed entirely with black medical personnel.
The construction of the Ledo Road had been “one of the greatest road building jobs in history.” Starting from Ledo, India, the Ledo Road joined with the existing Burma Road—ending up in China. The combined Ledo and Burma Roads were known as the Stilwell Road. The building of the Ledo Road and the rebuilding of the Burma Road were the result of an exhaustive undertaking by thousands of men—a combined force of Indians, Chinese, Burmese, Britons, Australians, and Americans. More than half the Americans were black soldiers.
US Army trucks wind along the side of a mountain over the Ledo Road between India and Burma. National Archives, AFRO/AM in WW II List #009
What made the task so incredible were the conditions under which the soldiers worked. The Ledo Road was being built through some of the most difficult terrain in the world—swamps, jungles, and mountains—treacherous terrain for the men trying to construct a road for use by heavy military vehicles. As the soldiers inched their way through the jungle and over the mountain passes, they encountered torrential rains, extreme heat, and biting cold. If they managed to keep their vehicles on the winding trails they were lucky. But there were no guarantees that they wouldn’t become deathly sick from malaria, cholera, or dysentery. And they had to contend with all the wildlife—elephants, monkeys, tigers, panthers, lizards, and snakes.
When Grady Neal was delivered to the 335th Station Hospital—also called the hospital in the clouds—the all-black medical team was waiting for him. Included in the group were a handful of black army nurses. The hospital had been operating on the slope of the Patkai Mountain range—4,500 feet up in the clouds—for only a few months. Before the 335th was established, men who were injured on the Ledo Road were transported by truck, jeep, raft, mule, or oxcart to hospitals that, depending on where the accident occurred, could be several hundred miles away.
In October 1944 a group of black army nurses had arrived in Tagap to help set up the hospital. Rose Robinson, Rosemae Glover, Polly Lathion, Rosemary Vinson, Fannie Hart, Anna Landrum, Caroline Schenck, Agnes B. Glass, Madine H. Davis, Margaret Kendrick, Elestia Cox, Lillie L. Lesesne, Olive Lucas, Eva Wheeler, Doshia Watkins, Rose Elliott, and Daryle Foister knew their work was important. The Ledo Road would be used by Allied armies to get supplies to China—a strategically that was struggling to defeat the Japanese armies in the CBI theater. Supplies were transported by planes to China, but it was a dangerous and costly undertaking by air. Planes heavily loaded with fuel and other supplies had to maneuver mountain peaks as high as 16,000 feet. The air trip consumed so much fuel that by the time a plane reached its destination, most of the precious cargo had been eaten up by the aircraft making the delivery. It was crucial that a land connection between India and China be made. The Stilwell Road was that connection.
Before patients could be treated at the 335th Station Hospital, the nurses helped the other members of the medical team convert the abandoned buildings that were to become their medical facilities into a modern laboratory, pharmacy, operating rooms, patient rooms, mess hall, and living quarters. They even had to install a water system—using pipes left behind by the Ledo Road engineers—to carry the water from high in the mountains for use in the hospital. A drainage system had to be built to handle the excess water that rushed down the mountainside during the rainy season. And because there would be some time for rest and relaxation, a baseball diamond, basketball court, and movie amphitheater were built into the mountain slope near the hospital.
Back home in Flagstaff, Arizona, Grady Neal’s wife, Hazel, learned about the 335th Station Hospital from newspaper articles. Grady had tried to protect his wife from worry—he had told her he was suffering from a bout with malaria. Although Grady’s injuries from his tumble over the Ledo Road mountainside were very serious, the all-black medical team at the hospital was well prepared to treat his injuries.
Rose Robinson from Pennsylvania was the chief operating room nurse. Elestia Cox from California and Rosamae Glover from Ohio were nurse supervisors. Rosemary Vinson from Michigan was the hospital dietitian. Rosemary Vinson, Fannie Hart, Anna Landrum, Caroline Schenck, and Daryl Foister had served in the 25th Station Hospital in Liberia before coming to work at the hospital in Burma. Daryl had worked in hospitals in Pennsylvania and New York before joining the Army Nurse Corps. She was positive about her overseas experiences. “I haven’t minded my overseas duty,” she remarked. “I’ve learned a lot about the customs and habits of foreign peoples.”
Hazel Neal couldn’t help but worry about her husband after seeing his picture in the newspaper and learning about the seriousness of his injuries. But she could be comforted knowing he was being cared for by a top-notch medical team high in the clouds over Burma.
They Just Accept Us
“They just accept us, like us, and no questions are asked,” black army nurse Ora Pierce said about the German soldiers she saw every day when she went to work.
Black army nurses had traveled to all corners of the world to care for American soldiers who had been wounded by the enemy. Some black nurses had cared for enemy prisoners in England. Ora Pierce stayed in the United States, and the enemy came to her.
In September 1945, Ora and 29 black army nurses were stationed at a hospital in Florence, Arizona. Over 30,000 German prisoners passed through the distribution center on their way to work in labor camps in other states across the country.
Some of the prisoners had been away from home for as long as seven years, Ora said. Some of them talked about how they had been captured by the Americans. But all of them wanted to tell the nurses about their homes. Ora thought most of the prisoners were like American soldiers—they were homesick and liked to talk about their wives and sweethearts. “I have yet to meet one [soldier] who didn’t want to talk, right off the bat, about home—whether it be in Kansas, New York,
or Berlin.”
A group of army nurses. Ora Pierce is third from right. Courtesy of the Fort Huachuca Museum
Besides caring for sick and injured prisoners, Ora supervised the work of 36 prisoners who worked in the hospital with her nurses. One of the Germans was Ora’s assistant in the physical therapy department. He had been a physical therapist in Germany before the war.
“On the whole,” Ora remarked, “they are extremely co-operative and polite. As gestures of friendliness, they have made name plaques and jewel boxes carved from wood for every one of the Negro nurses.”
While the enemy prisoners were accepting and friendly to the black army nurses, that wasn’t the case with some Americans. When the nurses arrived in Florence, five white civilian nurses worked at the hospital. When they learned that the black army nurses were coming, the white nurses were so displeased that they quit their jobs rather than work with the black nurses.
And although Ora and her nurses were welcome in the white officers’ mess hall, this came about only after some of the nurses complained to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People earlier in the year—when they had been segregated from their white counterparts during meal times.
The situation at Florence had definitely changed between January and September 1945. “Maybe it’s being isolated on a desert,” Ora commented, “but there is a real feeling of co-operation and friendliness at Florence.”
Ora Pierce said the German POWs “just accepted” the black nurses at the Florence prison camp. Injured Germans were cared for by the nurses in the camp hospital. Others worked alongside Ora and the other nurses. If the German prisoners could accept the nurses, maybe white Americans would accept black Americans if they had opportunities to work with them. But in the 1940s, discrimination and segregation prevented those opportunities.
The America They Hoped to Live In
Many black women were eager to serve their country in the military during the war. But for black women it wasn’t as simple as signing up. The army allowed black women to join early in the war—although their numbers were restricted—but the other branches of the military were much slower in allowing black women into their ranks. Despite a critical need for nurses during the war, the army and navy nurse corps were reluctant to open their doors to black women. And those nurses who did get into the military and the nurse corps were forced to live in segregated environments. And sometimes they were forced to endure blatant racism.
When the Dallas coffee shop worker had refused to allow Louise Miller to sit in the front of the restaurant in 1945 as she traveled home to visit her sick father, he couldn’t see past the color of Louise’s skin. He didn’t see a woman who had served her country in a war zone. But Louise knew this individual’s actions were indicative of a much deeper problem in America. She spoke of “the America we live in.”
Louise was talking about the racism that was tolerated and accepted in America—including in the military. The America Louise lived in was one that required black women serving their country to live in separate barracks from white women. It was an America that “purified” the swimming pool at a military post after black officer candidates swam in it. It was an America where a recruiting office closed down rather than give applications to black women. It was an America where the color of a person’s skin overshadowed the uniform.
Despite these humiliating experiences, Louise Miller, Charity Adams, Sammie Rice, Ora Pierce, Birdie Brown, and thousands of other black women wore the uniform of the American military and hoped that someday in the future the America they lived in would be able to see beyond the color of their skin.
4
VOLUNTEERS
“Back the Attack”
“When I turned my back, the policeman named Dean kicked me. When I turned, he slapped my face and struck me on the shoulder with his fist.”
—Mildred McAdory
Twenty-seven-year-old Mildred McAdory was director of the Fairfield Youth Center in Fairfield, Alabama, and she was preparing for an upcoming tin can collection drive—a project undertaken by a group of black students as part of the Victory Scrap Drive.
In December 1942, scrap drives were common all over the country—often organized by students who wanted to do their part for the war effort. The country had been at war for the past year, and materials such as rubber, paper, and metal were in short supply; scrap drives were a way for citizens to collect everyday items—paper, silk fabric, rubber bands, steel, and iron—needed for the manufacture of wartime products such as parachutes, gas masks, life rafts, bombers, trucks, and tanks. Mildred and the young people at the youth center were ready for their upcoming drive. At the end of one day, Mildred boarded a bus for her ride home. The city buses were segregated, with a black line painted across the ceiling to divide riders. White passengers sat in the seats ahead of the line, and blacks had to sit behind it. The driver of Mildred’s bus had even placed a board on a seat to ensure that everyone knew his or her place on the bus.
A black couple paid their fares and took empty seats in front of the board—in the white section. All the seats in the black section were filled. The driver turned to the couple and said, “You’ll have to get behind that board.” When the couple asked for a refund of their fares, the driver told them he couldn’t return their money. They left the bus.
Two black men entered the bus; one of them moved the board, placing it on the floor. The driver told the man he had to sit behind the board. The man pointed to the line on the ceiling and said he was sitting behind the line. The driver called the police. When a policeman arrived, the driver pointed to three men and Mildred, indicating they were the troublemakers. The policeman ordered the men and Mildred to the police car. Mildred asked what crime she was being charged with, and the officer asked her if she knew who had moved the board. She replied that she knew nothing about it.
The policeman pointed to a seat on the bus and said, “Well, come back here and sit down before I slap you down.”
“You have no reason to do that,” Mildred replied.
“I’ll knock hell out of you with the board,” the policeman said, and he took the men to the police car.
Incensed, Mildred told the bus driver, “I’m going to report you to the company for being rude to passengers—calling the police on innocent people and having them threatened.”
“Call ’em. That won’t do you no good,” taunted the driver.
Mildred decided to leave the bus. As she stepped down, the driver called to the police, “Hey, take her on too.” The officer looked at Mildred and said, “Come on, girl, get in that car,” and kicked her.
When Mildred and the two men arrived at the police station, they were questioned. The police asked Mildred which man had moved the board. She repeated that she didn’t know. The policeman who had been at the bus said, “She’s a g-d— liar.” Put her n— a— in jail.” He kicked Mildred again, slapped her face, and punched her shoulder. She was led to a cell that held five other women. Mildred spent the night on a dirty mattress trying to ignore the roaches that scurried across the floor—it seemed there were thousands of them.
The next morning Mildred was taken to a hearing, where she was charged with interfering with an officer. The bus driver testified under oath against Mildred, who was fined 10 dollars and set free.
Mildred McAdory and the young people at the Fairfield Youth Center who had spent the day organizing the scrap drive were volunteers. Like thousands of American citizens during the war years, including many black women, they felt they could do their part to help win the war on the home front while their loved ones were fighting on the battlefronts. Why did these women volunteer to help win the war for a country that tolerated the ugliness of segregation and the cruelty of discrimination? For every black woman who did her part for the war, there would be a different answer to that question.
Office of Civilian Defense
Even before the United States joined the war, the federal government had esta
blished an agency called the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). The OCD directed programs that existed to protect and serve citizens on the home front and to promote volunteer involvement in defense. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the work of the OCD became critical. And the need for volunteers intensified.
The OCD organized Defense Councils that formed Civilian Defense volunteer offices in communities throughout the country. The Defense Councils trained men and women as air raid wardens. It was their job to teach citizens procedures to follow in case of an enemy attack from the air. They supervised blackouts, organized people to fill sandbags, and planned for protection against fires in the event of an enemy attack. Volunteers were trained as fire watchers, auxiliary police and firefighters, nurse aides, first aid workers, road repair crews, messengers, and ambulance drivers. Plans were made to deal with emergency food and housing situations. Volunteers were trained for decontamination, bomb, and rescue corps.
Under the OCD, a block plan system was established that provided information about wartime services and programs in cities, towns, and rural areas. A chief oversaw the block plan system, which divided the city into several zones, each with its own leader. And each zone consisted of 4 to 15 sectors. Under the sector leaders were the block leaders. Each block leader had responsibility for about 15 families. People who volunteered in the block organizations dealt with the service rather than the protective phase of civilian defense—distributing information about everything from salvage collection and war savings bond drives to services for military personnel and the labor supply. They provided information to neighbors about services they could access such as childcare programs, and they collected information that would be helpful to the war effort such as reporting the number of spare rooms available for war workers. The OCD depended on volunteer labor from ordinary citizens. Many responded to the call. Many were women. And many were black women.
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