by Lars Teeney
The group of nurses was led to a female dormitory, which was very plain. Double bunk beds in two rows lined each wall of the elongated room. Next to each bed was a footlocker and clothing locker. The nurses poured into the hall, and each one was assigned a bed by Nurse Wainwright. When she came upon Greta, she sneered and assigned her the top bunk. Greta let that treatment roll off her back, as she just wanted to unpack and get settled in. She opened her suitcase and began hanging her clothes in the locker and placing her personal effects in her foot locker. All the other nurses got settled in, then Nurse Wainwright called for the women to assemble outside of the barracks. The nurses hurried outside and lined up for inspection in two ranks. Nurse Wainwright stood at the front of the lines.
“Nurses of the Cadet Core, now that you are all settled in, you will be taken into the Letterman Hospital to see what you will be dealing with on a daily basis. I think the scale of this operation will be a surprise to you. Let’s go, ladies, over to the front entrance.” Nurse Wainwright dismissed them to make their way to the hospital. The nurses walked toward the front entrance of the Letterman Medical Center. Its white walls and red tile roof was glaring bright in the sun, which by this time of day burned away the fog banks. The women walked into the lobby of the hospital. A man with glazed-over eyes sat in a wheelchair: he was missing a leg. He sat in silence staring beyond all the nurses, clearly suffering from shellshock. A man in a white coat, with silver hair, came to meet the group of nurses.
“Hello, all! My name is Doctor Hornsby. I can’t tell you how glad I am to receive fresh faces to help around here. We are severely understaffed and the casualties are pouring in from the Pacific Theater. Now, some of you have experience and others are new to nursing. I assure you this is not the worst post you can have. Some nurses are out on the front lines, slogging through mud and blood. This facility is for long-term care, so rest easy knowing that you will not have to risk your lives. However, the service you provide here is no less important. You can help ensure that these men make a full recovery and can go on with their lives as productive members of society. So, again, welcome to Letterman Hospital. I hope that you all have positive experiences here. I’ll take you to the main hospital wards now for a tour,” Dr. Hornsby stated as he gestured for the nurses to follow him deeper into the hospital.
The Doctor brought them down a corridor and at the end were swinging double doors, mounted with scuffled, metal plates to allow for them to be pushed open by the end of a gurney. Doctor Hornsby pushed the doors open and held one side while Nurse Wainwright held the other door. The nurses filed in through the doorway. Immediately the ambient sound of suffering could be heard. As Greta walked deeper into the cavernous hall she could see that it was one open space, with hundreds of beds in rows. There was only a small portable screen that separated each patient. The Doctor led the gaggle of nurses around and through the beds. Every which way, nurses, and orderlies scurried with medical supplies and stretchers. Greta passed by a bed, and she looked down at the patient. His entire head was enveloped in gauze, except for one pitiful eye that returned a lonely stare. The bandage around his head was bloodstained and looked like it needed changing. She tried to fight the urge to immediately tend to the man. Some of the thinner-skinned nurses let out involuntary gasps at the sight of multiple amputees and the disfigured men. Nurse Wainwright turned to them with a nasty looking face and put one finger in front of her mouth to let out an obnoxious “shushing” sound. The nurses passed a patient who was essentially blown in half. There was no pelvis, but he had retained all his vital organs. The doctors had the man attached to a patchwork of medical devices to keep him alive. One nurse began to quietly sob at the sight of the patient. This was nothing new to Greta: she had treated countless casualties in Washington D.C. as they came pouring in from the battlefields of Europe. But, what surprised her was the sheer scale of the operation on the West Coast. She thought that the fighting in the Pacific must be on an apocalyptic scale.
Doctor Hornsby lead the nurses back out toward the lobby of the hospital. Most of the nurses released tension as they exited the ward. The crowd gathered around the Doctor for closing remarks.
“Okay ladies, hopefully, that gives you an idea about what you’ll be dealing with here. It will only get busier as the end of the war draws near. Please be ready for it! On that note, I will take my leave and turn you over to Nurse Wainwright. She has a list of vacant duties that she will assign each of you to. Good luck!” With that, Doctor Hornsby rushed off to some other medical emergency. Nurse Wainwright stepped up to the front of the crowd of nurses.
“Okay, ladies! When I read off your name and corresponding duty please step up here and I will hand you your papers and who to report to,” she ordered. The nurses looked to her with anticipation, Greta looked on with a dreaded feeling.
“Nurse Anders, to plasma detail.” With that announcement, the nurse rushed up and grabbed her papers, then disappeared into the bowels of the hospital.
“Nurse Jackie, to general floating duties.” The nurse pranced up and received her papers, then was gone.
“Nurse Fredrickson, to nutrition and meals detail.” Another nurse was down and on her way. After several minutes of going through the list, the herd had thinned out. Greta was still waiting for her turn, and her feeling of dread had turned to one of boredom. Greta had a pet peeve about inefficiency. She questioned why nurse Wainwright would choose such a method to assign duties. Why would she make all the nurses stand around in the wind? Why not pass them out individually to each nurse’s bed before their arrival? Such needless bother added to Greta’s frustrations. Several more experienced nurses were assigned to floor duties, in charge of a row of patients, which is what Greta was expecting. At least her time had come.
“Nurse Sanchez, you go to laundry and sanitary detail,” Nurse Wainwright had announced with a slight smirk affixed to her face. Greta was stunned when she heard the announcement. Immediately after, she was enraged. All her medical knowledge and experience would be squandered on being a glorified janitor. She walked reluctantly forward, slowly, with the urge to assault the terrible woman. She faced nurse Wainwright, who held out Greta’s papers.
“After all, Sanchez, that’s all your people are good for,” Wainwright said to Greta in a muted tone so only she could hear it. Greta shot an ice-cold glare directly into the soul of Nurse Wainwright. Even wicked Nurse Wainwright had to break eye contact with Greta and she became uneasy. Greta snatched her papers away from Wainwright impatiently and was on her way. Greta felt a burning desire to harm someone. It was a new feeling to her. Back in D.C. she had always been appreciated for her merit. She would have never accepted transfer had she known she would have to work her way back up from nothing.
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The U.S.S. Iowa delivered a broadside from all batteries into a rocky ridge that was crisscrossed internally with fortified Japanese tunnels and bunkers. The shells exploded against the cliff face, sending boulders cascading downward. There was no way of gauging how much of an impact the bombardments were having upon the bunker network. All Private Burke knew was that he was under orders to keep a constant and rapid rain of shells against the ridge. He was a human cog in a machine of death dealing from afar, ejecting spent shells and loading fresh warheads into the barrels of the type seven gun. Burke’s ears rang. The bombardment of the island had lasted for three hours already.
This sector of the island was assigned to the Iowa to support amphibious landings by Marines. The landings up until now had met fierce resistance. Many landing craft packed with troops, vehicles and supplies had been sent to the bottom of the deep-water port by Japanese artillery that was embedded into the rocky outcrop. The losses were too high to justify sending more men in without battleship suppressive fire. Now that the Iowa and several Destroyers had kept up a withering cannonade, the landing crafts had once again been brought forward. The ships had also deployed smoke rounds to screen the movement of the landing craft from enem
y spotters. The combination of smoke and high explosive rounds at the very least blinded the enemy, who had to take potshots in the dark. By this time, many craft had made landfall and had finished unloading men and material. Marines lined the beaches, and with spade and bulldozer began clearing obstacles and digging foxholes. These initial forces on the beach were far from safe. A number of Japanese guns had been pre-trained onto the beaches and were lobbing explosive shells down around them. Every so often an unlucky Marine would go up in a geyser of sand and sea, never to be seen as a whole man again. Several tanks were operational and moving forward, followed up by a column of Marines that took meager shelter in the tank’s wake. Inch by inch they moved inland from the beach to meet the entrenched Japanese forces.
Another series of blasts rocked the Iowa as its mark seven turrets let loose a salvo. The shells trajectory was a high arc, flying over the American toehold on the beaches, and into the exposed rock face. One of the shells hit a square concealed bunker opening, as an ammunition store was ignited and a chain reaction of explosions occurred inside the bunker. One of the tunnel network entrances opened as numerous Japanese soldiers emerged: suffering from the noxious fumes that flooded the network. The Japanese soldiers coughed and hacked, and gasped for air. They had their hands up above their heads in a gesture of surrender, but that did not stop American machine guns from firing upon them, mowing down a good number. Eventually, an officer with a conscience ordered the American machine gunners to hold fire, ending the slaughter.
At long last Captain McCann had ordered a cessation to the bombardment, and the guns of the Iowa fell silent. Burke and Jones let out a collective sigh as the prolonged action had tested even their fitness. Both were covered in sweat and grease and the fumes in the turret deck was intolerable. Burke’s ears rang terribly, and he was having trouble hearing anything. The two men cleaned up their respective action stations, clearing barrels of debris and disposed of the empty shell cartridges. They scrubbed machinery down and got the turret ready for its next action.
The two men were cleared by their gunnery sergeant to break for lunch. So Burke and Jones left the turret deck and stepped out onto the weather deck. The mid-day sun was directly overhead and shined down confidently. The water was calm except for the wakes kicked up by the endless amount of landing craft forging ahead toward the island. In the distance, the ruins of the cliff-side fortress lay smoking and smoldering. Trees and foliage had been blown or burnt off the hill, revealing the scarred surface below. American fighter aircraft roared overhead, en route to conduct airstrikes further inland. Burke and Jones headed below decks to the crew’s mess. There was already a long line of sailors that had formed. The lined slithered slowly along. With each minute of waiting, the anticipation grew as to what barely edible gruel they would be subjected to. Burke could discern that other sailors had plates that contained breaded objects. The dish looked to be breaded fish, but he figured it was hard to mess up fish and chips, so he was encouraged.
Burke and Jones finally reached the serving counter and they were handed their rations for the meal. It consisted of three pieces of breaded fish, on the smaller side. The fish was set on a pile of soggy French fries, and a scoop of coleslaw that retained the shape of the instrument used to deploy it. Burke made a beeline for an open table on the far side of the mess nearest a wall. Jones joined him and they dug into their meals. Burke picked a piece of his breaded fish and bit into it. He tasted no fish, just breading. After the second bite, he felt the crunch and prick of a fish bone that had been left in.
“What the hell? I thought fish and chips were supposed to be boneless?” Burke complained to Jones, spitting out the small bone.
“Don’t you know? This is how the natives eat their fish and chips in this part of the world.” Jones elbowed Burke in the ribs, augmenting his keen sense of humor.
“This ship is hopeless.” Burke resigned the Iowa to its culinary fate. He dropped the fish and started in on the soggy fries, and squirted a pile of ketchup on the side.
“So man, rumor has it that once we’re done on these shit hole islands, the Iowa will take part in the invasion of the Philippines. We’re coming close to the end of this sorry mess,” Jones informed him. He stuffed a breaded fish fillet into his mouth. Burke somehow appreciated Jones’ tolerance for eating anything: he was like a human garbage disposal.
“Well, from what I can tell that won’t be for quite some time. The battle for Guam is probably going to drag on,” Burke speculated about the stiff resistance and tunneling tactics that the Japanese island garrisons were famous for.
“Damn, Burke, you’re such a pessimist.” Jones shot him a sideways glance with a mouthful of food.
“No sir, just a student of history,” Burke said monotonously. He wished he could have stepped foot on the island of Guam before the battle had started. He thought it would have been nice to see it in pristine condition, before all the shelling and airstrikes were unleashed. Much like everywhere else his tour of duty had brought him in the world, he was well-read on the history of Guam, and its history throughout the Age of Exploration. Burke had read about the voyages of Ferdinand Magellan and his circumnavigation of the globe, which almost had not happened. By the time Magellan had reached Guam, he had three of his five original ships intact. One had sunk and the other fell victim to mutiny. One source Burke read explained that Magellan had just half his crew remaining, starving and without adequate provisions. The fleet had limped into Tumon Bay in northern Guam. As with most of the rest of the Pacific islands, they had been inhabited for thousands of years, with natives, which had descended from masterful seamen who had traversed open oceans thousands of years before the Age of Sail. Without modern navigational tools, they used their knowledge of the water currents, bird migrations, and stars to cross the vast expanses to settle new lands. These seafaring people did it all with tribal systems; no impressment or slavery there.
The tribes that had descended from these early explorers were known as the Chamorros. The natives of the islands did not have any cultural concept of ownership or property like that of their European counterparts, so when Magellan appeared with his ships in the Tumon Bay, the Chamorros set out in their canoes to board the ships. Magellan and his crew were not prepared for this invasion of their ships: the Chamorros climbed up the sides of the ship and being curious, began to analyze every gadget and cargo on the ships. Burke had read that Magellan mistook curiosity as thievery, and so he had dubbed Guam the “Island of Thieves”. Cultural anthropologists, Magellan, and his crew were not. Magellan’s ships had used their big cannons to fire off shots and scare the natives back to shore.
In the end, Magellan was able to find native tribes willing to trade fresh fruit and provisions for iron ore, and Magellan’s crew was able to survive to complete their circumnavigation. However, during his visit, he had not claimed the islands for Spain and as a consequence the Chamorro people would have another forty years of isolation, to live as they always had. The feature of Guam that had most interested Burke was the native monuments that the Chamorros had constructed before the arrival of the Spaniards. These monolithic figures were called ‘latte stones’, and had much in common with the Moai figures of Easter Island, but were considerably smaller, and more abstract in nature. There were numerous latte stones located all over Guam, constructed of limestone or basalt, then they were capped with a head made from coral gathered from reefs. But, alas, he would not get a chance to see them. The thought that these stones having been destroyed by the occupying Japanese forces or the naval bombardments conducted by the Americans depressed Burke.
Much like countless other island chains in the Pacific, the people of Guam had traded one colonial master for another, first Spain, then later America. Guam had been seized from Spain during the Spanish-American War and had been a territory ever since. However, the native population had become “Americanized” and that frustrated the Japanese occupying force. So, the Chamorro people were subjected to yet another
occupier who committed atrocities against them. The rumors of what the natives had experienced at the hands of the Japanese were horrifying.
Also, depressing Burke was the fact that the U.S.S. Iowa and other ships of his fleet had spent the better part of a month shelling the Mariana Islands to soften up Japanese defenses in anticipation for the amphibious landings and invasion of the islands. He had no doubt that the civilian death toll on Guam was probably staggering. Of course, Burke was almost sure that he was the only sailor in the U.S. Navy that was haunted by such things. The only thing most anybody thought about on his ship was kill-tallies. Burke stared down at the remaining, pitiful looking fries and the untouched pile of ‘slaw. He had wondered if he made the right decision joining the Navy in a combat capacity. Burke was almost certain his scholarly sensibilities could have been better utilized elsewhere. By now he had seen enough action in the Pacific to know that he did not enjoy what he did. But it was too late now. The only thing he could look forward to was fulfilling his duty and to the day when his tour of duty was up, when he could resume a civilian life. He pushed the remains of his meal away. Jones had made short work of his, consuming every crumb.