1944 Army Field Hospital at Cassino | Embraceable You | Billie Holiday

Music: 1928 Embraceable You | Billie Holiday 1944
Video: January 1944 US Army 11th Field Hospital & 38th Evacuation Hospital | At the front south of Mount Cassino | photos by Margaret Bourke-White
From her autobiography "Portrait of Myself" (1963):
"My assignment to Italy was an unusual one. A request for my services came from the Pentagon to Wilson Hicks, then picture editor of Life. I thought this was a great honor, and so did Hicks. There had been considerable concern in Army circles because while the heroes in the air had been deservedly glamorized, not much attention had been given to the man on the ground and to his importance to the war effort. This was particularly true of the SOS, the Services of Supply. . . . Sixty per cent of the war was a matter of supplying our troops by means of the giant chain-belt system known as logistics. The SOS was responsible for delivering to the spot where it was needed anything from a box of K rations to a tank destroyer. SOS included the Engineers, Ordnance, the Signal Corps and the Medical Corps. . . .
Dearest to my heart were the nurses and doctors in the forward areas. They worked under the most formidable difficulties - rain, wind, endless hours, unseen dangers and the eternal mud, mud, mud. Ten surgical nurses in the newly established 11th Field Hospital were working so close to the front lines that many a wounded GI was brought in and treated within the hour of his wound. These were soldiers who would have found certain death if there had been any delay. Those who could make the ambulance trip went five miles back to the larger 38th Evacuation Hospital. The little cluster of tents marked with their red crosses was ahead of our own artillery. The nurses had to get used to the two-way traffic of shells passing overhead. They learned to tell by sound which were ours and which were the enemy's. But they never could get accustomed to the way their beds trembled at night. . . .
Most vividly I remember Clarence, from Texas. There wasn't much left of Clarence when he was brought in [to the 11th Field Hospital]. His thighs had been nearly severed by shell blast. Clarence had lost so much blood that he was getting whole blood and plasma in both wrists
instead of one. When his pale lips moved, Nurse Barnes, a tall, handsome girl from Texas, leaned over to listen. 'They're taking my blood,' whispered the soldier.
'No, Clarence,' said Nurse Barnes. 'They're not taking your blood, they're just giving you something to make you stronger.'
'Do you learn all their first names?' I asked.
'Always, when they're from Texas.' Nurse Wilma Barnes was from Abilene. 'It seems to help the boys to know someone from their own home state is taking care of them.' It happened that many of the wounded that night were Texans. This was because the famous 36th Division, composed largely of Texans, was engaged in the fierce fighting on the outskirts of Cassino.
When the next shell sent us to the ground again, I noticed that Nurse Barnes, before she dropped down, took time to check the positions of blood and plasma needles in the boy's wrists, and I heard her say, 'Hold your arms still, Clarence,' as she lay down on the ground beside his cot. As soon as we heard the bang of the exploding shell, the nurse was back on her feet checking those transfusion needles. I remember scrambling up after her and thinking it was a privilege to be with people like that.
Clarence was moving his paste-colored lips again. Nurse Barnes leaned down to listen. I heard her say in her soft Texas drawl, 'No, son, you can't have a cigarette yet. Just wait a little longer.' . . .
The hours crawled on in their grotesque routine. The periodic whoosh overhead, the dive for the floor, up again and on with the work. The constant changing of blood and plasma bottles. The surgeons in battle helmets and gauze mouth-masks peering out with tired eyes.
Clarence's breathing was becoming very shallow now. His pallid lips were moving, and Nurse Barnes tried to catch the whispered words. 'He's asking for watermelon,' she explained. 'They often ask for their favorite foods when they are near death,' and leaning over Clarence, she said, 'They're not in season, son.'
'Cover up my feet,' the boy murmured. And then, whispering, 'I'm so cold,' he died. I took a last picture of those feet still in their muddy boots and with the boy's own rifle between them, where it served as a splint for the crushed leg."
Bourke-White's film rolls were couriered to the Pentagon, which lost the one with most of the 11th Field Hospital. "I was wild. . . . Life managed to salvage a story somehow from the bits and pieces that remained [mostly the 38th Evacuation Hospital], but of Nurse Barnes, the surgeons in their battle helmets, the truck drivers giving their blood, and Clarence, who wanted a piece of watermelon before he died, to this day not a trace has ever been found."