Stand and Wait and Sit andWait andEat and Wait(6)

Capt. Pfile and the 92nd Evac had been in the desert near Freda, California for about seven weeks.  Their days are not very stimulating.  Gene continues in his diary:

Inside a ward tent (without patients!)

September 25, 1942: Rat tracks in the sand - somebody should write a book by that title. ...
September 26, 1942: Typical day - up at 5:30.  Dress, wash and ---- in 10 min.  Sit and wait until 6 mess.  Thru at 6:15.  Shave.  Thru by 6:30.  Sit until 7.  Go to ward tent [the patients are housed in ward tents].  Check etc.  Thru by 8.  Sit until 11.  Go to PX [post exchange, a general store for the military] and sit for 15 min.  Back to tent and sit until 11:45 A.M.  Rush over to tent, wash in 5 min.  Sit and wait until 12.  [Eat.] Thru by 12:15.  Shower.  Thru by 12:35.  Sit and wait until 1.  Go to ward and sit until 5, with occasional trips to ward 2, bulletin board, or PX (mail arrives either A.M. or P.M. - that takes 10 or 15 minutes!)  Sit in tent until 6.  Mess takes 15 min.  Then sit in tent until 8:30 and then to bed, unless a show is on.  Then to bed at 9:30.  7 weeks of this.
October 13, 1942: First the news that we leave for Tulare [Sequoia Field Airport is in Tulare, California; during WWII it was used as a training field for army pilots] Oct. 22!  Then the word that we stay [here] indefinitely.  Words can't express our feelings! "Pissed off" is the word for it.
October 14, 1942: We're starting to come out of the black depression a bit.
November 19, 1942: Rumor!  48 nurses are coming!  Are we getting ready for foreign duty?  Africa?  China?  India?

Setting up the pyramidal tents, including stoves

     Moving day today to pyramidals [heavy tents with sides that can be completely opened or closed] and stoves!  We all scurry around getting boards, nails, wire, etc., setting up our nests - just like when we first arrived here.  Reminds me of pigs before a storm, scurrying around with straw in their mouths.
November 26, 1942: Thanksgiving Day - army style!  After some difficulty from the brass hats, we had our wives out for dinner.  Beth got to see my lowly hovel.  She thinks Christie and I have ours fixed up nicely!  And so we have.  I hope next Thanksgiving the war will be over and we'll be home.
November 28, 1942: ... 92nd Evac Hosp (Mtz [motorized, which meant it was mobile] ) officer knocking at the "Ebony" gates, greeted by the doorman who said, "This is the hot place."  Officer - "Yes, I know.  I'm used to it.  I lived at Freda during the war."  "But I'm the Devil."  "You are!  Why your brother used to be our C.O. [commanding officer]"
December 7, 1942 (Monday):  This has been a great day for rumors.  We were attached to the 4Δ for supervision, etc.  Now it seems we will have to move nearer to them, maybe, just 10 miles down the road to the aqueduct.  Maybe up near Needles with them.  What a prospect.  Also, leaves have been cut down.  Also we and the 151st Med. Bn. [medical battalion] may soon go to a staging area [to be processed for overseas duty]!  I do hope I can get to see Mother before I go across.  I'm worried about her.
     Later - no, we'll stay!  And Ireland [the doctor who organized the 92nd Evac] goes to [Medical Field Service School at] Carlisle [Barracks in Pennsylvania] Jan. 2 for 6 weeks.
     S.N.E.F.U = situation normal, everything f_____ed up!
     So we won't be leaving the country, very likely, until Ireland rejoins the unit.
December 15, 1942: Another week has gone by.  Matthews [the commanding officer] returned last evening.  Cheers and greetings were conspicuous by their absence!
December 19, 1942: Adams had to take in a body for post [post mortem].  It had been in the Colo. River for maybe 2 weeks - Full field pack - apparently he was drowned in a practice river crossing.  It is reported there were 4 lost!  It seems needless!
December 24, 1942:  Whoopee! V.O.C.O. [verbal orders of the commanding officer] to leave today at 1630 and return Sat. morning reveille (I should know how to spell that!)

Coming sandstorm - the lower "clouds" are actually sand!

Christmas (Friday)  What a glorious Christmas!  Christie and I left at 4:30 (after duty) Thursday and didn't return until Saturday morning before reveille!  It was so wonderful to be with my Sweetheart on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I received such nice gifts, too.  We returned to find there had been a 12 hour sandstorm Christmas Day (it had rained a while Christmas Eve in Indio [the town where the officers' wives were living].  One tent burned (utility tent).  It was reported that some of the nurses cried over the storm!  We were glad to have missed it.
     Tyson's [the owners of the ranch where Beth was staying on the outskirts of Indio] made us feel so at home.  The fireplace was grand!  I gave Beth the buckskin jacket I made for her, and the ironwood book ends which received more working on that day on the power sander.
December 31, 1942:  The year is ending.  What will the new bring?
January 1, 1943 (Friday):  I went to bed at the usual time (after a few quiet drinks).  No cause for hilarity!  Where will I be next year on New Year's Day?  I hope when it comes, I will have done my part.  With the boredom of the desert, I would welcome any change, even foreign duty.  I don't fear it.  I would only have the regret of leaving my dear Beth, and Mother.  My chances of returning are as good as the next ones, so that doesn't bother me particularly.  But I do so very much want to go back to living just as we did before this all came along.  It gives me a lump in my throat to think that it might never be, again.  But I will do my best, and trust to God.
January 13, 1943:  I just counted it up - we were here at Freda for exactly 150 days in 1942!
January 19, 1943:  Boy was it cold last night!  It is 19° this morning - and this the desert!  And California!  Water bags hanging outside are almost solid, while inside it didn't even freeze the water bucket.  I stayed quite warm in my sleeping bag.  I'm glad the car was in Indio.
January 31, 1943 (Sunday):  Father would have been 60 years old today [in 1918, when Gene was 8, his father caught influenza on his way to enlist and died two weeks later].  I wonder if he is watching!  He hated war.  I remember vaguely the summer of 1918 - how he received his draft notice and how worried he and Mother were.  He died before the war ended and before he was inducted.  Such is Fate.  Here I am in the army - almost 7 months already and have seen no action as yet!

Desert Rats (5)

Capt. Pfile  received a liberal arts education at Elmhurst College in Chicago, and had always been fond of classic literature.  On occasion, particularly when he was bored, he would try his hand at writing facetious poetry.  Here is one such:

Looking toward the Chuckwalla Mountains

Desert Rats

by Eugene Pfile

Listen all Medics and you shall hear

Of the desert maneuvers that ruined our rear.

T'was the 3rd day of August in the year forty-two

When that Terrible Seventh left Ord-by-the-blue.

Our trucks were all loaded, our men and our mice,

We jumped on the train and journeyed to Rice.

Out there on the desert that smart mortals shun,

We began to pitch camp right out in the sun.

Where before only buzzards wheeled thru the sky

We set up a hospital, none other was nigh.

We put up some ward tents, we set up some beds

We started a PX and lights o'er our heads.

We hauled in some water, we cooked up some chow.

We tore up the desert - you'd not know it now.

Our latrines had been dug, a right lucky break

For soon it got started, that fierce belly ache.

Soon we had rumblings and grumblings galore,

It came out behind as never before.

Of cramps there were plenty and fever a bit,

But one word expressed it and that word was S---!

Now we still live here, our name has been changed,

But spirits are rising and troubles go hanged.

When we shall leave here or where we shall go,

There are plenty of rumors but few persons know.

But we will be happy inspite of the heat

If belly's stay silent and we have "to eat".

We can't help remembering the days that are gone,

When all lived in houses and slept past the dawn.

We don't live like men, we don't live like bats,

We all live together, we're just desert rats.



Looking south from the camp

The Flies Have It! (4)

Gene continues:
     We had 2 latrines - each a "twin-8"!  The cracks in the floor and the screws were only slight obstacles to the flies.  If all of the flies there at any one time would have grabbed a fellow, they could have flown off with him.  Now of course there are fly shooters in charge and the flies have a much tougher time of it.

     One day they told us we had changed from the 7th Surgical Hosp. to the 92nd Evacuation Hosp. (motorized).  Everyone conjectured about that.  We figured that the 64th [which they had been told would be their designation] would therefore die in utero and be just another miscarriage (abortion, technically).  You could certainly tell the 7th and 64th were dead - it smelled like it around here and still does.  We have our own latrine and only "officer flies" use it.  The "enlisted flies" use the other.

Flies were indeed a problem.  The Desert Training Area, which was about the size of Connecticut, was overrun with them, and the flies carried dysentary.  More soldiers suffered with diarrhea than any other malady.  General C. H. White, commanding officer for the Ninth Army Corps and the DTA, first considered the heat and water supply, but finally realized the dysentary was caused by the flies.  He declared war, and everyone started eradicating the flies.

Surrounding towns took their garbage to open dumps in the desert, assuming the heat and the sun made incineration unnecessary.  Slaughter houses and stockmen assumed the same and just hauled off and dumped carcasses into the desert.  The general pointed out the fallacy of their assumptions and asked the towns and citizens to bury their garbage.
Commanding officers of various training units were told to clean up their areas by screening the latrines and making them fly-proof, and burying their kitchen waste.  Dish water was poured into deep dump pits.  Cooks were warned to keep their kitchens spotless.  The soldiers were taught how to keep themselves and their surrounding areas clean.  Everyone was ordered to swat as many flies as possible.  It worked!  The epidemic of dysentary was over.

Desert Training (3)

Earlier in 1942 the War Department had realized the necessity of training troops under the harsh conditions to which they might be exposed and established the Desert Training Center (DTC) in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts.  It initially covered 18,000 square miles from Pomona, California to Phoenix, Arizona, south to the border, and north to Boulder City, Nevada.  It was the largest military training area in the world.  Major General George S. Patton Jr. commanded the DTC from March through August until he was dispatched to North Africa (US Department of the Interior Pamphlet: BLM/CA/GI-2009-021+8300: World War II Desert Training Center California-Arizona Maneuver Area).  Just before he was reassigned, the staff of the 7th Surgical Hospital, which was eventually reorganized into the 92nd Evacuation Hospital, arrived.
The night before they left Ford Ord to go by train to the DTC, members of the future 92nd Evac had to sleep in the barracks.  Some of the doctors turned into boys going off to camp for the first time.  Gene was not terribly amused:

Surgical trailers loaded on the flatbeds of the train

     We were to leave Monday 0600 Aug 3, so we had to stay at the Barracks that night.  We tried to sleep.  I had about 1 1/2 hours, until Baker ("Billy B") and others made too much noise.  He'd come in, "Pinky, take your hand off your ___", or "Pinky, I'll pour water on you".  Finally Ireland cussed him enough to quiet him.  (Pinky being "Schwartz", not me).  But by that time it was 1:30 and we had to be up at 0200 anyway.  They took our beds.  We put on our packs about 4 and stood and stood and stood.  Finally we got on the train by 6:30.
     We ate from our mess kits on the train.  Such fun!  Wash your own, too.  "Chicken" it was every meal, as Maj. Michaels said.  "Chicken for breakfast."  I took some pictures of "sleepers".  What a sight!  By night we were darn tired.  Christie showed us how to take the seats apart and make a fair bed.  Such a slow train.  Lordy.  40 hours to go about 500 miles!  We left the main line at Cadiz, about 8 P.M. the next night.  It had been so hot all day.  We were damn tired that night, Aug. 4.

Setting up tents in the desert

     We arrived about 2230 army time!  We fell into a stupor until 12:30 A.M. when they told us to fall out.  What a sorry bunch.  We staggered the few hundred yards through deep dust to the hospital building.  The poor enlisted men flopping on the ground anywhere.  We unrolled our bed rolls on the floor and just died!  The morning was a nightmare - washing under the drip from the air coolers!  Real mess lines to stand in.  Then the heat.  Those first few days were a nightmare!  We drank water (all tepid) and ate salt tablets.  Anyone who could urinate more than 2X daily went around bragging about it.  The heat simply stifled a person.  We'd just lay on the cots and pant.  The poor enlisted men had to work on top of that.  On Friday Aug. 7, the Col. took me to Blythe to see about Indio and we saw our wives and persuaded them it was better to go home.  We are as isolated here as though on a foreign spot.  No store of any kind, no telephone, no telegraph, no private cars, no visitors.
     The high spot of every day was the showers.  They took us the mile to the showers in trucks.  It was wonderful how cool showers refreshed us.  We would hardly need towels.  3 minutes and we were dry without towels!  Of course by now the showers are close at hand and are they ever cold!
     My thermometer, which I later checked with the fellows doing some research on temperature, wt. loss, etc., showed 117°  as the hottest in the shade of my tent.  That meant a sun temperature of 145°  or 150° .  Everybody bought water bags.  Supposedly the dark ones were foreign make, but the U.S. ones certainly didn't leak as much as the "foreign" ones.  They did cool the water a bit.
     After 2 nights in the "cooler" we had our tents up.  It was very nice to hear tattoo and taps thru a fog of sleep, with the gentle desert breezes blowing over you.  Of course they sometimes had sand and weren't gentle.
     Finally we had some lights. We set up as a hospital about Saturday and I drew the first O.D. [officer of the day; the doctors could be assigned professional O.D. or administrative O.D.] assignment. Of course there were 3 accident cases in at once!

This photo of the camp was taken when the temperature was 114 degrees

    

You're in the Army Now! (2)

Maj. (Dr.) Paul M. Ireland was the 47-year-old son of the former Surgeon General of the United States Army, Gen. (Ret.) Merritt Weber Ireland.  He had been named the director of an Army unit of Colorado doctors and nurses.  They were originally to be part of the 7th Surgical Hospital, then later were assigned to the 64th Surgical Hospital, and finally organized into the 92nd Evacuation Hospital.  This Army hospital was sponsored by St. Mary's Hospital in Pueblo.  Nine of the doctors had been trained by the military.  Capt. Pfile and 11 others had not. 

Gene and Beth drove to Denver through the early morning hours from Trinidad.  Beth still remembered some shortcuts to get to Fitzsimmons Hospital on the east side of Denver from her time in Denver as a school teacher at Smiley Junior High School.  The two had met in Denver in 1936 when she was a teacher and he was an intern at St. Lukes Hospital.  Gene reported for active duty at Fitzsimmons at 8:30 A.M. on July 3.  He expected to complete his physical and be instructed to report to Fort Ord in California within a few days. The car was packed and ready for the two- or three-day drive. It didn’t happen. Gene’s (and Beth’s) training had begun.


Gene recounts in his diary:

But we didn’t leave until exactly 2 weeks later! In the meantime we sponged outrageously and intruded upon our good friends the Scotts. It was very embarrassing the double lives we lead – everyone (almost) in Trinidad expected us to be in Ft.Ord, so we couldn’t send them cards. We saw museums and shows until we were bored. Each day I’d call Fitzsimmons or go out, and each day be put off. They had to have an official release for me. It was my first taste of the “Old Army Game”. So finally we unpacked enough to get a dress for Beth and my dress uniform. I went to attend a Surgeons’ meeting and met Tim Rogers and he said Jim Bradley was there. So I found him and didn’t get to the meeting! I went up to the apartment and of course the expected unexpected had happened. Word had come and Beth had been frantically looking for me and couldn’t find me. I burned up the road and managed to get cleared away. We left Denver about 6 P.M. in a rain and drove to Kremmling [CO] in the most delightful rain! That was Friday night the 17^th. We drove long hours, not too fast, and covered lots of ground. When we came into Californiait began to get hot and hotter! Sunday night we arrived in Monterey. I’ll never forget coming over a “pass” (1200 ft!) toward the ocean and feeling a cold breeze from the sea and we could see the fog. The first night we stayed in a tourist camp. Next morning we were up be-times. When they charged me 15¢ for a 10¢ shoeshine I knew we were in California.

Basic training for the doctors was a little different than for enlisted men. For one thing, they were all officers, and as such were granted certain privileges. They were allowed to spend the nights off base with their wives. Just as the doctors became acquainted during the day, the wives also socialized, and some close friendships were formed. Later portions of letters from the front would be exchanged.

The doctors’ basic training was more intellectual than physical, although they had calisthenics at 8 A.M. every morning, followed by close-order drill until 9. The rhythm of the rest of the day varied. Sometimes they would have lectures until 12, followed by lunch, and more lectures until 4. Sometimes they wouldn’t. On a couple of occasions they had 5 or 6 mile hikes, replete with leggings, 3.39 lb. shoes, belt canteen and pack (empty). The training at FortOrd was finished in two weeks.

War! (1)

     The sudden silence woke Gene up.  It was about midnight, and the jackhammers that had been pounding all night repairing the bridge had stopped.  He started to drift off and then suddenly the night erupted in gunfire.  He was a doctor.  Doctors, even during war, are supposed to heal, but he was a soldier, too, and the world was at war.  It was 1944 in New Guinea and Japanese snipers were attacking the 92^nd Evacuation Hospital.

Capt. Eugene Pfile

       Three years earlier the attack of Pearl Harbor had changed Gene’s life forever.  December 7, 1941, was sunny and warm for a winter day in southern Colorado.  Dr. Eugene Pfile, a general practitioner from Trinidad, Colorado, and his wife, Beth, headed into the mountains west of town.  They had attended the early service at Zion’s Lutheran Church just so they could spend most of the day roaming the hills and gathering evergreen branches and kinnikinnik for the upcoming Christmas season. 

      Beth loved Christmas: the candles, the angels, the woodsy smell of pine branches.  She loved the baking, the singing, and the quiet reflection on Christmas Eve of the birth of Christ.  Gene loved it, too, but most of all he loved Beth.  They had been married for four years.

     Soon they had the trunk of Little Jack, a name coined by Beth for their light gray Ford because it would sometimes jump like a jackrabbit when she let up on the clutch, filled with branches.  On the way home they stopped by the ranch of their close friends, Ruthie and Walter West, for a cup of coffee.  Walt’s face was somber as he came out of the house to greet them.

      “It’s started.  The Japs bombed the hell out of Pearl Harbor this morning.  It’s gonna be war!”They all gathered around the radio in the kitchen and listened in horror as the extent of the destruction was revealed.

     The ride home was quiet as Beth snuggled up to Gene and laid her head on his shoulder.  Too many thoughts swirled around in their heads, but speaking those thoughts would make the bleak future more real, as if those words would set that future in reality.  Both Gene and Beth knew that Gene, who had registered for the draft with all 21- to 35-year-old men in 1940, would enter the army and their world would never be the same.

     After a quiet Christmas, Gene wrote the dreaded letter to the War Department, volunteering his services as a doctor.  On March 29, 1942, he received his temporary appointment as Captain Eugene Frederic Pfile, Med-AUS (Army of the United States).  A subsequent letter informed him that he would probably be appointed to the Seventh Corps and ordered to report for duty in Omaha, Nebraska, around August 1, 1942. 

     On June 22, 1942, Capt. Pfile was sent a red-bordered letter stamped “IMMEDIATE ACTION”.  He was ordered to report to Lowery Field, Denver, Colorado on August 1 for his physical, and then to active service at Fort Riley, Kansas.

     The war machine was gearing up.  New training areas were being established.  The orders changed again.  On June 27 he received a telegram: “YOU WILL PROCEED ON JULY THIRD TO DENVER COLORADO REPORTING TO COMMANDING OFFICER FITZSIMONGENERALHOSPITAL FOR COMPLETE PHYSICAL EXAMINATION AND IF PHYSICALLY QUALIFIED THENCE TO FORTORD CALIFORNIA REPORTING TO COMMANDING OFFICER SEVENTH SURGICAL HOSPITAL FOR DUTY = ULIO ADJT GENL WASHN.”

      His waiting at home was just about over.  His waiting in the army would soon begin.

In the following blog, I will tell my father's story through his diaries, letters, and photos. Additional letters, newspaper articles, and comments explaining the situation may  also be included.  All of the photographs were taken by Gene during the 1940’s.

      If you enjoy this blog, please let me know!  Thanks!