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By Al Zdon
Avis Dagit Schorer grew up on a farm in Iowa during the Great Depression. She now lives in a beautiful apartment in Bloomington. She had a long career in the medical field, and she
now spends part of her time as a volunteer at a local library.
She has stayed active in later years, and has even written a book.
There's one thing that separates Schorer from many of her
neighbors and fellow library volunteers. She was a combat nurse who lived through some of the toughest times and places of World War II.
Avis Dagit was one of 11 kids who grew up on the Green
County, Iowa, farm, and after high school she went away to nurses training at Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. "With all those kids, you can't all stay at home."
After graduating, she signed an
agreement with the American Red Cross that she would serve her country if a crisis developed. With Europe already at war, and the world situation deteriorating, that crisis seemed likely.
"I knew on
December 7th, 1941, that I was in."
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was given some time to wind up her civilian affairs, and on Mach 17, 1942 — her birthday— she reported to the U.S. Army
in Des Moines. She was immediately sent to Camp Chaffee in Arkansas.
"When we got there, it was nothing but a few scattered buildings and some dirt roads. Not long afterwards, though, the troops
started pouring in."
Within a year, the base was home to 100,000 men and it had its own 1,000-bed hospital. "It was unbelievable how quickly it developed." (The camp gained fame in later years as the
destination for the Cuban boat people.)
The nurses went through no formal basic training, but simply went to work, learning Army training along the way. "You had to learn as you go. It was a whole new
language for me. I'd never heard of a latrine, or a chow line, or a mess hall."
The nurses, who were all commissioned officers, were given strict instructions on not fraternizing with the enlisted
men. "But that was easily broken. Some women broke it just to see if they could get away with it."
Second Lieutenant Dagit and her fellow nurses were proud of the fact that they were part of the
regular army. "We didn't want to be called WACS."
The duty was strenuous, but nothing like she would face on the next couple of years. "I remember one time a soldier was brought into my ward with
pneumonia. We didn't have antibiotics in those days, and the head nurse told me I should report to this other ward when the soldier died. Well, I was determined he wasn't going to die on my watch, and I
stayed with him several nights. He finally did recover."
Not long after, though, another GI with pneumonia did die. "You learned that soldiers didn't have to get shot up to die. They died just from
going out on maneuvers."
Ten of the nurses at Camp Chaffee were selected to report to Ft. Sam Houston in February of 1943 to join the 56th Evacuation Hospital, made up mainly of doctors and nurses
from Baylor University. The unit contained 310 enlisted personnel, 48 medical officers and 49 nurses. It was self-sufficient, containing its own x-ray unit, laboratory, operating equipment, cots, tents,
and everything it would need to set up anywhere and go to work.
As part of the small contingent from the Midwest, Schorer had to learn a new culture. "There's no doubt that Texans are the most
chauvinistic of any Americans. They're so proud of their state. I sure learned all the songs of Texas."
The hospital unit was put on alert, and the personnel took time to do some of the mundane things
like make out wills and take out life insurance. Finally, the unit got orders to get on a troop train, and the evacuation hospital sailed for North Africa from New York City during Holy Week of 1943.
"They didn't tell us where we were going, but when they started teaching us the language and customs of North Africa, it became pretty clear. We landed in Casablanca."
The American army was helping
the British chase German Gen. Erwin Rommel out of Africa at that point, and the 56th Evacuation Hospital was loaded into trucks for an eight-day trip to the front. "It was not a nice ride. It was hot,
and we had to carry our own food which was C-rations. We got a quart of water every day. There were no baths, there were slit trenches, and there was no sightseeing."
From her seat on a slat bench in
the back of the truck, Schorer began to see more evidence of the war as the convoy pressed on. Shell holes and blown up tanks and vehicles littered the landscape. The unit eventually reached Bizerte
where it set up shop.
The hospital was established in an old French garrison, which had been abandoned only days earlier by the Germans.
"One night there was an air raid was right around the
Fourth of July, and we cheered it on like it was a fireworks display. But then hundreds of casualties started coming in. After that we didn't do that anymore."
Many more of the early casualties were
victims of malaria. "Those were some of the sickest men I've ever seen in my life. But we could give them atabrine, and they did recover."
The personnel worked 12-hour shifts, either at night or
during the day. As the front moved, the hospital units would leapfrog over each other — the one closest to the action getting more of the intense workload while the hospital in the rear was able to stand
down to a certain degree until it was its turn to leapfrog.
The unit was loaded into U.S. Navy LCIs in September for a trip to Italy. "The Italians had surrendered by that time, and some thought we
might be going on a sightseeing tour, but the Germans didn't give up and they were there to meet us."
The nurses and the rest of the medical team waded ashore at Salerno and went back to work. "From
that point on, we usually just wore coveralls. We had long ago forgotten about the white shoes and the white dresses. We wore what the men were wearing."
The unit first set up at Avellino. The
fighting was very heavy in the surrounding hills. "As soon as we opened the hospital, our tents were overflowing with the wounded."
The hospital later moved to Dragoni near the Casino front as the
Americans pressed on toward Rome. As winter set in, it was miserable. "It rained and rained and rained, for days on end. It was muddy everywhere, and all the tents leaked. We waded in mud wherever we
went. The casualties began to change in nature as the men came in with trench foot. If they had been wounded, they were caked with mud and blood. It was a terrible situation."
The hospital was ordered
to shut down at the end of January so it could get ready for its next move as part of the invasion force at Anzio. The Allies had decided to try an end run on the Germans and land behind their positions.
The operation was a disaster almost from the beginning.
"We boarded a British LCI at night and were put down in a hold. Our bathroom was a bucket in the middle of the floor. With that, and with the
fumes from the ship, you could hardly get your breath. We had no blankets.
"Some of the nurses got sick just at the sight of a ship. I didn't, but it was miserable. The seas were vicious and tossed us
around like a cork. Some of the nurses would just throw up in their helmets and lie on their bunks and groan and moan."
The nurses were offered a chance to transfer from the flat-bottomed LCI to
another ship, and 26 who were healthy enough to do so made the rope ladder transfer. The second ship was more stable, but they found out later it contained mainly high octane gas and high explosives.
An air raid went on for 36 hours, with shells landing all around, before the ship landed. When it the ships did land, the nurses found themselves going ashore on a beachhead that was coming under a
ferocious counter-attack.
The 26 were the first nurses to land at Anzio.
They traveled a few miles down the beachhead as the battle raged around them. Finally one officer said, "What are you women
doing here? This place is hot. Get out of here."
"I'm sure," Schorer said, "that anybody who was at Anzio has it seared in their minds forever. It was just crazy. We were so tired. We'd had no sleep
for several days.
"The Germans had this long range gun we called the Anzio Express. It was a screeching sound and it just got louder and louder as it approached. Your heart would stop until you heard
it hit on the other side. You'd be relieved, but then you'd realize that it probably hit somebody else."
Somehow the unit managed to gather its personnel and equipment and set up the hospital. The
task was made more difficult because the unit had been split up on five different landing ships. "As soon as we opened, we were swamped with casualties. It was much worse than anything we had seen
before. Instead of one wound, these men would have multiple wounds."
The hospital was up close to the front in an area that became known as "A Half Acre of Hell," later the title of Schorer's memoir.
Because it was close, it was able to provide hospital-level medical care to the soldiers quickly, and many lives were saved. But despite its Red Cross markings, it was also under constant threat.
"The
hospital was surrounded by fuel dumps and ammo dumps and motor pools. The bombing was constant, and the night was often lit up brighter than sunshine by these white flares. Sometimes when the men were
brought in they'd ask to be allowed to go back to their fox holes where it was safer. They wasn't much protection in a tent."
Sometimes there would be a shortage of blood, and the personnel in the
unit would roll up their sleeves to give blood. And then go back to work.
The hospital would try to evacuate the wounded men as fast as possible. "We got their wounds cleaned and did some operations.
We watched out for gas gangrene and other complications. Our goal was to get them into a condition where it was safe to move them."
Six nurses were killed on Anzio beach, including one nurse who had
gone through training with Schorer at Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. "She was killed in an air raid. It was dreadful, but you didn't have time to break down. Your attitude was, 'Well, this is going to
happen to all of us.'"
During a break at one point, some of the personnel of the hospital unit were listening to Axis Sally on the radio. Despite the propaganda, they liked to listen because she
played the best music. Between songs, Axis Sally announced that it was going to be happy days for the 56th Evacuation Hospital.
"We didn't know what she was talking about, but the next day we were
relieved."
They had been 76 days on the beachhead and had seen and lived through some of the worst carnage of World War II. "It sounds crazy, but we didn't want to leave. We didn't want to be called
quitters."
The unit was moved back south to the Casino front, and the Allies finally were able to make progress against the stubborn Germans. On June 6th, 1944, the Americans entered Rome. "But it was
kind of an anti-climax. The D-Day landings happened the same day. We were all so excited."
Much hard fighting still lay ahead as the Americans slowly moved through mountains heading north in Italy.
The hospital began to see more and more evidence of another terrible weapon, the land mine.
"Some of the mines would blow off a foot, but they also had these 'bouncing Betties.' They were vicious
things. They would kill and maim the civilians, the children, even the farm animals.
The hospital crossed the Arno and moved into Florence as 1944 wore down.
In the spring, the American pushed up
the Po Valley. "I don't think one square foot of that valley didn't have a shell hole or bomb crater in it. But it was a gorgeous spring, and the German army was finally beginning to disintegrate. They
were giving up by the thousands."
The last stay for the hospital in Italy was in Mussolini Stadium in Bologna.
In April, 1945, Schorer said the nurses experienced one of worst events of the war.
"President Roosevelt died and it was very traumatic. It was just devastating to lose him."
On May 12th, the war was over. The hospital unit had spent 25 months in continuous operation. It had seen
over 73,000 patients. It was time to go home.
"But as usual, the Army had other plans." The unit was sent to Udine near the Yugoslavian border. Finally after the war ended in Japan, the unit got
orders home. The hospital arrived back in the U.S. in October, and Schorer was discharged in February of 1945 after nearly four years on active duty.
She said it was an experience of a lifetime. "When
you're going through something, sometimes you just can't comprehend it all. You just take it a day at a time and hope that later you can sort it all out."
Nearly 60 years later, some of the memories
are still sharp and painful. "I can still see the faces that I saw then. They still flash in front of you."
After the war, Schorer used the GI Bill to be trained as a nurse anesthetist and she worked
in Chicago and Wisconsin before moving to Minnesota. She retired from Lutheran Deaconess Hospital in 1982.
She raised her three children as a single parent, and is proud of how they all turned out.
Schorer has five grandchildren.
The book was a project for her children, and it took her several years to complete. Like other projects in her life, Schorer attacked the book with great purpose. She
took writing courses, and joined a writer's group.
Now that it's out, it has had steady sales in areas bookstores and on the internet.
"I was surprised. I never had any idea anybody would find it
interesting except my family."
Editor's Note: This story was based on an interview with Avis Schorer at her home in Bloomington.
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