I recall being focused on a butterfly that had just landed on a nearby plant. The butterfly paused to reveal crisp black and yellow stripes and spots. Its wings slowly opened and closed as it tested a flower for nectar.
Overhead, the drone of a prop aircraft increased until it seemed just overhead. Then the pitch of the engine changed, as if perhaps, going into a stall.
The butterfly disappeared and the world spun as I was lifted off my feet and thrust down into the brush at the edge of the field, my mother pinning me down and protecting me with her own body. In what seemed an eternity, the sound from the aircraft again shifted and it flew away.
This was not a war zone, it was Connecticut on a sweet summer morning in 1949 well after WWII had ended and the troops had come home.
Lt Sylvia E. Van Antwerp was one of America’s first flight nurses, serving with honor in 1943 and 1944, carrying the wounded to hospitals remote from the North African and Italian fronts. She and 29 others registered nurses, were the first class of US Army Aircorps Flight Nurses.
She and most classmates were recruited from airline service by the US Army, for their experience in flight. They trained at Bowman Field in Kentucky and then were stationed in various areas of need in the Pacific and in her case, North Africa. Reportedly, Sylvia had the second highest number of flight hours of any flight nurse in WWII.
Sylvia and my dad, a US Army Aircorps Flight Surgeon, both left written accounts of their experiences. Both flew in DC-3 aircraft that could accommodate 14 wounded. Generally either two nurses or a nurse and a physician tended the men who were being evacuated.
Since these aircraft also carried war supplies, they were not marked with a cross that would have differentiated them from combatants. They could be attacked by enemy aircraft or gunners on the ground. Their safety between flights was not assured. Both of my parents told of jumping into slit trenches at the edge of runways and being strafed or bombed. There is far more to tell about the extent of their experiences and the abnormal behaviors that they exhibited for the rest of their lives.
It’s fortunate that in the present era we have insights into what in the 1940’s was called ‘shell shock’. We call it PTSD. We recognize that a range of traumatic events can induce it at any point in a person’s life.
This is written for Memorial Day decades after my mother’s death. While this holiday honors those who died in the line of service, I write to also honor the memory those who have carried traumatic wounds and who perished long after a war had ended. Their courage was enduring. It was the courage to live day to day, to kiss a child, to wipe away a tear, to see an airplane fly overhead and if they trembled, to ground themselves, to shake it off and to carry on.
There continues to be a flurry of new peer-reviewed publications related to Long COVID. These include some new ideas about treatment options and self-care. Look for upcoming posts.
Happy Memorial Day. Thank you for this post. Great imagery in your experience as a child. Your parents did such an important job!