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Close Station
The hospital was pleasant enough. The buildings were German, taken over by the
US Army. The wards were in two buildings, the Mannerkrankenhaus and the
Frauenkrankenhaus. The officer patients were put in the women's building: we had bidets
in the bathrooms.
I had expected to be there a day or two, taking the battery of tests that Doc Davis
had called for, then returning to duty and awaiting the results. But it seemed that the
hospital did not have all the apparatus required for the tests, so I had to wait.
I suggested going back to Schwandorf and returning when it was ready, but the
doctors kept assuring me that it would arrive any day and that it would be simpler just to
wait there. And it may be that Doc Davis asked them to see that I got a good rest. At any
rate, it was a month before my basal metabolism, along with everything else, checked out
normal, and I returned to Schwandorf. And to the ruins of the 915th.
Oh, it was still a good outfit, but it wasn't the same. About half the personnel had
already been shipped out into the pipeline that was to take them back to the States and to
civilian life, and other personnel had transferred in. The remaining old-timers were of
two kinds: the ones with insufficient "points" for discharge and those, like me, who had
volunteered to stay in the service until VJ Day and the end of the war.
Bob Hughes was gone, and a Lt Col Harold Brooks was in command. He was all
right, and so were the other newcomers, but they were no substitute for the men who had
fought the war with me. And I think the remainder of those who had shared my
experience felt the same way.
So when VJ Day came and the war was completely over, I felt no regrets at being
transferred into the pipeline myself. The Upstarts of the 915th had been a great team; now
that team was only memories.
But such memories!
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