A World War II nurse remembers

By Colette Lefebvre-Davis

Nevada Daily Mail

Joan Ostrander entered the war effort in 1943 as part of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. While she was in school to become a registered nurse, Joan developed rheumatic fever and after her recovery she was told to "not even think of joining the Army, considering my health problems," explained Joan in her published memoirs.

So, when she returned home to Sioux Falls, S.D., her sister told her that she should join the USO.

"We were supposed to show up at the center at certain times on assigned evenings and be available to talk or to dance with the soldiers." said Joan.

Though the girls were supposed to dance with all of the soldiers they were not supposed to have dates with any of them away from the center. However, according to Ostrander, this rule was often broken. Joan's father convinced her to try to join up, even though she had had rheumatic fever. Joan took her father's advice. After her required physical, she did not believe that she even had a chance, but weeks later she received a letter from the Pentagon saying she had been accepted and was to report to Davis Monthan Airfield near Tuscon, Ariz.

Joan likened her time in Tucson to Devil's Island, and most of her patients' ills consisted of ingrown toenails and pilonidal cysts, which are fluid-filled sacs located at the base of the spinal column which were caused by riding in jeeps over rough terrain.

But, the day came when Joan was given the opportunity to go overseas, a day she had been longing for -- because her ward, complete with ingrown toenails, was not "challenging."

She was off to Little Rock, Ark., to train at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, where they were to "link up" with their unit, the 55th general hospital, then receive overseas indoctrination and training. Soon, it was off to Llandudno, Wales.

Joan talks about Army humor, stating that much of it was formed out of a defiance of fear or pain. Some soldiers would say, "I don't mind the sight of blood -- but this is mine."

One of her patients had received a prosthetic eye, and was occasionally known to push it sideways cock his good eye and approach the bartender to say,"What did you put in that drink?"

According to Joan, there was a hierarchy with the patients -- paratroopers were the créme de la créme. Joan also defines the well-known meaning of GI, which stands for "Government Issue."

According to her, it was stamped on everything that they had; however, the men soon began to refer to themselves as GIs. But to be called a GI was often not a compliment -- it meant that the specific person had done everything by the book regardless of how appropriate it was or was not.

"While the rest of our citizens remained in somewhat blissful ignorance of the fact, U.S planes did sink a number of German submarines off our east coast. I first learned of this because Ivan, my husband, had been assigned to the Army Air Corps unit that accomplished what was then a routine mission," stated Joan. She saw the destruction the Blitzkrieg had caused in London. She had arrived in England shortly before the "manned bombers" had ended. After that according to Joan came the V-1's, or "buzz bombs" called this because they made a buzzing sound and when the buzzing stopped they were near.

Worse than the V-1's were the V-2's which provided no warning at all. These bombings became so common that some people just regarded them as a nuisance. Joan went out to parties, lounges, plays and sightseeing. She even has a theater bill from one of the plays that she attended. It stated that should the air raid sirens go off it was up to the audience to seek shelter, otherwise the play would continue on.

Joan said that though she never saw action, she saw the results of it. Many of the men arrived at her post fresh off the beaches on D-Day. They came in airplanes and the hospital set up a tent behind the ward to accommodate the influx of wounded and dying.

After Germany surrendered, Joan and others, were transferred to France and then made a trip to Switzerland.

She came home from the war and married her husband Ivan Ostrander, a former flyboy. The couple now resides near Nevada.