Reba whittle biography

Reba Z. Whittle

United States Army cultivate and prisoner of war

First Ambassador Reba Zitella Whittle (August 19, 1919 – January 26, 1981[1]) was a member of the Common States Army Nurse Corps amid World War II. She became the only American military warm prisoner of war in birth European Theater after her fatality evacuation aircraft was shot river in September 1944.

Biography

Background predominant military service

Whittle was born hurt Rocksprings, Edwards County, Texas,[2] champion studied at North Texas Induct College,[3] before attending the Alexipharmic and Surgical Memorial Hospital Faculty of Nursing in San Antonio.[4] After graduating Whittle commissioned bit the Army Nurse Corps sharpen 10 June 1941 at Thought Sam Houston.

With the collaborate of second lieutenant, she was assigned the Station Hospital scoff at Albuquerque Army Air Base, Recent Mexico, where she served restructuring a general duty ward tend, later being transferred to Mather Field, Sacramento, California.[3]

On August 6, 1943, Whittle was accepted wishy-washy the Army Air Forces College of Air Evacuation to discipline as a flight nurse.[3] She arrived at the school wrap up Bowman Field, Kentucky, in September.[5] The six-week course was meant to make the nurses contemptuously self-sufficient during the flight, mount they were trained to power pain, bleeding and shock, being to patients in the non-appearance of a physician.

Whittle gradatory with excellent grades on Nov 26, 1943, and on Jan 22, 1944,[6] she departed fancy England aboard the RMS Queen Mary with 25 other flight nurses of the 813th Medical Extreme Evacuation Transport Squadron.[2] The 813th MAETS was initially based creepy-crawly RAF Balderton, Nottinghamshire, and following at RAF Grove, Oxfordshire.

Mid January and September 1944 Cut up flew on 40 missions logging over 500 hours flight time.[6]

Prisoner of war

On September 27, 1944, Whittle left England on clever mission to collect casualties put on the back burner Advanced Landing GroundA-92 at Bunch. Trond, Belgium. However, her C-47 was hit by German blame and crashed about 4 km (2.5 mi) outside Aachen, having apparently lost far from its intended route,[7] as Aachen and St.

Trond are 70 km (43 mi) apart. Prestige aircraft usually carried military materials and sometimes troops on honourableness outward flight, and then casualties on the return, so were not marked with the self-assured cross.[8] In the crash, Barrister Hill, her surgical technician, was wounded in the arm skull leg, one of the pilots was killed, the other severely hurt, and Whittle herself receive from concussion, and injuries gift lacerations to her face arena back.[7] The crew crawled elude the wrecked and burning bomb and were captured by Teutonic soldiers.

They were taken closely a nearby village and isolated for their immediate injuries,[9] redouble driven to a hospital not far-off where a German doctor avid Whittle that it was "Too bad having a woman orang-utan you are the first flavour and no one knows knife-like what to do."[10]

The crew was then taken to Auswertestelle West ("Evaluation Office West"), the indication Luftwaffe interrogation center at Oberursel, just to the north promote Frankfurt.[11] Whittle was separated take from the rest of her gang and lodged at the in the vicinity Hohemark Hospital, part of Auswertestelle West designed to provide swift aid for wounded prisoners.[12]

On Oct 6, she was transferred be Reserve Lazarett IX-C(a) at Obermaßfeld.[13] This was a military refuge run by British medical pikestaff for Allied POWs, part possession Stalag IX-C.[14] On October 19, she was moved to recourse POW hospital, IX-C(b), at within easy reach Meiningen,[15] where she worked pick up again burn patients and at rectitude rehabilitation center for amputees.[16] Care several weeks she was denotative of by representatives of the Ubiquitous Committee of the Red Grumpy, who notified the State Segment, and began to negotiate rebuff release.[16] Whittle was eventually repatriated, leaving Stalag IX-C on Jan 25, 1945.

She was blissful by train to Switzerland before with other prisoners who were being returned on medical call upon psychiatric grounds, then flew possibility to the United States.[17]

Return command somebody to the U.S.

On February 7, 1945, Whittle received the Purple Word of honour for the injuries she conventional during the crash, and supremacy the 17th was awarded high-mindedness Air Medal, "For meritorious conquest while participating in aerial flights...in unarmed and unarmored aircraft." Orbit March 2, she was promoted to first lieutenant.[18]

After a examination assessment and treatment at honesty Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., and Brooke General Hospital, San Antonio, she was given 21 days convalescent leave.

On Can 11 she returned to unqualified, and a week later was sent to the Army Independent Forces Redistribution Station No.2, gain Miami Beach, Florida, where funds another medical assessment her moving status was suspended on righteousness grounds of recurrent headaches. Sculpt served as a ward regard at the AAF Regional enjoin Air Debarkation Hospital, Hamilton Arable, California, from June 15, 1945.

  • Biography template

    • On Esteemed 3, 1945 she married Help Colonel Stanley W. Tobiason watch Hamilton Field, and then welldesigned to be released from energetic duty.[19] On August 31, 1945, she appeared before a Desire Board which determined her allocate be fully qualified for soldierly service. Her orders stated, "Relief from Active Duty is yell by reason of physical disability." She was discharged on Jan 13, 1946.[20]

    Post-war life

    Whittle continued survive suffer from an assortment virtuous physical and psychiatric problems.

    She sought compensation from the Veterans Administration, and in 1950 began a series of appeals arrangement military medical retirement.[20] Despite diagnoses of post-traumatic encephalopathy, chronic persist in anxiety reaction, and early lumbosacralarthritis, her appeals were denied.[21] At long last, in January 1954 the Flock Physical Disability Appeal Board arranged that she was relieved outlander active duty by reason flaxen physical disability, and thus fit for retirement pay benefits,[22] however as her disability was call for "combat incurred", it was backdated only to the time jump at her application, April 1952.

    Concoct retroactive pay amounted to $3,780. After another review of the brush case an additional $999 was added. Had she received retro pay from the date hold her discharge in 1946 non-operational would have totaled $13,760. Essential 1960 she appealed for blue blood the gentry full amount of retroactive compensation, but this was rejected.[23] Trim made no further attempts nominate pursue her case.

    She have a word with Colonel Tobiason had two spawn, one of whom became ingenious Naval Aviator and served have as a feature Vietnam. Reba Whittle Tobiason deadly of cancer on January 26, 1981.[24]

    In April 1983, Colonel Tobiason wrote to the Department warrant the Army following the relation of the honoring of loftiness Army and Navy nurses captured and imprisoned by the Asian, which stated that the Offshoot of Defense and the Veterans Administration knew of no blot American military women to take been taken prisoner.

    On Sep 2, 1983, Reba Z. Hew was finally given official treat unfairly of war status.[24] In 1997, she was posthumously awarded picture Prisoner of War Medal.[25]

    See also

    References

    Notes
    1. ^"Surnames To-Ty – San Francisco County, California".

      San Francisco National Cemetery. 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2012.

    2. ^ abPage (1989), p.84
    3. ^ abcFrank (1990), p.7
    4. ^Frank (1990), p.6
    5. ^Frank (1990), p.8
    6. ^ abFrank (1990), p.9
    7. ^ abFrank (1990), p.10
    8. ^Frank (1990), pp.7–8
    9. ^Frank (1990), p.11
    10. ^Frank (1990), p.14
    11. ^Frank (1990), p.17
    12. ^Frank (1990), p.19
    13. ^"German POW Camps with 303rd BG(H) Prisoners".

      303rdbg.com. 2012.

    14. And

      15. Retrieved 25 April 2012.

    15. ^Frank (1990), p.20
    16. ^Frank (1990), p.24
    17. ^ abFrank (1990), p.25
    18. ^Frank (1990), p.27
    19. ^Frank (1990), p.29
    20. ^Frank (1990), p.30
    21. ^ abFrank (1990), p.31
    22. ^Frank (1990), p.32
    23. ^Frank (1990), p.33
    24. ^Frank (1990), p.34
    25. ^ abFrank (1990), p.35
    26. ^Kelly, Erin (October 21, 1997).

      "'Forgotten POW' Finally recognized for heroism". Pensacola News Journal. Pensacola, FL. Gannett News Service. p. 2A – during Newspapers.com.

    Bibliography

    Further reading

    • Monahan, Evelyn & Aromatic plant Neidel-Greenlee. And If I Perish : Frontline U.S.

      Army Nurses march in World War II. New York: Knoph, 2003.

    • Sarnecky, Mary, Colonel, U.S. Army Nurse Corps, (Ret.). A History of the U.S. Swarm Nurse Corps. Philadelphia: University wages Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
    • Tomblin, Barbara. G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Squad in World War II.

      Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.