Helmets and Lipstick

Lt. Ruth G. Haskell

• Publisher: Arcole Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781787207165
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

First published in 1944, this is a true firsthand account by U.S. Army nurse Ruth G. Haskell, 2nd Lieutenant A.N.C. (Army Nurse Corps), who worked on the North African front during World War II. She tells of the "trials and tribulations, the fun and the thrills" that she experienced as a member of the Corps.

CHAPTER ONE — Orders for Foreign Service

It all began with a telephone call. The sharp whir of the bell broke the silence of the hot Tennessee afternoon. I lazily reached for the receiver, still checking the chart on which I was working.

“A-15, Lieutenant Haskell speaking.”

“Lieutenant Haskell, this is it! You are relieved of duty as of now. Come to the office for your clearance papers. Clear the post. You are to be in New York not later than midnight on Monday.” This was the crisp voice of First Lieutenant Marion Harvey, assistant to the chief nurse.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered meekly, placed the receiver carefully in its cradle, and sat there in a complete daze.

Foreign service! I had volunteered about a month before, but now that the orders were actually here, I found I was a little panicky about the whole thing. It was a thing we all talked about but thought of as being in the dim, dark future. I hastily finished what I was doing, said goodbye to my patients, not without some regrets, and dashed madly across the ramp to the nurses’ quarters.

Anyone who has ever lived in the Deep South will know what I mean when I say my room was like an oven. I remember thinking it couldn’t be much worse out of doors, so I decided to clear the post first. I ran a comb through my hair, dusted a little powder on my nose, and reported.

As I entered the office, Kate Rodgers, the camp glamour girl, was going in just ahead of me.

“Where are my clearance papers?” she asked of Lieutenant Moat.

“Are you going, too?” I asked in a rather astonished manner.

“Before I change my mind, I hope,” she replied. “This seemed a rather good idea a few weeks ago, but now I don’t know!”

I could appreciate what she meant, because secretly I was feeling the same way.

Lieutenant Moat handed each of us a sheaf of papers and explained what they were for. It seemed we had to be signed off the post by all the various departments to vouch for the fact we didn’t owe the government any money.

“Am I late?” This was the voice of Margaret Hart of Bristol, Tennessee. “Thought I never would get off duty. We certainly have been having a busy day in the O.R.”

Marjie, as we called her, was a contradiction if ever I saw one. Vivacious, good-looking, and a beautiful dancer, always in the throes of either falling in or out of love, she was a marvelously efficient operating-room nurse. This fact had never ceased to amaze everyone who knew her.

Just as we turned to leave the office, Lieutenant Moat asked, “Do any of you know anything about Mildred Harris? She signed for this thing too and she is on leave. I’m not sure where I can reach her.”

We all grinned at each other, thinking about what Millie’s reaction would be if she found her, because she had been trying for some time to get home on leave.

Just about the time Marjie started to answer her, in dashed Eleanor Faulk. She, too, it seems, was looking for her clearance papers. Lieutenant Moat repeated her question regarding Mildred; Eleanor thought for a second, and then: “Oh, yes, she is visiting with relatives in Rome, Georgia. But I don’t know just where.”

At this point I began to wonder if I might just possibly be going to be the only Northerner in an entire “Rebel” group.

“How many of us are leaving?” I asked.

“Let me see,” looking back at the list before her. “There are five of you. Mildred Harris, Eleanor Faulk, Kate Rodgers, Margaret Hart, and yourself.” She began to smile as she told me this, as though she might be thinking the same thing.

The four of us started back for the barracks, and as we walked along we discussed the problem of Lieutenant Moat finding Millie in time to get her started off with us as it was mid-afternoon on Saturday and time was short.

“Listen here,” said Eleanor. “I don’t see any sense in all of us running around in this heat. Why don’t two of us take these confounded papers around and get them signed?”

Rodgers and Hart looked quickly at each other and smiled and I thought: They certainly have something up their sleeves.

Kate spoke up. “I certainly would appreciate it if I didn’t have to go. I have a date for the officers’ club tonight.”

“So have I,” chimed in Marjie.

I looked at Eleanor to see what she was going to add, but she looked rather preoccupied and wasn’t paying any attention to what was being said.

“I’ll take them if someone will come with me. I’m not sure where all these places are. Where is the Signal Corps headquarters, and why do they have to sign us out?”

I couldn’t see any sense in going there or to the camp bakery, but it seemed that the Army thought we should, so we didn’t have anything to say about it, I guess.

Finally Eleanor and I sadly started off in the heat to get the darned things signed. It was Saturday, and about a third of the people we had to see weren’t in. Time was going, and we still had all our packing to do. We returned to the barracks and, much to our disgust, found Kate and Marjie all freshened up, manicured, shampooed, and rested.

“Are you packed?” I asked.

“Yes, Madge packed for us. We’re all set. Isn’t that fine?”

I muttered something about some people having all the luck and stalked off toward my own room. About the time I arrived there, Pauline Loignon, a girl from home, came in, and the look on her face was something to behold. She and I had come into the Army the same day and had become fast friends. Evidently she had just heard that I had received my orders, and she was much upset about it.

“What am I going to do without you?” she asked. “You know how much I depend on you. I don’t want you to go, do you hear?”

“Pauline, honey, in two weeks’ time you’ll never know I existed. Stop your fussing and start helping me pack!”

We finally got busy and I began to see my way clear to being able to get to bed some time before midnight. I still wonder who in the world besides myself could possibly have acquired all the junk I seemed to have collected from somewhere. The worst of it was, I didn’t want to dispose of any of it. I swear I would have packed the dusty old corsages I took down off the wall if Pauline hadn’t thrown them into the wastebasket first.

Late that night as I tried to get ready to sleep, and goodness knows by that time I was ready to, I began to think of all the friends I had made in the past fourteen months and of how much I was going to miss them. Camp Forrest, Tullahoma, Tennessee. I grinned to myself in the dark when I remembered how I had hunted frantically on the map for the place when I first received my orders to report there. That is one sad thing about army friendships, you meet so many people, learn to like them, and then away one or the other goes and you never see them again.

Sunday morning! When I first wakened I couldn’t imagine what my trunk was doing there in the middle of the room and packed to overflowing. Then I remembered, this was the day! I lay there a few seconds blinking into the sunlight and wondered what the next month, or even the next week, might bring. I began to wonder about the other four girls and whether or not we would get along. Kate was from Houston, Texas. Slim, pretty, almost Spanish-looking with her black hair and shining dark eyes. She was exceedingly popular with the officers on the post, danced beautifully, and was much in demand socially. She had the knack of getting things done for her rather than doing them for herself, just from the pure force of her personality. As it developed, she had Madge, our colored maid, do her packing for her while the rest of us slaved away at our own.

Marjie was tall, a striking brunette, extremely well proportioned. She appeared to be rather young and not entirely sure of her own mind, although, as I have said before, she was a very good nurse. Her chief hobby in life seemed to be the number of scalps she could collect from the poor helpless males. Her home was in Bristol, Tennessee, and she certainly was the typical Southern belle.

Mildred was a slim little thing, determined and emphatic about her likes and dislikes, and with a temper that flew off at a tangent at the most unexpected times and places. She was a loyal friend if she liked you, and made no bones of letting you know it if she didn’t. As I thought of her, I wondered if Lieutenant Moat had been able to reach her, and I smiled to myself as I imagined what she would say if called back from her leave. Her home was somewhere in Georgia, and I often wondered what sort of place it might be.

Eleanor was a type all her own. Her hair was dark brown and reached her waist. She wore it braided and wound around her head coronet fashion. Her nose and cheeks were sprinkled liberally with freckles, which she disliked very much but which served to make her very attractive. She had a rather driving, dynamic personality, evidently used to getting her own way. There were many times when one could shake her for being so very sure of herself, but the damning part of it was that she was almost always right! Her home was in Memphis, Tennessee, and I think, all in all, she was the most likable girl of the gang.

“Well, lazybones! Are you going to sleep all morning?”

I got up on my elbow to see who was speaking, and there stood Marianna Smith with a tray. It seemed they were to make a lady of me my last day and give me breakfast in bed!

“Get out of there and enjoy this while it’s hot,” she said as she plopped herself down on the foot of my bed.

“You know, don’t you, that you are going to be missed around here?” She looked rather serious for a second, and then: “In a way I wish I were going, too, but I guess I can’t just make up my mind what I want to do and when!”

“I rather think I’m going to be lonely for all my Camp Forrest friends, too. You know, folks have been darned nice to me around here.”

Some way or other I managed to finish all the last minute things one has to do when packing. I looked around the little box-like room that had been my home for the past fourteen months and wondered what the future would bring. If I had only known!

“Ruth, you are wanted on the telephone. You are going to have dinner with us in the mess hall today, aren’t you?” asked Pauline.

“Yes, honey, I sure am. I’m glad it’s fried chicken. Lord only knows when I’m apt to get another one.” I walked over to the telephone. “Lieutenant Haskell speaking,” I said.

“Lieutenant Haskell, this is the Chief Nurse. There will be transportation for you girls to go to the station at two-forty-five. Be at Quarters One at that time. Your reservations are all made, and your luggage will be picked up shortly after lunch.”

I thanked her, and as I hung up the receiver I had a very funny feeling about this really being terribly final as far as my life at Camp Forrest was concerned.

Two-forty-five, and a station wagon rolled up to the door of Quarters One. I think in a way we were all relieved, because we were a little upset, emotionally, at the many goodbyes to be said.

We were all rather proud of the way we looked. We were wearing, for the first time that summer, the beige uniform of the Army Nurse Corps, and feeling for the first time as though we might really be part of the Army. Up to that time, uniforms had not been compulsory and we wore civvies when off duty.

Lieutenant Moat had given Eleanor instructions for the entire group and last-minute orders to remember that we were part of the Army and that we must always be a credit to the uniform.

“...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER ONE - Orders for Foreign Service
• CHAPTER TWO - We Go for a Boat Ride
• CHAPTER THREE - An Introduction to Another Land.
• CHAPTER FOUR - Life in an English Military Reservation
• CHAPTER FIVE - Life on an English Transport
• CHAPTER SIX - We Reach Our Destination at Last
• CHAPTER SEVEN - Under Fire
• CHAPTER EIGHT - Holiday Season in a Strange Country
• CHAPTER NINE - On the Move Once Again
• CHAPTER TEN - To Tébessa in Truck Convoy
• CHAPTER ELEVEN - Life in a Field Hospital
• CHAPTER TWELVE - We Make a Strategic Withdrawal
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER