Following is an excerpt from "A Medic's Story," by Edward Madden, as told to me during a 2000 interview at the 90th Infantry Division reunion in Charlotte, North Carolina. "A Medic's Story" is available for Kindle for $1.99 at amazon.com.
After the Normandy peninsula was cut off, they put us into a holding
position and we were put onto this farm. We were there for almost two weeks, in
a holding position. And one day, July the 1st, the Germans decided
they were going to put some artillery into the place.
There were two girls who lived on the farm. One was 14 or 15, and her
sister was 16 or 17. They were out in the field, milking the cows at about 5
o’clock in the afternoon, when the Germans put the shells in there. The shells
landed real close to them, and a couple of the cows were killed, and some of
the shrapnel went through the older sister’s heart and killed her. And the
younger girl had both of her legs taken off below the knee, both of them, and
one of her arms was pretty badly shattered. And I went out and picked her up
and brought her into their house. I treated her, then I called and had her
evacuated back.
The very next day we moved out, and I never heard anything about her
until later on in the year, in December or so, the Stars & Stripes came out
and there was an article in it showing her with Air Corps people. And what they
did was they came in, and they built a landing strip right near the farm. They
found out about her, so they went back to the Army hospital that they had her
in, and the Air Force took her out of there – with permission – and they
brought her back to the farm and they built a tent for her. They had their
doctors take care of her, and eventually they ended up buying her prostheses
for her legs.
When the Air Corps – these were fighter planes, P-47s – moved forward to
keep up with the infantry, they were able to carry her in their planes because
they got written permission from General Eisenhower to take her with them. And
she met Eisenhower, he came over and talked to her.
I sent the article home, and I didn’t think anything about it.
Then in 1985, when I was going to go to Europe, I wrote to Henri
Levaufre [a Normandy historian who has assisted many 90th Division
veterans] and I told him about her and asked him to find out if the woman is
still alive. He wrote back to me and he said, yes, he found her, that she lives
only a few miles from where Henri lived. So he said when you get to the hotel –
we told him what hotel in Paris we were going to be at – he said he would leave
a message for me so I’d know where she lives. So when we got into Paris we got
a message stating that her daughter – without the legs but with the artificial
limbs; she married a lawyer, and she had one daughter, and the daughter was
going to come by in the morning and pick us up and take us to the big hospital
in Paris where they take care of the people. So they took us over and we met
for the first time. And she didn’t know that it was the infantry that was
stationed at her farm – she didn’t remember that it was infantry, she thought
there were artillery people, and she didn’t know who I was or that I had taken
care of her until I explained to her; I told her that one day one of our
officers was going through their barn, and he moved some hay aside and he found
a German motorcycle that her brother had hidden, that he’d stolen from the
Germans. I told her about that and she said, “Oh, my God, you were
there, on the farm.”
And I said, “Yes, I was the one that took care of you.”
Well, with all of this the Air Force had adopted her and they’ve had her
come over to some of their reunions. And if you ever go to the Airborne Museum
in Ste. Mere Eglise, they have a whole display about her there.
I met her in 1985, and then when I went over in 1994 we stayed with her
at her home for a few days and she took us around and she introduced us to the
curator of the museum at Ste. Mere Eglise.
Her name is Yvette Hamel. Incidentally, there’s a book, one of the
fliers, he’s a doctor now, his wife met her and his wife wrote a book about her
called “Sunward I’ve Climbed,” and it’s been translated into French, too. It’s
an interesting book. I’ve got it. She sent me a copy, signed and all.
No comments:
Post a Comment