Tom Brokaw by The Greatest Generation Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: The Greatest Generation
Tags: Fiction
located in a French château; they converted the milk storage room to an operating room, and by late that afternoon the château grounds were covered with hundreds of wounded young Americans. Van Gorder and the other surgeons operated around the clock for thirty-six hours, always wearing their helmets because the château was often in the line of fire. The Army had issued the medical team several cases of Scotch whiskey and Van Gorder later remembered, âThe only thing that kept us going was sipping that Scotch. Finally, I got so tired my head fell down into an open abdomen.â He was ordered to go back to his tent for some rest. En route, a soldier offered him hot chocolate. When he decided to go back for the hot chocolate, a German bomb hit his tent, demolishing it. It was the first of many narrow escapes for Dr. Van, as he was called.
Altogether, it was a frantic and grisly scene that even now, more than fifty years later, Dr. Van Gorder cannot remove from his memory. âI have flashbacks every day,â he says. âAll those boys being slaughtered, sometimes two hundred boys and only ten surgeons. The war made me a better doctor because I had to do all kinds of surgery. There were no trauma surgery books before the war to learn from.â
Van Gorderâs D-Day initiation wasnât the end of his frontline experience; it was only the beginning. His unit stayed with the 101st over the next six months as it fought its way across Europe, headed for the heart of Germany. They were in the thick of the fighting during the long siege in Belgium, and during the Battle of the Bulge.
In December 1944, Dr. Van Gorder and his colleague and friend, Dr. John Rodda, were in the middle of surgery when their makeshift operating room came under heavy fire from German forces. âI was practically lying on my stomach operating on patients,â Van Gorder remembers, âbecause of the shooting coming right into the tent.
âI was the only one who spoke German, so I went to the end of the tent and waved a towel through the flap. I told the German commander we had more than fifty wounded, including German POWs. He told me to load them up. I had to leave one patient behind with his stomach open.â They were taken prisoner on December 19, 1944, Dr. Van Gorderâs thirty-second birthday.
Dr. Charles Van Gorder in the RoddaâVan
Gorder Hospital and Clinic, Andrews, North Carolina
(left to right): Dr. Charles Van Gorder, Dr. John S.
Rodda, nurse
âCaptain Charles Van Gorder demonstrates
what the well-dressed airborne surgeon wears on an
invasion,â June 13, 1944
Charles Van Gorder, MD, 1994
Van Gorder had suffered shrapnel wounds in his knees while the operating tent was under fire, so his friend Dr. Rodda supported him as they trekked through the snow under the watchful German guns. Van Gorder is convinced that without Roddaâs help the Germans would have shot him as a straggler.
He returned the favor when Rodda became ill. Two young American doctors, who had seen more death and suffering than most graduating classes of doctors were likely to see in a lifetime, were now trying just to keep each other alive. Nothing in medical school had prepared them for this primal struggle of being prisoners of war in a bleak winter landscape in the heart of enemy territory. Back home, their families had no idea of what they were going through, and it was just as well.
Van Gorder, Rodda, and the other prisoners were packed into boxcars, and the train moved them to the north of Germany, where they stayed on a siding for three days, locked inside. âHalf of us would stand and half of us would sit in rotation because it was so crowded,â Van Gorder remembers.
Van Gorder got out of his confinement when the Germans needed a doctor to operate on a soldier needing an appendectomy. It was almost a fatal mission, however. American planes attacked the German train, not knowing there were
Altogether, it was a frantic and grisly scene that even now, more than fifty years later, Dr. Van Gorder cannot remove from his memory. âI have flashbacks every day,â he says. âAll those boys being slaughtered, sometimes two hundred boys and only ten surgeons. The war made me a better doctor because I had to do all kinds of surgery. There were no trauma surgery books before the war to learn from.â
Van Gorderâs D-Day initiation wasnât the end of his frontline experience; it was only the beginning. His unit stayed with the 101st over the next six months as it fought its way across Europe, headed for the heart of Germany. They were in the thick of the fighting during the long siege in Belgium, and during the Battle of the Bulge.
In December 1944, Dr. Van Gorder and his colleague and friend, Dr. John Rodda, were in the middle of surgery when their makeshift operating room came under heavy fire from German forces. âI was practically lying on my stomach operating on patients,â Van Gorder remembers, âbecause of the shooting coming right into the tent.
âI was the only one who spoke German, so I went to the end of the tent and waved a towel through the flap. I told the German commander we had more than fifty wounded, including German POWs. He told me to load them up. I had to leave one patient behind with his stomach open.â They were taken prisoner on December 19, 1944, Dr. Van Gorderâs thirty-second birthday.
Dr. Charles Van Gorder in the RoddaâVan
Gorder Hospital and Clinic, Andrews, North Carolina
(left to right): Dr. Charles Van Gorder, Dr. John S.
Rodda, nurse
âCaptain Charles Van Gorder demonstrates
what the well-dressed airborne surgeon wears on an
invasion,â June 13, 1944
Charles Van Gorder, MD, 1994
Van Gorder had suffered shrapnel wounds in his knees while the operating tent was under fire, so his friend Dr. Rodda supported him as they trekked through the snow under the watchful German guns. Van Gorder is convinced that without Roddaâs help the Germans would have shot him as a straggler.
He returned the favor when Rodda became ill. Two young American doctors, who had seen more death and suffering than most graduating classes of doctors were likely to see in a lifetime, were now trying just to keep each other alive. Nothing in medical school had prepared them for this primal struggle of being prisoners of war in a bleak winter landscape in the heart of enemy territory. Back home, their families had no idea of what they were going through, and it was just as well.
Van Gorder, Rodda, and the other prisoners were packed into boxcars, and the train moved them to the north of Germany, where they stayed on a siding for three days, locked inside. âHalf of us would stand and half of us would sit in rotation because it was so crowded,â Van Gorder remembers.
Van Gorder got out of his confinement when the Germans needed a doctor to operate on a soldier needing an appendectomy. It was almost a fatal mission, however. American planes attacked the German train, not knowing there were