Water for the Troops: Evacuation Hospitals and Air Fields 1942 - 1944

By Dolores Beal Stephens

This book is about a forty-five-year-old man who left his wife of twenty-three years, his four children, and his home to volunteer in the US Army during World War II. It is about Florence, his wife, who not only shouldered the responsibility of their home, paying the bills on a small income, but also worked as a volunteer Red Cross nurses aide for two days a week, a volunteer at the Red Cross headquarters in Carmel, New York, for two days a week, and later as head of the Red Cross Special Services at the Red Cross headquarters. It is also about a family coping with my fathers absence and waiting for his return. It is about his expressions of love in his v-mail and airmail letters for his little son, his teenage daughter, and two adult children. Finally, it is also about the small village of Brewster, fifty two miles north of New York City, where this soldier and patriot, my father, was raised and acquired the values that guided his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781490787510

Dolores Beal Stephens

Dolores Beal Stephens is the author of Those Who Served/Those Who Waited and Tonetta Lake - A Memoir. She was a teenager during World War II and thus her books reflect her experiences and memories of the years between 1938 and 1944. Water For The Troops contains the surviving letters and journals that her brother had in his possession; she was delighted to receive them and to finally give their father the recognition and honor he deserves. She has spoken at Veterans Home in Tilton, N.H. and other veterans groups - the Rotary Club in Wolfeboro, N. H. the Southeast Museum in Brewster, N. Y. and the Wright Museum in Wolfeboro, N. H. Since 2002 she has served as a volunteer docent at the Wright Museum for which service the founder David Wright in 2003 presented her with the Voice Of The Museum Award and in 2017 she was presented a Lifetime Award recognizing her dedication. Mrs. Stephens lives with her husband in New Hampshire.

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Copyright 2018 Dolores Beal Stephens.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8746-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8745-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8751-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935582

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter I   The Early Years

Chapter II   From Home To North Africa

Chapter III

Chapter Iv   On The Shores Of The Mediterranean

Chapter V   Sicily

Chapter VI

Chapter VII   Home Again

Epilogue

In Memory Of

William Ross Beal who served his country in WWI and WWII

Florence Letitia Simms Beal

Lt. Col. William Ross Beal, Jr. (retired) who served in Vietnam

Acknowledgements

An Army At Dawn

by Rick Atkinson

The Day Of Battle

by Rick Atkinson

Southeast Museum

Brewster, N. Y.

Those Who Served/Those Who Waited

Dolores Beal Stephens

Many thanks to the descendant of the Maine Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Robert P. Tristram Coffin who gave me permission to use his poem,

Walls Are Not So Necessary As Love.

Much appreciation and love to Diana Talbot, who went through

the entire manuscript, bringing her knowledge of writing and creativity to the last round of editing. She gave the manuscript the final touch.

Warmth, gratitude and love go to John Austin who from the very beginning liked the story of my father, the work he did and his love for all family members. John, an experienced journalist, edited the manuscript and gave me welcomed advice.

Preface

A note about the process used throughout this book: A large percentage of the written material is composed of over two hundred air mail stationery and V-mail letters, from my father, Captain William Ross Beal, during his service in the United States Army during World War II. There were also a few letters saved that were written by my mother and some written by me. I avoided putting my father’s words in italics, because his words compose most of the book. For the most part, I have not touched my father’s words. Any comments inserted by me are written in italics. Because there are several longer passages by me, these were not written in italics. Quotation marks were used in the case of my father quoting another person. When I came upon a city or town that could have been mis-spelled, and I could not locate it on a map, I put a question mark. The journal was written in tiny penmanship using two small notebooks, and it was necessary to use a magnifying glass to transcribe it. The journal shows in detail the progress of drilling a well and also information that he could not or did not want to write in letters home. I have eliminated those details of the drilling, but tried to give some information about location and the results of the drilling; after all that is why my father was commissioned and sent to North Africa and Sicily. I took on the task of writing this book, because I felt the American people were missing a part of the puzzle, that of my father’s work of providing fresh water, being a part of that first large-scale military invasion on foreign soil by American forces.

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Capt. Wm Ross Beal

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This book is about a forty-five year old man, who left his wife of twenty-three years, his four children and his home, volunteering his service in the U.S.Army during World War II. It is about Florence, his wife who not only shouldered the responsibility of their home, paying the bills on a small income but also worked as a volunteer 2 days a week as a Red Cross Nurse’s Aide, 2 days a week volunteering at the Red Cross headquarters in Carmel, N. Y. and later as Head of the Red Cross Special Services at Red Cross Headquarters. It is also about a family coping with my father’s absence and waiting for his return. It is about his expressions of love in his V-mail and airmail letters for his little son, his teenage daughter and two adult children. Finally it is also about the small village of Brewster, fifty two miles north of New York City, where this soldier and patriot, my father, was raised and acquired the values that guided his life.

William Ross Beal became Captain Beal in early 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 and after the United States declared war on Japan and Germany. He was not a combat officer. His work with his crew of sixteen men, including a lieutenant, was to install water systems to meet the needs of a thirsty army after it landed on the shores of North Africa and Sicily. It entailed overseeing the drilling of wells, moving from air fields, to evacuation hospitals to drilling in the desert. The troops were instructed to avoid drinking the local water, as it was not potable, but instead to drink only the water provided by the water battalion. It is said that an army travels on its stomach. Just as certainly, an army travels on its canteens. A dehydrated soldier soon can become a dead or disabled soldier. The bottled water industry did not yet exist, and carrying enough water in bulk to keep our troops alive was a logistical nightmare. Water had to be found and recovered from the ground where our armies operated.

Hastily forming the 401st Engineer Water Battalion meant that water-well drilling machines, pumping equipment, pipe and tools had to be acquired from around the country and sent to staging areas. There were other staging areas and ports from which our convoy ships left, but my knowledge is limited to the 401st Water Battalion which boarded ships at New York Harbor. In the fall of 1942, the well drilling equipment had to be brought to the docks there, loaded on ships set to sail in convoys that would face wolf packs of German U-boats, as they crossed the Atlantic. America was about to launch its first major assault on the Axis - Operation Torch - the invasion with British forces of French North Africa, occupied by the Germans and Italian forces. Without the water my father and his men were tasked to find and recover in that arid theatre of war, much of it covered by desert, Operation Torch likely would have failed.

During his time on a convoy ship headed for North Africa, my father wrote his family every day. He wrote about his love of each family member and the homesickness he suffered during that trip with nothing to do while crossing the Atlantic. He made the best of it by playing cards, looking up his two former employees who were attached to his unit and reporting on the bad storm his ship went through. As he traveled throughout French Morocco and Algeria, when not working, his loneliness for his family was sometimes unbearable. When he reached North Africa, he began to keep a diary and journal in two small notebooks. These little notebooks were written in pencil and ink, but the penmanship, though legible, was so small, it was necessary to use a magnifying glass. My father may have been trying to conserve paper, not knowing when or where he might replenish his supply, when he ran out. V-mail Victory Mail, was encouraged by our government in order to save space on the ships going overseas. The original letter was written on a special stationery and photographically reduced before being mailed from an armed forces postal center. V-mail was not available to our troops until sometime after they were on land. He felt closer to family members, when he received the original hand-written letter rather than a small, processed V-mail. Being an officer, my father censored his own outgoing mail. All mail was censored and this was to reduce the chance that the enemy would intercept the letter and find valuable information that could be used against our country. In many cases their families received letters mostly blacked out and devoid of any news, and their family would report back telling of this.

Some soldiers reacted with humor to the situation, as in the case of the following ditty, whose author is unknown. Rick Atkinson included this in his book, An Army At Dawn:

                    "After leaving where we were before we left for

                    here, not knowing we were coming here from

                    there, we couldn’t tell whether we had arrived

                    here or not. Nevertheless, we now are here and

                    not there. The weather is just as it always is at this

                    season. The people here are just like they look."

Dolores Beal Stephens

Chapter I

THE EARLY YEARS

William Ross Beal

William Ross was always called Ross, probably, because he had a cousin in Elyria, Ohio, named William Beal, called Bill. Young Ross did not think of war. He didn’t imagine himself a sailor or a soldier. He was such a fun-loving kid, interested in many things. He loved the woods and all that grew there, and he liked to fish in the nearby streams and lakes surrounding Brewster, New York. He was sure of the love of his mother, Nellie, and his father, Philip Franklin, and surrounded at the dinner table by them and his siblings. Ross had one older brother, called Mose named for their grandfather, Moses Clay, two younger sisters, Aileen and Helen, called Babe, and his young brother, Philip F., Jr. Ross and Phil got along very well and later became partners in the business they would inherit. As with many boys, they liked to tease and play tricks on their sisters. These were my aunts and uncles, most of whom I saw fairly frequently, as I was growing up. I was particularly close to my Uncle Phil’s son, my cousin Malcolm, because we would often be near the office, where his father and mine would be talking business. Malcolm always had a baseball mitt in his hand, as he was the school’s best pitcher. When we were young teenagers, his dad would sometimes bring him to our house on a Sunday morning, and we would walk together on our way to his church and my church. A fondness grew between us.

Philip Sr.’s father, Moses Beal, came from Germany in 1891. He invented and patented the first Rotary Core Hydraulic Drilling Machine and carried on his business in Elyria, Ohio. Philip decided to head east, where he settled for a time in Dover Plains, New York, drilling for water and drilling test holes in granite and marble. After a few years, he married Nellie Wilcox and brought her to Brewster, N.Y., where they rented rooms on Prospect Street. Both Mose and Ross were born there.

They found the perfect property for having their Dutch colonial house built on Putnam Avenue, which was on the edge of the village, and by walking across the bridge over the railroad tracks, they were within walking distance of both the village stores, the Methodist Church and the school. There, my grandfather started his water-well drilling business in the large area behind the house, later moving the office out of the house and into one of the buildings. In the early years, Nellie kept the books in the dining room, where she could sit and look at what was going on in that area; she could also enjoy her pink climbing roses that grew along the wall. Nellie grew up in Ohio and had a college education, majoring in music at Oberlin College. She had a piano in the living room of their home, where on many afternoons, when the chores of caring for a growing family were completed to her satisfaction, she sat at the upright piano and played hymns and other simple songs. Ross took violin lessons, and in 1904, when he was seven years old, at his mother’s request he played before the ladies of the WCTU, (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) when they met at their home. At one time Nellie was the president of the local chapter. In 1915 the notice in the local newspaper told of Mrs. P. F. Beal being elected 2nd Vice President of The Equal Suffrage Campaign Club.

Brewster was still in its infancy with all dirt roads and village buildings constructed in the 1800’s by Walter Brewster. He and his brother, James, who also came to Brewster, were descendants of Elder William Brewster, Mayflower passenger and patriarch of the Plymouth Colony. Walter Brewster designed the layout of the village with its unusually wide Main Street and an island at one end, so that one-way traffic had to go around it. A red brick bank was built on that island enhanced by the green grass surrounding it. During that period the railroad came as far as Brewster and was being called Brewster’s Station, because of all the construction materials that Walter Brewster ordered. The name Brewster stuck. The round-house was built a half mile north of the village, where the trains from New York City would turn around to head back to Grand Central Station.

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Brewster School

While Ross was in the lower grades in the Brewster School, a fire burned the school to the ground. Everyone left safely with the help of heroic teachers and older students. Classes were then held in various buildings in the village, while another school house in the same location on the hill overlooking the village was being built, this time constructed of red bricks.

Ross was very excited about joining the Boy Scouts, but he was not quite old enough. One day, when he knew the scout group was going to hike to Peach Lake about five miles away, he wanted to see what it was all about. So, he walked into the village where he knew they would start their journey, and as they began their walk, he brought up the end of the line of scouts. The Scout Master was too involved with the other boys to notice this interloper, so it wasn’t until they were setting up camp at Peach Lake that Ross was noticed. The Scout Master told Ross he could not stay with the scouts and sent him on his way home. What a disappointment that must have been! Whether Ross told his parents about this escapade is not known. As an adult, some of his fondest recollections were of being a Boy Scout. When Ross became a Boy Scout, he did not know how to swim. He was taken out on the lake in a boat, pushed overboard, and that is how he learned to swim. For that he earned a Merit Badge. He won an award for collecting and naming the most wild flowers, his award being a copy of the book, Black Beauty. That book was on the family book shelf many decades later. During their time in the Boy Scouts, Ross and Mose entered the Putnam County athletic meets held at the Fair Grounds in Carmel. Mose, in the older group came in first, running in the half-mile race. He also came in first in the 100 yard dash. Ross came in second in the 220 yard dash and first in the Sack Race.

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When the United States entered the fighting in France during World War I, Mose joined the Army and was sent to France. When he returned home, he finished college and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Dental School. He and his family lived in Poughkeepsie, New York, for many years, where he had his dental practice. Ross, being just old enough to enter military service, joined the Navy and was assigned duty on the U.S.S. Amphitrite. It was a Monitor class ship that was not considered a seagoing vessel, but could be used in the defense of the east coast.

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Ross in WWI Navy uniform with mother and father

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Ross next to guns on U.S.S. Amphitrite

When he came home, he joined his father’s business as a workman on a drilling machine. The machines had to be towed by truck to the drilling site, and Ross, not having an automobile, would board during the week at the home, in the town where the well was being drilled. This could take three weeks or more.

It was on a weekend, not long after becoming a civilian again, that he borrowed his father’s car and drove to one of the Long Island Sound beaches in Connecticut. There he met a girl of eighteen named Florence Letitia Simms. He continued to see her, met her mother, and young step-sister, Norma, and step-father. He soon asked her to marry him. She was a city girl, and he a country boy. Florence had to go to work when she was fifteen years old. So, when Ross and Florence met, she was working at a switch board in an office in Norwalk, Connecticut, where she lived. While there, an artist from Westport, seeing this lovely girl with brunette hair, asked her if she would be willing to model once a week for a struggling artist. She accepted and enjoyed the creative atmosphere, as well as earning extra money. The artist, Henry Raleigh, sketched in charcoal what was called a story picture. His illustrations were published in Collier’s Magazine depicting the gist of the story below. One such picture showed a girl with her hat and coat leaving her home with a satchel in her hand, and there were other similar picture stories. There were four such framed charcoal sketches that in later years were handed down to her four children. Lee Townsend, Henry Raleigh and other struggling artists in Westport, Connecticut, including the first American abstract artist, Arthur Dove, treated Florence with kindness. After the couple decided to marry, Ross asked Florence to give up posing for fear of raising eyebrows in Brewster. She was considered to be beautiful by many.

In April of 1919 they married and honeymooned at a home in Peekskill, N.Y., where Ross was putting in a well for the owner. She was welcomed by all the Beal family members, Ross’s mother being especially kind and helpful to this young girl. Ross preferred to call his young bride Florence rather than Flossie. She was called by this name from childhood by her loving Grandmother Cox and family members in New Jersey, where she had been born. When Flossie was five years old, her father, William Bross Simms was killed in a train accident.

Florence and Ross lived in an apartment in Brewster, until a house being built for them by Ross’s father was completed. Many years later, she told the story of living in this small apartment and being called on by two older ladies of the village - what would be a welcoming call. Florence left the ladies for a few minutes, while she made tea, and while doing so, she heard one of them say, I see she has a mirror on the wall! Welcome to Victorian Brewster!

Two girls, Norma Jane and Joan Ross, were born in the new house on Putnam Terrace. After a few years, they bought a larger, Mid-Victorian house nearby at 12 Putnam Avenue, where Ross had played as a boy with his friend who lived there. They were a fun-loving couple and made friends easily. I was the first child to be born in a hospital, Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, ten miles from Brewster. It was in these early years that I came to be known by friends and family as Dodie.

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Ross was a warm and loving person who made family life fun and interesting. He not only took Florence on a long auto trip to Sault Saint Marie, in Michigan, but also while there, arranged for their first ride in an airplane. Florence had an innate flair for dressing, tastefully, beautifully. The dresses were just below mid-calf, and hats were commonly seen on both men and women on the street, as well as in church. Fur pieces worn around the neck and shoulders were in style, and Florence wore one as a young woman. After the Crash of 1929, the families of Brewster, as with the rest of the country, found life difficult. Jobs were disappearing. Hobos occasionally came to our back door requesting food at dinner time. My mother always prepared a dish of our dinner with a large cup of coffee, and he would sit on our back porch and enjoy a good meal. The P. F. Beal & Sons well drilling company continued to have business, but they were often paid in goods. In one case payment was a beautiful green, woolen coat with a fur collar for Ross to give his wife. A stone martin fur piece was also in payment. The customer who offered these expensive items owned a company in the fur district of Manhattan, but did not have the cash for payment of work done at his home in Putnam County. Many families survived, because they had a large family vegetable garden and perhaps chickens and a pig. Children wore hand-me-down clothing and hand-made clothes. Children did not ask for new and colorful clothes. The American people sat near their radios and listened to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fire-side chats and learned what was being done to help needy families and to re-assure them.

The Beal children attended Brewster High School and walked to St. Andrew’s Church on Sunday mornings. Often in the fall, our father announced at the breakfast table, that after church, we were going to drive out of town to where he knew there was a hickory tree. We children were excited and climbed in the family LaSalle, happy with anticipation. It was a cool fall day, perfect for picking up the hickory nuts from around the tree. We knew that Daddy liked to make penuche with chopped hickory nuts. That would be for another Sunday afternoon, when we would help pick the meats from the nuts. Later when the weather turned to freezing, and I was about four years old, our dad drove us up Turk Hill Road to Vreeland’s Pond, where he had gotten permission to use the family pond for skating. My father loved to ice skate, and when he put his racing skates on, he took off across the pond, while