The Liege Hospital is Bombed
(Footsteps Research, Public Domain)
The Liege Hospital is the 15th General Hospital in Liege, Belgium. If you read my book, you will find a typewritten narrative by “Chick” Curto concerning the V-1 bombing Thanksgiving of November 24, 1944. While it wasn’t in one of the 45 letters of my book, The WWII Chain Letter Gang, it was from a section in a special letter written afterwards in an exceedingly long typewritten narrative of Chick’s experiences from D-Day to his experience as an administrator in that hospital that was bombed in Liege, Belgium, and thereafter. Below is a direct quote by Chick Curto from that letter that was sent to his cousin, Tom Yaccarino, describing the day his unit arrived at Normandy on D-Day.
The following day was D-Day. The biggest operation in the history of warfare. The most destructive and devastating three days of any warfare. Many of the landing crafts were sunk before landing on the beach and many drowned, many killed by land mines and machine gun fire, many by aireal (sic) bombings by the Germans and many Paratroopers got hit before hitting the ground and after hitting the ground, but with our own aireal aerial bombings on the Germans and our big guns, from the many big ships, constantly blasting the Germans over the heads of our men, our men were able to establish a beach head and held until more help came.
Chick continued on and talked about the land mines and the mud along the path they were told to follow. My book gives his exact words. He was told the Germans were “just ahead.” But it was dark. And they were tired. Chick goes on:
The path was very muddy but we were glad it was because with the heavy rain and the darkness we couldn’t see the field so as long as we felt the mud under our feet we knew we were on the path. After a while I was pooped. I told the two guys to keep going and I was going to lie down a while and layed down in the mud. While lying there someone tripped over me,…
I’m leaving that part of his own recitation of his experience and skipping to later when the hospital troop traveled and finally set up in Liege, Belgium. He talked about his new surroundings and his administrative office in the building and where it was located. That was important to the story. He talked about the children in the school across from them and how he enjoyed the “delicacies” they all gave them that they received from home. Then it went on:
The day after Thanksgiving about 10:45 in the morning I heard a buzz bomb directly over head and heard the flare go off, …we are going to be hit and threw myself on the floor between the desk and the wall…I heard that terrible explosion.
Chick next talked about being knocked unconscious, then coming around to finding all the debris around him and on top of him, only to discover that he was bleeding in many places – not to mention he had a head wound. Reading my book will tell you what he did next. The fast action he undertook and the sacrifices he made to help save the patients in that hospital should have earned him a medal of some kind. You will also learn what he discovered about the school across the way.
My father and Chick were childhood friends. They grew up throughout an impoverished era of the 1920s and ‘30s. When dad was dying and delusional in 2001, he spoke to me about how he and Chick were sliding down the snow-covered slopes on garbage pail lids of the hills in Neptune, New Jersey. I said, “Dad, what a wonderful dream you had last night.” He replied, “No, Lynne, we did that today!” And later, when dad was taking his last breaths, he was crying, saying, “I’m going to miss all of you.” I leaned over, hugging him closely, and whispered in his ear, “Dad, you’re going to be with Chick.” He immediately stopped crying, became calm, and passed away that evening. I know Dad and Chick and the rest of the Wolverines are on top of that hill, looking out over the land, thinking, We have fought to the end, and we will still keep all of you free and safe.
Let’s not forget them, everyone, and all the others who they represent who fought for us in that horrific war. They were young. They were scared. They were brave. They sacrificed, many to their death. We will forever hear their cries. We want to continue to hear their words.
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