Ebook: And if I perish: frontline U.S. Army nurses in World War II

The North Africa Campaign -- Operation Torch--U.S Army Nurses in the Invasion Force: D-Day North Africa--8 November 1942 -- Nurses at the Battle of Kasserine Pass: In It All the Way--January-February 1943 -- The Allied Push to Bizerte and Tunis: Perfecting Combat Medicine--February-May 1943 -- Staging for Italy: Needed, 50,000 Army Nurses--Spring-Summer 1943 -- The Italian Campaign -- Nurses in the Sicilian Campaign: Tough Enough for Patton's Army--10 July-1 September 1943 -- The Sinking of HMHS Newfoundland: Army Medical Teams at Salerno--26 August-27 September 1943 -- From Salerno to the Gustav Line: Army Nurses Going Where They Are Needed--29 September 1943-25 January 1944 -- Hell's Half-Acre--The Anzio Beachhead: And If I Perish ... --22 January-15 February 1944 -- Stalemate at Anzio Beachhead and Monte Cassino: Nurses Endure with the Rest of the Troops--12 February-15 May 1944 -- Breakout and Pursuit: The U.S. Army Enters Rome--15 May-5 June 1944 -- The Liberation of France -- The Invasion of Normandy: Army Nurses in Northern France--6 June-21 August 1944 -- Operation Dragoon and the Battle of the Rhone Valley: Combat Medicine in Southern France--15 August-15 September 1944 -- Confronting the Siegfried Line: Medicine Under Canvas--15 September-15 December 1944 -- The Conquest of Germany -- The Battle of the Bulge: Army Nurses Meet the Challenge--16 December 1944-15 January 1945 -- Battle of the Rhineland: Army Nurses Persevere--15 January-23 March 1945 -- The Surrender of Germany: Army Nurses at Dachau and Nordhausen--29 April-8 May 1945 -- Epilogue: Forgetting and Remembering.;A galvanizing narrative of the wartime role played by U.S. Army nurses--from the invasion of North Africa to the bloody Italian campaign to the decisive battles in France and the Rhineland. More than 59,000 nurses volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps alone: 217 lost their lives (16 by enemy action), and more than 1,600 were decorated for meritorious service and bravery under fire. But their stories have rarely been heard. Now, drawing on never-before-published eyewitness accounts--many heroic, some mundane and comic--Monahan and Neidel-Greenlee take us to the front lines, to the withering fire on the beaches of Anzio and Normandy, and to the field and evacuation hospitals, as well as bombed and burned hospital ships. We witness the nurses--and the doctors with whom they served--coping with the physical and psychological damage done to the soldiers in combat. We see them working--often with only meager supplies and overwhelmed by the sheer number of casualties--to save the lives and limbs of thousands of wounded troops. With them we experience the almost constant packing up and moving on to keep up with advancing troops, foxholes dug under camp beds, endless mud, and treacherous minefields. The vividness and immediacy of their recollections provide us with a powerfully visceral, deeply affecting sense of their experiences--terrifying and triumphant, exhausting and exhilarating. A revelatory work that at last gives voice to the nurses who played such an essential role in World War II.