Posted by
Rich Simpson on Sunday, May 24, 2009 3:38:37 PM
This is the story of Ethel Guffey and her incredible journey. A journey that started on her family’s dairy farm in Shawnee, Oklahoma and ended with her involvement in the largest air, land and sea battle in history. It became a significant turning point in World War II. D-Day.
In September of 1935, at age 19, she entered Saint Anthony’s School of Nursing in Oklahoma City.
Ethel Guffey entered the U.S. Air Force at Will Rogers Field in Oklahoma City in March of 1942.
The next month she was indirectly involved with a piece of history. While working a 12 hour nursing shift, she learned that the officer that she was taking care of, Colonel Hume Peabody, was to have flown on a raid in which legendary flier Jimmy Doolittle led 16 Army B-25 bombers through Japanese defenses on April 18, 1942. The strike on Tokyo, and other cities, was a huge boost for american morale.
On Christmas Eve, 1942, she arrived at the train station in Louisville, Kentucky. From there, she and eight other nurses rode in a truck to Bowman Field to report for duty.
She graduated from The School of Air Evacuation on February 18, 1943. There she had learned to march and lead a parade of military personnel on the base. She was the first nurse to ever lead other nurses in a parade.
On July 27, 1943 she, along with the 806th Air Evacuation Squadron, arrived at Liverpool, England. From there they rode by train to Welford Park, England. They later became attached to the 9th Air Force.
In the fall of 1943, while assigned to “detached service” duty, she was assigned to the 390th Bomb Group which was eight miles from The English Channel. While there, she helped flight surgeons take care of the wounded to get them ready for the thirty mile trip to the nearest hospital.
They had been wounded while on bombing missions over Germany. Lt.Ethel Guffey remembers one serviceman in particular. The back of his head had been blown off during a mission. However, he was still able to talk. He said “I’ll never get to see my baby.” Those were the last words he spoke before he died.
On June 6, 1944, in Grove England, Lt.Guffey was leading a short order marching drill. It was during that drill that she and the other nurses in her unit saw planes returning from the Normandy Invasion.
A few days later Guffey, and The 806th Air Evacuation Squadron, landed on a hospital landing strip to evacuate the wounded that had been brought to the strip. Large balloons were positioned high above the landing strip to keep German fighters from strafing the area. The wounded were then flown across The English Channel. Before being evacuated the wounded had been cared for by nurses that were stationed at field hospitals.
Lt. Guffey felt that the more she talked to her patients the more they would talk. And talking seemed to help them cope with their situation. These wounded had a part in making history. Lt. Ethel Guffey, of the 806th Air Evacuation Squadron helped them make the transition from being wounded to being a part of history. The evacuation of those wounded at Normandy went on for about a month.
On one of many flights across The English Channel, that Lt. Guffey experienced, the cloud cover was so thick that the pilot had to search for a while to find an opening so the plane could land. A German prisoner was aboard on that particular flight. Later, it was discovered that the plane was completely out of gas.
In October of 1944, while doing trans-Atlantic evacuation, she and another nurse went to a deli on 36th street in New York City. She was not aware that you had to have food coupons in order to make a purchase. When Lt. Guffey failed to produce a coupon the woman behind the counter scolded her. She said “There’s a war going on you know.” Another customer gave them enough coupons to make their purchase.
It was one of those cases where the person that’s feels the need to straighten everyone else out is the one that can’t grasp the whole picture. The fact that both the nurses were in their military uniforms should have made her realize that maybe they weren’t regular customers and maybe, just maybe, they were involved in that war.
In World War II there were no tv network news anchors, back home, with their own agenda. There were no tv network news anchors that felt like they had to mold the news, to their liking, before presenting their own slanted version to the American public.
Radio reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Lowell Thomas, and newspaper reporters like Ernie Pyle simply did what they were supposed to do, they reported the facts!
They didn’t continually say things that would divide the country and then follow it up with a self serving poll that would show how the country was so divided. They reported the facts!
Lt. Ethel Guffey, the farm girl from Shawnee Oklahoma, was made a Captain before returning home from the war.
On July 23,1945 in Paris, France, she married Captain Richard Simpson of The United States Army Air Corps. She had met him earlier in the war at Bowman Field, Kentucky. She returned home on December 18, 1945.
On Saturday, May 29th, 2004 The World War II Veterans Memorial was dedicated, in Washington, D.C., to the veterans of “The Greatest Generation.” They were thanked for their service that “helped save the world.”
Today Ethel Simpson lives in Texas. She enjoys taking walks, watching sunsets and visiting with her friends. Last December she celebrated her 93rd birthday.
Sixty-five years ago she sealed her place in history. She was part of “The Greatest Generation” that “helped save the world.”
Her family is very proud of her and loves her very much……… Thanks Mom.