Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
BASE HOSPITAL #30, CLERMONT
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The next day we arrived at our base hospital. It was #30 of California in the resort hotels in Clermont Ferand-Puy de dome. A beautiful building, wonderful personnel. Most of the personnel were from the Bay area in California. But I had one nurse who was French, another who was British and one from Elko, Nevada.
When we reached the hospital, bearers carried my stretcher up to the room on one of the upper floors. The doctor was having other patients placed in beds. So I proceeded to stick my foot in it again. I unwrapped the blankets that swathed me, sat up on the stretcher with the idea I could help and expedite my move by being all ready. The harried Doctor apparently thought I was going to try to climb into bed by myself and very sharply told me to stay where I was until he was ready for me. I did and finally reached a nice clean bed, the first real bed I had had for months. This Doctor later had charge of my case and was a most devoted physician, many times visiting me especially at night to be sure I was as comfortable as my wound made possible. He was the kind of Doctor who said he did maybe 10% in the healing process by keeping the wound clean but that God did the healing.
There were four of us in my room. I was the only one who was bed fast. One was a Captain from Ft. Collins, Colorado, about 6 ft. 4 in. with a body wound from which he recovered rather quickly. Another was a young Lieutenant from New Yore City who was in an unhappy state physically. A shell had hit the overhead beam of a door just as he was entering the door. A fragment tore out one eye and went on down and tore off all the muscle on the top and outside of his shoulder. In the early weeks he had that arm in a splint and sling that pulled his hand across his chest and up over the other shoulder. A very awkward way to have to operate but it was the only way the shoulder muscles and nerves could rebuild. He was a wonderful character outwardly, happy and cheerful, always joking about himself and his condition. Later, after the splint was removed he exercised by kneeling on the floor, grasping the handle of our coal scuttle with the hand of the injured arm and then raising his body until the weight of the scuttle bore on his shoulder muscles in an effort to make them stretch. And his mimics of what his experience was going to be with his glass eye kept us in stitches. Our other roommate was completely ambulatory and spent little time in our room. He could even get about outside and see some of the surrounding country. We had hardly got settled when the real armistice came about. There was much celebration outside and some extra goodies with our chow inside. That the war was really successfully over was enough.
In due time I went to the operating room to have my wound thoroughly checked. They removed a section of flesh just like taking out a section of orange. The edges were brought together and held with 2 six inch wide strips of adhesive around by leg. There was some evidence of gas gangrene infection having been present so they ran Carrol-Cakin irrigation tubes all through the wound, one tube going clear around the bone at the fracture site. I had a container hanging above the head of my bed and periodically the nurse or an orderly would open the valve and allow a flood of the solution to flow through the wound and out on the mat in the dressing. My leg was in a Thomas traction splint that has a padded loop at the body end and this pressed up against the body at the crotch. There was an iron rod down each side of the leg with a cross bar below the foot. My entire lower leg was encased in adhesive to which silk cords were tied. These were brought down and tied over the foot bar with 75 pounds of tension placed on the leg to keep the leg from shortening as much as possible.
Our stay at Clermont was uneventful. The routine became somewhat monotonous but we had wonderful Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years chows. There was some reading material and no restriction on our correspondence so many letters were written. Our ambulatory room mates brought in descriptions of their trips to town, some possibly enlarged a bit, but all interesting. Our wounds were dressed everyday, in my case because of the irrigation, twice a day. I was the youngest in our room and the only bedfast case. So the nurses would frequently sit down and chat with me in the afternoons and evenings. We had record players and an odd variety of records. All of this helped pass the time.
Then, just after January 1st, word was received that Base #30 was being deactivated and would return home as soon as the patient load was lifted. This meant no more new arrivals and a gradual loss of the old ward mates as fast as transfers could be arranged. Pretty soon my roommates began to leave and in a short time I was the only occupant of the room. In the big ward behind us there were quite a number of cases. These too were being transferred as rapidly as possible and soon there was only one officer left in that ward. To help both of us they moved him into my room so we had each other for company. He was a Lieutenant Henry Pancoast from San Antonio, Texas. He was an aviator who had been shot down from some 7500 feet incurring serious body wounds but no bone damage. So for the next two or three weeks we went along knowing that sooner or later we too, would be transferred. Well, one night when there was a terrific snow blowing and it was cold, in came the orderlies to get us ready for the train. We were leaving. All the personnel came up to say good-bye and about midnight we took off by ambulance for the depot. The train, of course, was late so we were placed under a shed roof on the platform. The personnel kept us supplied with hot chocolate and sandwiches and we waited for two or three hours. The train arrived and we thought we were on our way. Pretty soon the orderlies took Pancoast's stretcher aboard. I waited expectantly for them to come back and get me. No one came. After a little, my doctor came over and said he had bad news. I seemed that the train was not taking orthopedic patients by only body wounds etc. and would not be going to an orthopedic hospital. So I was to be returned to Base #30. I was and I was placed in the big ward that had some fifty beds with me the only patient. I was the only officer patient left in the whole hospital and for all I knew maybe the only patient. It was terribly depressing. The staff went out of their way to keep me company. There was nearly always a nurse or corpsman sitting on the next bed keeping up a conversation of sorts trying to keep my spirits up. But they were physically OK, with duties to do so it wasn't like a wounded buddy.
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