Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
NAVAL HOSPITAL AT PORTSMOUTH
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My civies had not much more than been delivered when the Navy Department announce that all naval patients were to be transferred back to Navy Hospitals. So I had Mom send me my suit case. I packed my new duds in it and expressed them home. You could not wear civies at a Navy facility at that time. Needless to say I figuratively cried on Miss Butler's shoulder, I and a ward mate, Captain Percy Wilson. Just when we were getting started on a rehabilitation program he and I were being transferred to the Navy Hospital at Portsmouth, New Hampshire which was primarily a medical hospital, not orthopedic. A night or two later we were loaded into an ambulance and taken to the docks at Brooklyn Navy yard and place aboard the hospital ship Mercy. The next day it took off for Portsmouth with Percy and me the only officer patients
and a bunch of enlisted men patients. Under such circumstances the ship's personnel treated us like a million dollars. We were guests of the skipper at the officers mess even though we were in pajamas. After an uneventful voyage we arrived at Portsmouth and were moved to the Hospital. We were the first over seas wounded they had had and we were received like royalty. Percy and I were given a suite, a private room each with a private bath facility between. We were on the second floor with a view out over the harbor from the front of the deck. It was mid April and things were becoming spring-like. The Marine Post Band gave us a concert about three times a week from a spot just below our bed room windows. Chow was on a menu basis with 3 or 4 choices for the main meal each day. The medics were anxious to help us but the were mostly doctors of medicine. Portsmouth was a wonderful rest home type of establishment for old men or seriously medically ill. But for young men who had largely recovered from their wounds and were not sick, it was a sort of detention camp. It was on an island in the harbor with shore contact by government tug at rather rare intervals or over the bridge by auto and who of the patients had cars in those days of 1919?
I had graduated from crutches and was using a cane which on of the aides at Livingston had named "Mehitabel" (get it?). I tried to do as much walking around the hospital and hospital grounds as I could to build up my strength and get used to my game leg and the cane. One day I was exercising indoors in the hospital corridor. My ward doctor came along and asked me why I was using a cane. I told him if I stepped out on my leg without the cane or crutch the leg would collapse like a bolding accordion. He asked how long it had been since I was wounded. We figured a little over six months. After a little conversation he asked to see me walk with the cane. I started to do so when suddenly my cane went flying down the corridor and I stepped down on my leg without the cane. The leg did not collapse. He had kicked the cane out from under me. Thereafter, I used the cane only where the going was rough or uncertain. The rest of the time I just carried it.
I finally ran into a young man, a civilian, who owned a Hudson Six touring car and who, for a fee, would use it for travel. He and I hit it off pretty well and I took several trips with him. Once we went down the coast into Massachusetts and through the woods country of New Hampshire. There was frequent train service through Portsmouth on the Boston and Maine R.R. and I made several train trips down to Boston to see various shows. I had arrived at Portsmouth in pajamas and a bath robe and there had acquired an issue type uniform. But I felt I wanted to be a little better dressed than this, so I made a trip or two down to Boston and had myself tailored a suit of dress blues. From then on when I left the island I wore my dress blues. I was much displeased when the Army area commander prohibited the wearing of Sam Browne belts. We overseas returnees felt that this was the one insignia at least we such should have been permitted to wear to indicate overseas service. I cannot say I was ever greatly taken by Boston as a city. I was handicapped in attending shows or riding the train because of my stiff knee. If I could get a seat on the right hand side of the aisle I got by fine by placing my left foot in the aisle. Otherwise, it was a problem because of the lack of leg room between seat rows. On trains which were not crowded, I would reverse the seat in front of me. I would rest my cane on both seats and rest my knee on my cane. If the car filled up and I could not continue to hold the two seats, I would have to find myself a seat where I could put my left foot in the aisle. I am sorry to say I repeatedly had people get on and with out looking swing the seat in front back over and down on my game leg before I could remove it.
Early in June, I was sitting in my arm chair in my room when I heard a human stampede coming down the corridor. My door burs open with a call to attention. In came the Hospital Commandant, the Executive Surgeon, my ward doctor and several others. The Commander was a Deutschman with a typical beard and mustache speaking English with a heavy accent. His name was Francis Wilhelm Friederich Wieber. It was rumored he had once been a Prussian Guard. I doubt it. He stormed over to me and said "Mein Gott, Lieutenant, who in the hell are you?" "Nobody in particular, Captain, Why?" "Nobody in particular eh," he said, "Nobody udder dan a Senator's son ever got a letter like dot out of the Secretary of the Navy". He slammed a letter on my table. I asked if I might read it. He assented. in effect the letter told him that he had two officers in his hospital who were dissatisfied, Captain Percy Wilson and Lieutenant W.B. Jackson. He was to interview these officers to see what they want and to see that they get it. It was signed by the Secretary of the Navy. "Vat you Vant?' he asked. "A ninety day sick leave, Sir," I answered. He went on to say he had never granted more than a 15 day leave out of that hospital in the 18 years he had been its commandant. My youthful dare deviltry got the best of me. "In view of that letter Captain, I think this may be the first time," I told him. He stared at me speechless for a few moments, then said, "You put in for it, I'll approve it." Then he tramped out of my room. I put in for the leave, which was granted, and I took off for Denver where I arrived in the first days of July.
I did not have any idea how or why this had come about. Some five years later when I opened my law office in Denver, I sent Miss Butler an announcement card. I received a nice letter from her in reply. Among other things she said she had often wondered if she had helped Wilson and me any at the time we were transferred to Portsmouth. She had gone home and so complained about our treatment to her father that he had taken the night train to Washington and complained in person to the Secretary of the Navy. They had never heard what result, if any, had been had. So I wrote and told her.
I had a happy reunion with my mother and my many friends in Denver. I looked forward to three months of rest and recuperation. I would have a chance to contact civilian orthopedists in Denver and see what could be done to get my leg healed up and something of a bend in by knee. My doctors checked my leg and said there were some bone fragments caught up in the callous where the fracture had knitted that did not appear to be going to unite with the bone proper, and live. Probably I would have to have surgery to remove them. Since I was still in the service I did not want to have non-service doctors work on it. So I decided I would wait until my leave was up and ask the service doctors to do the job. However, I had the civilian doctors dress and check my leg periodically.
Things went along nicely until about the 20th of July. Then out of a clear sky I received telegraphic orders to proceed at once to Portsmouth, N.H. naval hospital and there to report to a Marine retiring Board convened there. I got my stuff together, made my train reservations and took off. At that time the government was in control of the railroads and personnel traveling on orders were allowed a rate of one cent per mile and they allowed eight cents a mile for travel expenses so the trip was really profitable. All I had to pay was Pullman, meals, taxis, tips and so on. In due course I reached Portsmouth. At the hospital they knew nothing about any retiring board so they put me back in S.O.G. as a patient. I was disgusted, my leave cut short and no board to report to. I resumed the former routine and champed at the bit. The latter part of August the Retiring Board was set- up at the Marine Corps Barracks and I reported to it. The medical officers of the Board were the Executive Officer and my ward doctor from the hospital. The Marine officers were a Colonel from elsewhere and two Marine Officers from the Portsmouth barracks. The Executive Surgeon read a medical report detailing
my wound and medical history. "My God, Lieutenant, is all that report yours" I answered that he had better ask the doctors that. Then he asked me if I wanted to be retired. I first asked if I would ever again be physically qualified for active service. The doctors replied that in their opinion, no. I turned to the Colonel and told him that in that case I would like to be retired. He ordered me back to the hospital to await the Board's action. Later the junior officer who was the Board's recorder, tipped me off that they had recommended that I be retired. Well, another week or two went by with no further word. I was hoping to re-enter the University of Denver on my Business Administration course and the University was opening about September 10th. When time got short I wired the Commandant asking that for that reason I be ordered to proceed to my residence in Denver to await the action on my retirement. The next day I received telegraphic order to do so. Needless to say I took off at the very first possible moment for Denver.
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