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D-Day Nurse remembers: 'That was a rough time'
At English hospital, she worked long hours to administer to Allied casualties.
by Ralph Ellis for the Atlanta Constitution-Journal
Mary Lear didn't hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, but she saw first-hand the suffering caused by one of the pivotal battles of World War II.
Sixty-five years later, Lear still remembers trainloads of wounded American soldiers arriving at the 65th General Hospital in Ipswich, England. Lear was serving there as an Army nurse when Allied forces invaded France on June 6, 1944.
"That was a rough time," Lear, 89, recalled recently at
Somerby of Alpharetta, a retirement home. Doctors and nurses worked 16 to 20 hours a day to handle the flood of patients, many of whom were horribly maimed during the largest amphibious invasion in history. At least 10,000 Allied soldiers were wounded, killed or missing, according to the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England.
Lear was an orthopedic nurse who helped care for soldiers who could be rehabilitated enough to return to battle. Like many members of the Greatest Generation, Lear is proud of her role, but that doesn't mean she brags.
When asked how she made it through the crushing workload immediately after the invasion, Lear simply explained: "You knew it would be for a short time, and you just did it. We were young then."
When she looks through her scrapbook, memories wash over the Tennesse native who enlisted in the Army with a friend immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. She remembers she was attending a play in London when it was announced that bandleader Glenn Miller's plane was missing. She also managed to be in Trafalgar Square in London on V-E Day (May 8, 1945) and couldn't move because of the massive crowd hugging, kissing and celebrating the end of the war in Europe.
"When I picture Europe in the 1940s, my memories are awash with blacks and gray
— planes roaring overhead, sirens wailing, people fearing for their lives," Lear wrote in her scrapbook. "World War II may have been over 50 years ago, but the memories of those who lived through it are very much alive."
Though D-Day was horrific, her worst experience was intensely personal. One of her best friends in the Army was killed in a car wreck in England. They'd made a pact that if one died, the other would visit the lost one's parents. When the war ended, Lear traveled to Pennsylvania.
"They understood," Lear said. "They knew me from her correspondence."
World War II defined her life, Lear says, as it did many other members of her generation
When she left the military, she worked as a nurse at VA hospitals in Cleveland and Miami. Over the years, she's stayed in touch with military friends and attended several reunions for the 65th General Hospital. The 50th anniversary reunion, she said, "was awesome, just awesome."
Lear is still a caregiver at heart and often visits ailing residents of Somerby. Some of them, especially other WWII vets, call Lear "Hotlips."
"Just because you retire doesn't mean you lose your nursing instincts," said DeeAnn Young, marketing director at Somerby.
For Lear, June 6 is a double anniversary. She married her late husband, Harry Lear, on that day in 1955. D-Day had nothing to do with it. Smiling sheepishly, she explained: "I just wanted to be a June bride."
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