Mission at Nuremberg (9 page)

By August, Gerecke was visiting 2,000 patients each month and counseling more than 150 staff members. He made it a practice to seek out each member of the 650-member-strong Ninety-Eighth General Hospital staff to deliver a personal greeting when it was his or her birthday. Or, as the chaplain called it, “birthday anniversary.” “You only have one birthday,” he always said. “The rest of them are anniversaries of your birthday.”

The hospital was chaotic, with medics moving hundreds of patients in and out of the various wards every hour of the day. The staff was overworked, and it showed at chapel, but Gerecke knew the reasons and tried to bring faith to the tired doctors and nurses, rather than wait for them to come to him. “There is splendid cooperation among the doctors, the nurses and the Chaplains,” Gerecke wrote. But “members of our unit find it difficult to attend services due to the present status of our hospital.”

He began saying short devotions at 12:45 each day, making it as easy as possible for the staff to take advantage of a short spiritual breather during the lunch hour. As candles on the altar flickered and Geist softly played a hymn in the background, Gerecke read a verse or two from the Bible, then simply prayed. Between prayers there was what the chaplain called a “be still and know that I am God” silence.

“It makes your heart skip a beat to see enlisted men, nurses, doctors and a few patients on their knees speaking to God,” he wrote. “It's the sweetest ten-minute period in the whole day.” Doctors and nurses handed Gerecke the names of the seriously sick. “Prayers for the sick ones here are my very own, and are ex corde”—from the heart—“to the nth degree,” he wrote. “Others speak to me concerning their loved ones scattered all over the world.”

Gerecke's loved ones were certainly scattered. That made an unexpected visit from his oldest son the highlight of an otherwise hellish September. Hank arrived in England and traveled straight from London to Hermitage. Gerecke picked him up from the train station at the Newbury racetrack in an ambulance. They hugged tight, overjoyed at the sight of each other, then retreated to Gerecke's quarters to catch up.

Hank, an officer with the army's military police, left in the morning but came back later that month, when the two went into town and had tea at the community hall. A four-piece orchestra playing the hall noticed the Yanks and began playing the “Star-Spangled Banner.” But father and son were engrossed in conversation and didn't catch on at first. Finally, Gerecke noticed and both men scrambled to their feet, hands over hearts, just as the band finished the tune.

Gerecke took Hank to visit Rev. Owens and his family, and Hank attended his father's chapel services. On Saturday night, they went to the officers' club and Gerecke introduced Hank to his colleagues. Everywhere they went, Hank noticed that his father was greeted with beaming smiles, backslaps, and booming greetings of “Hey, Chappie!” or “Padre!” At the officers' club Hank was amazed and amused that a lot of the prettiest nurses were flirting with his father. “Dad, those girls are hitting on you,” Hank said to the chaplain. “Happens all the time,” Gerecke said smiling. “They think I'm safe.”

Safe or not, the chaplain clearly enjoyed and encouraged the attention. After Hank had downed a few beers, they walked over to an officers' and nurses' dance where Hank had a couple more drinks. Gerecke sat and watched as his Ninety-Eighth friends danced. Knowing his father disapproved of dancing, Hank just sat next to him and drank another beer.

“Son, there are a lot of pretty nurses in this room,” the chaplain said. “Why don't you go ask one of them to dance?” Hank was stunned, but he decided to take his father's advice. “By then I couldn't stand up to get out of my damn chair,” Hank said later. “And Dad knew it. He just sat there laughing.”

Hank's visits alleviated some of Gerecke's anxiety, but the grim work of the Ninety-Eighth was all-consuming. He was sitting with nearly a hundred patients a day, and he continued to try and convince his colleagues that their spiritual health was as important as their physical nourishment, especially in the turbulent atmosphere and individual stresses of life in a transit hospital.

He also knew that matters of life and death took priority, and that's where he spent most of his time. The medical staff often asked for his help. A soldier was brought in, unconscious and severely wounded, and the doctors asked Gerecke to pray for the man. For three hours he stood silently behind the surgeons as they operated, and prayed. When Gerecke visited the soldier as he was recuperating, he told Gerecke that he “wasn't ready” to die.

Another time, Gerecke was called to the side of a dying man. He joined a raft of doctors at the soldier's bed. As Gerecke bent over him, the man opened his eyes and asked, “Chaplain, am I going to die?” For a moment, Gerecke froze. The doctors and nurses looked at him expectantly, as Gerecke prayed for an answer. A nurse was about to fill the void, but a doctor stopped her. “God's children never die,” Gerecke finally said. As the medical staff drifted away from the man's bed, Gerecke told the twenty-year-old that “Heaven's gate is opened by trusting Jesus, who died for you.” He asked the soldier to repeat after him, and the soldier did: “Jesus, I trust Thee. Keep me safe for heaven.” Gerecke never saw him again.

In the fall, the hospital expanded again as more patients continued to flow through its doors. The unit built an intricate drainage system to eliminate problems with standing water around the hospital grounds, another mess for patients, and a laundry facility with twelve fifteen-gallon tubs to accommodate 350 men per hour. The Red Cross expanded its craft room with tools and materials so patients with battle fatigue could do wood- and metalworking. Sullivan built a theater with a permanent stage, dressing rooms, and seating for 350.

Gerecke used all this activity to his advantage. “I am fortunate in having the friendship of the entire personnel,” he wrote. “Many are reached in Mess Halls, Day Room, and Officer's Meetings.”

Just as Gerecke had come around to appreciate the strictures and discipline of army life, the institution was changing him in different ways. He had witnessed the bonding that occurs under intense physical and psychological stress of a wartime hospital, and that in turn led to an acknowledgment that God couldn't possibly hold it against these doctors and nurses for blowing off steam through dancing and drinking a bit. He also knew, of course, that these were occasions for him to connect with his colleagues—opportunities for Gerecke's true goal: evangelization. And so, to the dances, USO shows, and basketball games he went.

The unit put on two patient dances in the fall in the new patient mess hall, with music provided by the Ninety-Eighth General Hospital Orchestra, and invited young ladies from local British welfare organizations to attend. The orchestra also played three music variety shows in the new theater, two enlisted dances, and two officers/nurses dances. The theater hosted three USO shows, a special service show, and a British show. The unit basketball team was playing a weekly schedule of four games in two leagues formed among nearby units.

Gerecke continued to encourage the Jewish members of the unit to hold services together, and in the absence of a Jewish chaplain or available local rabbi, a Jewish officer led the Friday evening services for about twenty-five staff members. In November, Gerecke arranged for thirty-three of his Jewish colleagues to attend Yom Kippur services at a local synagogue.

Gerecke held Thanksgiving services in November, and knowing how Christmas cheer would affect morale, he began planning for December. He formed caroling, flower, and decoration committees. “Our nurses are especially interested in this work,” he wrote. “Friendly neighbors will provide Christmas trees.”

The Allies had moved one thousand German POWs to a stockade near Hermitage, and Sullivan began using detachments of them for labor around the hospital. The staff laid out a baseball diamond with the help of the POWs. Dozens of prisoners helped with construction, sanitary projects, painting buildings, general maintenance, and kitchen patrol duties. They helped build three thousand feet of sidewalks among the buildings and a garbage incinerator. Because of Gerecke's knowledge of German, Sullivan asked him to help supervise the prisoners. “They have a chaplain, but I must watch him,” Gerecke wrote. “Especially his sermon material concerning anything he might say against our government.”

But he was also doing his best to convert the German POWs he encountered at the stockade. In October 1944, Gerecke sent a Western Union telegram to Paul Kretzmann, Concordia Seminary's librarian in St. Louis, who had written a recommendation for Gerecke to get into the Chaplain Corps.

“
PLEASE RUSH GERMAN LITERATURE DEVOTIONALS CHRISTMAS CARD HYMN BOOKLETS FOR LARGE PRISON CAMP IN NEIGHBORHOOD,
” Gerecke wrote.

His country actually asked him to do much more. Two members of the Office of Strategic Services, the U.S. intelligence agency during World War II that preceded the CIA, came from London to visit the Ninety-Eighth. Gerecke later said they asked him to use his German to extract information from the POWs during confession. Gerecke had, indeed, begun to help the German chaplain with his pastoral duties among the prisoners, but he told the OSS men that he couldn't violate the privacy of the confessional, even in the service of national security.

At an army general hospital, patients were given “definitive treatment” then returned to duty if their units were in Britain or sent to replacement depots for reassignment. If patients needed prolonged treatment—defined as more than 120 days—the army sent them back to the United States. Patients who needed specialized treatment but could return to duty within three months were sent to other hospitals in England designated for whatever special treatment they needed.

At the end of November, the army returned the Ninety-Eighth from the status of a transit hospital to that of a general hospital and the patient flow from the two airfields slowed considerably. In October and November, when the Ninety-Eighth was taking wounded directly from the battlefields, it admitted 7,290 patients. In December, after the army had returned the Ninety-Eighth to the status of “general,” it saw only 350 patients from the Continent. But it treated 533 patients based in the United Kingdom and gave another 6,280 outpatient care.

The pace change mattered for Gerecke only in the kind of work he was doing. Less time in the emergency and operating rooms meant doctors and nurses had more time for church. December is the busy season for anyone in the Christianity business anyway, and Gerecke saw the biggest chapel attendance spike in his army career with nearly one thousand coming to one or more of his thirteen Sunday services over the month. “We feel highly gratified at the response to our invitations to Christmas Services,” Gerecke wrote. “The days are too short for two Chaplains to meet all spiritual opportunities in our large hospital. We pray for Guidance.”

Sullivan noticed the chaplain's efforts during December, and in January, he wrote a note of commendation. Chaplain Gerecke, Sullivan wrote:

 

. . . is to be commended upon the superior manner in which he has performed his duties during the year 1944. In the early months of the year, before the unit arrived in the United Kingdom, he was the only chaplain assigned, and by his devotion to duty, his broad tolerance, his concern for the spiritual needs of the entire unit regardless of creed, he established himself firmly as the counselor and guide of officer and enlisted personnel. The same paternal characteristics were shown to patients. In the most difficult times, as a transit hospital, when large numbers of patients arrived on short notice and were evacuated within 12 to 24 hours, no man departed without the ministration and prayers of the chaplain. This officer exemplifies the best traditions of the Corps of Chaplains in the Ministry.

The relatively ponderous pace of patient loads didn't last long. During the winter, especially in January and February 1945, the hospital received thousands of soldiers from the front lines suffering the effects of the severe cold and arduous battles on the Continent. Trench foot, frostbite, and battle fatigue were the most common conditions.

The hospital received an average of about eleven hundred patients a week, but that number swelled to treat as many as fourteen hundred during heavy battle activity. As if there wasn't enough to keep the unit busy, on January 26 a fire destroyed the bar in the enlisted men's dayroom, forcing hundreds of thirsty off-duty soldiers into a cramped Special Services Building for beer.

Gerecke's ward visits increased again after the New Year, and he began taking cigarettes with him on his rounds to offer to the wounded, along with New Testaments and devotional booklets. One month he distributed “1,000 Scripture Calendar cards; 200 New Testaments; 1,000 Easter Crosses; 300 Plastic Crosses; 500 Devotional Tracts and 250 Devotional Booklets.” Gerecke worked alongside twelve members of the British Women's Volunteer Services who visited patients four afternoons a week to sew and mend their clothing. The ladies also handed out matches—helpful for those who'd acquired a few cigarettes from Gerecke.

The cold was a killer for chapel attendance, and Gerecke again complained about its distance from the hospital's main action. “Suggest the English place Chapels in Hospital Areas thereby serving the spiritual needs of all ambulatory patients,” he wrote. “The distance between Chapel and Hospital Area is too great, especially in bad weather.”

Gerecke still had no doubt—despite all the commotion and life-and-death situations and new friendships and adventure of the past year—about the most important part of his job. On February 21, he baptized twenty-three-year-old Samuel K. Cressman from Lansing, Michigan, in the chapel. Second Lieutenant Nurse Nathalie LaCrouts was the witness. “Opportunities for individual soul-winning are tremendous,” he wrote. “There's not enough time.”