THE WESTERN STAR June 15, 1944 WAYNESVILLE NURSE AMONG FIRST TO LAND IN FRANCE:

THE WESTERN STAR   June 15, 1944

WAYNESVILLE NURSE AMONG FIRST TO LAND IN FRANCE:

When any event of world-wide importance takes place, there you will find Warren Countians.

It happened in 1917 when Lt. Zola Wood, formerly of Lebanon, now of Los Angeles, Calf., sister of Bill Wood of Lebanon was on of the first nurses to land in France. 

Her brother Col. Harry T. Wood, graduate of West Point, is in some overseas war theater.

It happened again last week when Lt. Suella Bernard* of Waynesville was among the first five nurses to arrive in France.

Lt. Bernard, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Bernard of Waynesville, graduate of Waynesville High in 1937 and later entered nurses training at Springfield City Hospital.

 After he graduation she went to Sidney Hospital where she was a floor nurse. She enlisted last June and has been overseas several months.

 Her two brothers, S 1-C Elvin Bernard and S 2-C William Bernard are in the Navy. Her parents are doing war work in Dayton.

An Associated Press dispatch carried an interesting article Monday written by Lt. Bernard and Lt. Marijean Brown, who are among the first to land in Normandy.

The nurses told how they picked poppies in the shell-pocketed fields of Normandy and brought them back to Britain with the first cargo of wounded to be evacuated from this new European battlefield  - two German, a French civilian and two Americans – a Colonel and a GI.

The nurses pointed out in the story that their trip across was uneventful although the fighter escort flying above the big bombers gave them a comfortable feeling.

The injured were returned to Britain bases without accident and the girls said they hoped to soon get back in the crap.

NOTES:

* Suella Virginia "Sue" Bernard Delp (1919-2002) is buried in Cumberland Valley Memorial Gardens in the city of Carlisle, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

The photo above is from a posting by the National Museum of the US Air Force on February 20, 1915.

 Its caption reads, “Two of the first flight nurses to make evacuation flights into Normandy after D-Day, Lts. Suella Bernard (left) and Marijean Brown (center) are greeted by Lt. Foster, their head nurse. 

They are holding poppies they brought back from the Normandy beachhead.” (U.S. Air Force photo)

The posting goes on to state, “On March 22, 1945, two CG-4A gliders landed in a clearing near the bridgehead at Remagen, Germany, to evacuate 25 severely injured American and German casualties.

 Once the gliders were loaded, C-47 transports successfully snatched them from their landing site and towed them to a military hospital in France. In the second glider, 1st Lt. Suella V. Bernard, who had volunteered for the mission, cared for the wounded en route. 

One of the first two nurses to fly into Normandy after the D-Day invasion, Bernard became the only nurse known to have participated in a glider combat mission during World War II. For this mission, she received the Air Medal.”

On May 25, 2007 the Wayne Local School District posted the following when Suella Bernard Delp was inducted into the Waynesville Hall of Fame.

 

“SUELLA BERNARD DELP was a 1937 graduate of Waynesville High School.

  After receiving nurses training at Springfield City Hospital School of Nursing Suella enlisted with the Army Air Corps in 1943.  

She was assigned to the 816th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II. 

She was one of the first two nurses to fly into Normandy after the D-Day invasion when she participated in a Ninth Air Force evacuation mission. 

She was the first nurse to cross into Germany after the battle for Ludendorff Bridge near Remagen, Germany.  

Days after being captured intact, the Ludendorff Bridge, the only remaining bridge across the Rhine into Germany, collapsed, effectively cutting off the American forces on the German side of the river – including Lt. Bernard.  

On March 22nd, 1945, with a growing number of critically wounded soldiers, the decision was made to try to evacuate them by glider to a rear hospital.

  The WACO CG-4A glider had brought in supplies and was reloaded with litters to hold the wounded.

  Suella alone volunteered to fly across the Rhine River to the Remagen bridgehead to pick up the wounded.  

Her return, if it worked, would be via an aerial snap tow from a C-47. 

 With Bernard crouching in the narrow aisle, the craft was jerked into the air making her the only woman in World War II, allied or axis, to participate in a glider mission.  She was awarded the Air Medal for her service.  

Bernard’s claim to fame is not likely to ever be challenged as combat gliders were quickly superseded by the helicopter. 

Lieutenant Bernard would later receive a second Air Medal for flying fifty air-evac missions.  

On May 10, 2007 Suella Bernard Delp was honored at the annual Nurse/Technician Week Appreciation banquet at the Hope Hotel at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  

During this presentation she was referred to as “A quiet angel on silent wings”, an ‘unheralded hero’, and a ‘pioneer’.