World War II Woman

Establishing a Recovery Camp in China (coninued)

Although Alice was in charge of the base kitchen, she had a committee of capable people to assist. The neighboring base at Kunming was closed because it was too open, and it was too difficult to protect it with its power plant, roads and rail access. The occupants were moved to Camp K25, where Alice was located.

Supplies were shipped to another base in China, which was an air flight away. This was part of a combined British and American supply line coming over the “hump” through India. Alice and some companions flew to check out the supplies, which were packed in long narrow boxes. They tried to figure out what was in them by lifting them at the corner. If they were heavy, it was likely canned goods were in the box and they knew they would have food for awhile.

One container was particularly heavy. The pilot loaded it into the plane and flew a weight test run and decided it was safe to take it back to the base. When opened, they discovered an unassembled generator, complete with instructions written in English. What a wonderful find! They were then able to perform surgical operations at night when necessary.

Some of the Chinese evacuees brought their children with them. These children were very useful as they went into the jungle gathering fruit. Also, the base had a very strange-looking guest arrive one day. He was a bit shabby in his appearance, but he turned out to be a very well educated German botanist. He recognized which of the leaves were edible and because of this knowledge, they were able to have lots of greens, a big improvement to their diet.

Alice’s dad was in the United States at the beginning of the war, training people who were to go to China. He was unable to leave the country and was assigned to Pittsburgh where he continued his work on lubes. He invented a thin oil to replace the usual white oil used for coating baker’s cooking sheets, when the white oil was no longer available. Her mother was attending a reunion of college friends in Java, now Indonesia and was in a prison camp for awhile.

As the close of the war approached, Alice decided to continue her education in New Delhi, where she pursued math and physics for a period of time. Then she headed to the United States and Ellis Island, where she ran into difficulty because she had no birth certificate. Finally, with the help of a Polish lawyer, she was free to join her family.

After completing the necessary credits for teaching, Alice settled into a career as a math teacher.

 For more World War II stories, go to www.peggeorge.com

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