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United States Navy Nurse Corps Wartime Recollections by Lieutenant Elizabeth W. Moss, USN (NC) (Ret.) There is a painting that hangs in our hallway. It will surely never hang in the Louvre, but I cherish it and rarely pass it by without being reminded, just for an instant, of the most moving and rewarding experience of my nine proud years in the United States Navy Nurse Corps. The painting shows a pair of B-29s flying low over an austere Japanese landscape. There is a “rainbow” bridge in the foreground and a group of grim-looking prison barracks. A dozen parachutes are drifting down into the camp; a few have already landed. They are cargo chutes attached to crates bound with steel straps. The crates contain food, cigarettes, and clothing. A close look at the painting shows that it is not done on canvas, but rather on what appears to be silk. The artist has written an inscription across the bottom: War is Over, August 1945, Uncle Remembers Prisoners. Sakai River, Tobata, Japan. Fukuoka Camp No. 3 Miss Elizabeth from Sally It was, indeed, August of 1945. I was a junior grade lieutenant, serving as an anesthetist in the Navy Hospital Ship USS Haven (AH12). We were part of an immense task force that was anchored in Pearl Harbor preparing for that final goal of the Pacific War—the invasion of the Japanese homeland. Then suddenly there were the two atomic bombs and it was over. Hundreds of ships at Pearl erupted with whistles, flares, bells, and searchlights, but within hours Haven was ordered to join a task group bound for the devastated port of Nagasaki. Our mission was to release the Allied prisoners that were being held in the nearby Japanese prison camps. Ten days later our force was cautiously standing into Nagasaki Harbor. I say “cautiously” because we had no idea how
courtesy capt robert a. moss, uscg (ret.)
From the editor: The following is the article Captain Moss mentions as written by his late wife, Elizabeth Moss, which we are pleased to be able to share with his fellow NMHS members.
complete the surrender had been and how we would be received. We were escorted by the cruiser USS Wichita (CA45) and some destroyers. Leading us all was a flotilla of minesweepers, for the entrance had been heavily mined by the defending Japanese. Eventually we made fast to a wharf where there was a railroad spur and we got ready to receive our patients. To this day, almost 50 years after the event, I am moved to tears—tears of joy, of compassion, of elation, of overwhelming emotion—when I reflect upon the scene
that followed. The prisoners arrived in rail box cars. They were of all nationalities— Americans, British (some from the fall of Singapore), Dutch, French, Malaysians, Indonesians. As the trains rolled in, we were all cheering. Bands from the Wichita and Haven played “Hail, Hail The Gang’s All Here,” and “California, Here I Come,” and many of the popular tunes of the time. Everyone was crying. Yes, I mean everyone! I saw crusty chief petty officers, who had seen four years of Pacific hell, with tears streaming down their grizzled cheeks.
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