World War II Honoree

Kathryne Coffroth Wilson (married name Sirbaugh)

Branch of Service

U.S. Army

Hometown

Mt. Savage, Maryland

Honored By

Tami L. Weeks and Dr. Paul E. Sirbaugh

Relationship

Daughter and Son

While working as a registered nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital, she and her long-term friend, signed up to join the Army Nurse Corps and American Red Cross and were inducted on 10/02/1942. While working at Walter Reed Hospital, she was assigned to care for General Pershing who she described as very nice, an older man of small stature who lived in the hospital and was cared for by an officer. One day she spotted a notice on the bulletin board requesting nurses to sign up for overseas duty. At the prompting of her head nurse, she and her good friend, signed up! They requested that the Army assign them to the same locations and remained together for their tour of duty. They boarded "cattle" or "banana boat" and headed overseas. During the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, she was promoted to Second Lieutenant. Her first assignment was in Iceland for about 1 1/2 years which she described as beautiful, barren, snowy, by the ocean and cold. At first, she was so enamored she dreamed of returning someday. Reality that a war as taking place hit her when she saw a plane shot down out of the sky. Her hospital burned down, and the patients had to be transferred to another hospital. Her next assignment was in England at a station hospital. In route, she described feeling uneasy, hearing rumors that the German U-boats were trying to hit the American boats. In fact, her ship would periodically drop depth charges hoping to hit submarines in the area. This served as further evidence that there was a war on, and she was in it! In England she was the head nurse on a chest ward of 30 to 40 patients. She served three years and was discharged 11/23/1945 as a Captain.