Inez McMillan stands outside a hotel in Normandy, France shortly after her deployment in 1944. McMillan, native of Columbus, served as a nurse in World War II for nearly two years.
Editor’s Note — In honor of Veterans Day, the Daily Citizen is running a series of stories about veterans.
When Inez McMillan graduated from UW Madison with a degree in nursing in 1944, she just couldn’t ignore repeated calls for nurses to help the war effort overseas.
McMillan and a friend from nursing school, Margie, decided it was something they could do. McMillan — who was born in Columbus and graduated from CHS in 1939 — was ready to branch out and see the world. She was ready for an adventure.
When she first tried to enlist in the Army in February 1944, however, she was turned down.
“They wouldn’t let us because they said Wisconsin’s quota was full. So it was September of 1944 when they let us join the Army,” McMillan said.
She spent six weeks in basic training at Camp McCoy.
“It was a lot marching and calisthenics, but we were young and could handle it,” she said.
After a brief layover in Chicago, McMillan found herself shipping out on the Ilde France, bound for Manchester, England.
“Fortunately we were on a pretty big ship. The only problem we had was when we got close to England, there were German U-Boats out, so a couple destroyers took us into England. When we wound up in Manchester there were buzz bombs going, and everything else,” she said.
Despite walking into the heart of World War II, McMillan said everyone was relatively calm.
“We were concerned, but as I always say: ‘Kids that age, they don’t think anything can happen to them’,” she said with a laugh.
The group spent two weeks staying in a run-down mansion in Manchester before they left for France, where their first task would be to establish the 239th General Hospital. The group brought medical supplies with them, and set up in a building left vacant after World War I. Within a month, patients began rolling in for treatment.
“We weren’t that close to the front. We were a general hospital, and we got patients from the field hospitals that were closer to the fighting,” she said. “We had a lot of patients, and we had patients who did things to themselves so they wouldn’t have to go up to the front. They would shoot their own foot.”
McMillan took charge of a mental ward, which, she confesses, “takes a little different kind of nursing.”
The soldiers coming to the hospital from the front lines were always glad to see the young nurses, McMillan admits with a shy laugh.
“We were young, they were young, but sometimes we were more of a mother than a nurse to them. They’d get a Dear John letter and come to talk to you,” she said.
That human contact was an important part of the care offered by the 239th General Hospital to patients who were sick, injured — and a long way from home. McMillan admits that human contact helped her as well.
The nurses were sometimes able to take a few days off, and travel through war-torn France. McMillan recalls visiting Paris, where people were defecating in the streets — hardly the City for Lovers at that point.
After spending 1 1/2 years working in France, McMillan said she was scheduled to head to Japan. However, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 signaled the end of fighting in the Pacific.
“We were sent to a camp, cigarette camps they were called. We were waiting to go to Japan, and that’s when word came that the war ended over there,” she said.
So McMillan was detoured to a hospital in Germany for three months. While the war was winding down, it still wasn’t safe for Americans to leave the post.
“The Germans were beheading people by putting wire across the road, and then they’d come by in a jeep ... “ McMillan recalled.
She celebrated V-Day, or Victory Day, with American forces in Germany. Grainy, black and white photos show her marching in tow with legions of American soldiers who were on the verge of heading home after winning a hard-fought battle.
And soon, McMillan found herself heading back to her hometown of Columbus. No ticker-tape parade, nor hero’s welcome were awaiting her return — just a proud family. She was met at the train depot in Columbus by her parents and sister.
McMillan settled back into life, eventually moving to Beaver Dam and working in three different doctors’ offices as a nurse. She still cherishes the time she spent serving overseas, and says she “wouldn’t change it for the world.”