1LT Dorothy Cecilia Errair Oral History

title:

1LT Dorothy Cecilia Errair Oral History

creator:

Errair, Dorothy Cecilia "Whitie" (White) (1920 January 24 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps

description:

Dorothy Errair (formerly White) was born on January 24, 1920 in Paterson, New Jersey. She was living in Detroit, Michigan when she heard about Pearl Harbor. At the time, she was one month away from graduating nursing school. Knowing she was going to join, she took advanced nursing classes to learn about emergency procedures before submitting her application. She received her orders for January 2, 1943. She went to southern Illinois in one of the early advanced training schools, and the hospital was also part of the advanced flying school. Located in the corn fields, the hospital was small and made of portables and they initially had very few patients. A flood in the area left them marooned with only air transport able to move people and supplies. They eventually had to evacuate when the levee broke. Just as the water was receding, Dorothy received her orders to report to Louisville, Kentucky, taking a C-47 and arriving during Derby Day. She attended Air Evac school at Bowman Field. She describes her teachers as not knowing what to teach her; at one point receiving arctic survival training. They wore blues (but not the AF blue) and they were the first women’s military group to receive pants because they were unable to get on the plane in skirts. Her group became the 807 Medical Air Evacuation Squadron. After they finished training, they headed overseas, went through the Mediterranean, and arrived at Bizerte, Tunisia. She was embedded with over 10,000 troops and remembers the Germans bombing the area while she was there. She fell ill from a bug bite and her squadron mates left her to head to Sicily, Italy. When she recovered, she took a trip on a C-47 to Air Evac an American pilot from an Italian hospital in Sardinia soon after the Italian Army surrendered. When she returned, she eventually found a plane to go to Sicily and rejoin her unit in Catania. Although, she was not part of the group, she remembers 13 nurses from her squadron crash landing in German-occupied Albania and having to walk out of the country over the course of 9 weeks. The story was classified for almost 50 years to protect reprisals from the Communist government. She was present during an explosion of American mustard gas that caused a lot of patients. As the line shifted, she helped evacuate patients daily, generally 15 to 30 patients per plane. She remembers taking care of the 442 Regimental Combat Unit (Japanese Americans) who suffered a high level of casualties in theater. Her time in service was dangerous - she had close calls with bombs, she survived 3 harsh landings, 3 of the 25 nurses in her units were killed. She left the Army Nurse Corp in December 1945 with the rank of first lieutenant, and for her service Errair was awarded an Air Medal with 3 Bronze oak leaf clusters, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and Meritorious Service Unit Plaque. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Anderson, Ruth

date:

2013-02-13

type:

Moving Image

format:

DVD-R

identifier:

1229; 2013.1229

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

136548

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1943-45

rights:

Unrestricted