HomeMy WebLinkAboutWWII Prog JosieJOSEPHINE MARTIN SPRADLEY, R.N.
United States Army Nurses Corps
Second Lieutenant, North African Theatre
"Our mother signed up along with her closest friends from nursing school before Pearl Harbor, probably because they knew a war was coming."
After graduation from nursing school on May 17, 1940, Josie stayed on at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, Texas for six months. During that time, she joined the army reserves and
trained at Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas.
On February 15, 1941, Josephine Martin was assigned to active duty as a registered nurse in the US Army Nursing Corps and commissioned a Second Lieutenant. Before being sent overseas
she also trained at Camp Polk, Louisiana and at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas where she treated many burn patients.
Josie was assigned to Cairo, Egypt arriving on November 1, 1942 shortly after Rommel's defeat at El Alamein and was stationed at the newly opened 1,000-bed 38th General Hospital, Delta
Service Command -- where she nursed many soldiers wounded on the battlefield.
Then romance bloomed for Josie amid the chaos of war. She met and later married Flight Lieutenant E. W. Spradley of the Royal Air Force in March 1943. But they were soon to be separated
as Bill resumed flying duties in North Africa. Josephine Martin, now Mrs. E. W. Spradley, stayed at the 38th General treating the wounded and those sick from the extreme heat and an
appalling list of diseases --- typhus, smallpox, dysentery, venereal diseases. Sanitation, clean water and facilities became top priority for the hospital.
In January of 1944 Spradley and his wife were both transferred to duty stateside. "Daddy had told her not to leave Egypt by convoy but to fly out because ships were being torpedoed
in the Mediterranean. The next thing he knew Mother turned up in Italy in a convoy torpedoed in the Mediterranean and rescued from the sinking ship!”
When Josie finally arrived stateside in March, she was assigned to Baxter General Hospital treating thoracic (chest) injuries in Spokane Washington in December 1944. Although she had
requested a transfer to Ephrata, Washington where husband Bill was training pilots, the closest she came was Spokane -- 100 miles away. Still, the two were not close for long. Josie
left the Army in May to become a mother and returned to Texas to give birth to identical twin daughters.
Josie later refused her veteran's benefit, probably thinking "the men did all the fighting".
Josephine Martin Spradley is buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery along with her husband, Lt. Col. Ernest Warner Spradley. Both died premature deaths, she at age 49 and he at
age 54.
Jane Spradley Haley Janice Spradley McCarthy Susan Spradley Bell
Missouri City, Texas Katy, Texas Houston, Texas
[contact person: Barbara Althaus, Bryan, althaus@txcyber.com 260-2951]
WWII Prog Josie