News
Nurse Nordlie: Standing up to the Russian
By Karen Walenga/Wick Communications
Nordlie was 21 and living in Minnesota when she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in November 1944. She was a 2nd lieutenant prior to her discharge in the spring of 1946.
Nordlie served with the 139th Field Evacuation Hospital in the European Theater of Operation. She was one of 40 nurses who, along with 40 doctors and 200 enlisted men, treated thousands of newly liberated Nazi prisoners at a camp in Ebensee, Austria.
"We went into the prison camp after liberation under Gen. (George S.) Patton ... and tried to get the prisoners ready to go home," Nordlie said. Most of them weighed only 60 or 70 pounds and "were starving to death," she said.
Nordlie spent about six weeks at the camp. They had enough food, medical supplies and staff to treat about 400, but saw thousands more than that from Poland, France, Italy, Norway and Russia.
She recalls "a big, fat Russian officer" coming to the camp and wanting to know which of the patients were Russian, so he could take them back with him. None of them would admit to being Russian, and when the officer was told there were none, Nordlie said "he jumped up and down, with his medals clanking (on his uniform) and his face turned red and blue."
Nordlie, however, stood up to him. "I'm usually a timid person, but I felt like a general that day," she said. It was also the first time those patients ever smiled at her.
After Nordlie and the others left the camp and were aboard a ship in the Straits of Gibraltar bound for Japan, word came of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The ship changed course and returned to the United States.
Nordlie, 85 as of March 2009, has resided in Green Valley for 22 years.
Nordlie served with the 139th Field Evacuation Hospital in the European Theater of Operation. She was one of 40 nurses who, along with 40 doctors and 200 enlisted men, treated thousands of newly liberated Nazi prisoners at a camp in Ebensee, Austria.
"We went into the prison camp after liberation under Gen. (George S.) Patton ... and tried to get the prisoners ready to go home," Nordlie said. Most of them weighed only 60 or 70 pounds and "were starving to death," she said.
Nordlie spent about six weeks at the camp. They had enough food, medical supplies and staff to treat about 400, but saw thousands more than that from Poland, France, Italy, Norway and Russia.
She recalls "a big, fat Russian officer" coming to the camp and wanting to know which of the patients were Russian, so he could take them back with him. None of them would admit to being Russian, and when the officer was told there were none, Nordlie said "he jumped up and down, with his medals clanking (on his uniform) and his face turned red and blue."
Nordlie, however, stood up to him. "I'm usually a timid person, but I felt like a general that day," she said. It was also the first time those patients ever smiled at her.
After Nordlie and the others left the camp and were aboard a ship in the Straits of Gibraltar bound for Japan, word came of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The ship changed course and returned to the United States.
Nordlie, 85 as of March 2009, has resided in Green Valley for 22 years.
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