World War II Diary
A Canadian Nurse’s Diary about Her Wartime Experience
[Diaries]. Trotter, Sally. World War II Diary: “The Story of a Canadian Nursing Sister’s Two Years Overseas with No. 12 C.G.H.” [Community General Hospital of the Canadian Red Cross]. August 31, 1943- July 26, 1945.
4to.; marbled endpapers; three-quarter navy blue cloth; faded; rubbed; frayed; red leather spine and corners; lacking spine; signatures repaired with three vinyl strips. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Scrapbook diary of Canadian Lieutenant Sally Trotter. Trotter filled the book with handwritten entries, cleverly rendered cartoons, black and white and hand-colored photographs (including four pages of photographs titled, “German patients,” with a picture of Hitler captioned, “No – he wasn’t a patient of mine!”), postcards, tickets, programs, menus, brochures, banknotes, poems, song lyrics (including a four-page transcription of Noel Coward’s “Tunes to an American Officer”), and newspaper articles. There are also large photographs, cartoons, drawings and articles loosely inserted, and two large patches: an embroidered insignia from a German Tank Corps Uniform, and a ribbon from the German Iron Cross.
Also included on her title page is a song titled, “Our Yell,” which reads:
The Twelfth, The Twelfth, the old 1 – 2.
Smackaroo, smackaroo, smackaroo, Roo.
The best there is in Medicine we now
Present to you
Our Doctors, nurses, orderlies,
Sergeants, corporals, too.
Make one happy family
In the old 1 – 2!
Smackaroo, smackaroo, smackaroo, Roo!
And notes, “Bought this book in Glasgow, Scotland. Carried it with me everywhere/Made entries whenever possible.”
Trotter meticulously arranged the scrapbook; text always appears on the right side, and photographs and cartoons appear on the left side. Entries fill at least one page, but sometimes continue through several pages. The entries are undated, save for important dates during the war – D Day and V-E Day – and holidays. Trotter also indicates place names that her unit traveled to at the top of pages, like “Bramshott,” “Historic England,” “A Trip to Scotland,” “Army Life in General,” and “A Trip to an American Air Base.”
Trotter begins with a description of her train ride eastward from her town in Petawawa, Ontario, to two military training camps in Sussex and Halifax. She provides brief character sketches of the “Petawawa Girls,” and concludes, “I’ll not say anything about myself. You’ll know me when this book is finished – or before.”
Trotter relates the first two weeks in the camps as if she were on holiday, recalling down time spent lying in the sun: “There wasn’t much to do. Check ups on gas, equipment, make a well, fill in documents. A little drill now and then – taken not quite serious.” Then her unit shipped out; the section that follows is titled, “Embarkation” and includes cartoons of her unit walking up the ship’s gangplank, laden with suitcases, as well as her dining card and her berthing card.
The group landed on Sunday, September 19, 1943 at Gourock, in Scotland, and immediately took a train to General Hospital #18, at the military camp in Bramshott. They were moved to the #12 Canadian General Hospital at Horley, and then to the #13 Hospital in Cooksville. Trotter includes photographs and descriptions of an operating room scene in Cooksville; the photographs show a doctor giving ether and removing a bullet from a soldier’s neck. A photograph captioned, “Something New” shows “the second stahers splint to be used by the Canadian Army in England/New treatment for fractures done by #13 Cdn Gen. Hospital,” and she notes at the bottom of the page that the photographs were “Taken in 13 Cdn Gen. Hospital Operating Room on a Pilot 6 F.4.5. 1/20 Sec.” An entry titled, “Night Duty” recalls, “There were four operating room emergencies – broken legs, cuts form bicycle falls, jeep accidents, emergency appendix. Only one death – and he was like that when brough
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