{"id":28693,"date":"2015-11-13T12:28:53","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T16:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=28693"},"modified":"2016-02-05T10:06:54","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T14:06:54","slug":"remembering-the-university-of-cincinnatis-25th-general-hospital-of-wwii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2015\/11\/remembering-the-university-of-cincinnatis-25th-general-hospital-of-wwii\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering The University of Cincinnati\u2019s 25th General Hospital of WWII"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Remembering<\/a>

Murray Lambert Rich, MD: husband to the former Miss Mabel Burrows and father of
John M. Rich, James B. Rich, and Charles L. Rich.
This photo serves as a link to the blog,
\u201cA Special Visit with Dr. Rich.<\/p><\/div>\n

By: Nathan Hood<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1941, the United States federal government requested that the Cincinnati General Hospital \u2013 now a division of the University Hospital \u2013 organize the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital. Intended as a military organization similar to the one during WWI by the same name, the project gained momentum after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The General Hospital was\u00a0soon after\u00a0\u201cordered into active military service \u2026 on June 1, 1943.\u201d The 25th<\/sup> was fully organized by June 10, 1943, at Nichols General Hospital. The General Hospital began with 500 enlisted men, 56 military officers (physicians from the Cincinnati General Hospital), 105 nurses, 3 hospital dietitians, 2 physio-therapists, and 1 warrant officer. The 25th<\/sup> was trained at the Medical Field Service School, Carlisle Barracks, in Pennsylvania. Part of this training required the entire organization (exempting female personal) to complete a 10-day “bivouac” at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, from the 17th<\/sup> to the 26th<\/sup> of July, 1943. Here the 25th<\/sup> was rigorously tested under field conditions.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dr. Murray Lambert Rich became an official Major of the USA Military at Ft. Knox presumably while attending the 25th<\/sup>\u2019s bivouac in 1943. A 1929 Graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Murray Rich had interned at the Cincinnati General Hospital in 1928 and had since become an \u201cAssistant Resident,\u201d maintaining this position from 1929 to 1932. At some point, he also became an assistant professor of internal medicine. He would ultimately serve \u201c39 months with the Twenty-fifth Hospital Unite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dorst<\/a>

\u2018Alsfelder\u2019 caricature of Dr. Stanley E. Dorst. According to Colonel Nimitz, one of four individuals particularly responsible for supervising the selection of staff for the 25th General Hospital.
Miss Hattie Pugh assisted in the selection of nursing personnel.
This image serves as a link to the blog, \u201cMagnifying the Past: The \u2018Alsfelder\u2019 Faculty Caricatures.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Lincoln-Ashbaugh<\/a>

Barbara Lincoln Ashbaugh. This image serves a link to her Memoirs<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Barbara Lincoln Ashbaugh joined the American Red Cross in World War II as a psychiatric social worker. She trained for two weeks in Washington starting November 1, 1943, and\u00a0like Murray Rich, she would also complete a kind of preliminary \u201cfield experience\u201d beginning\u00a0November 16th<\/sup>, 1943, in South Carolina. She was one of five civilian Red Cross workers assigned to the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital, the others: Helen Delbauve, Ruby Greiling, Anne Finucane, and Vera Whitney. These five joined the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital at the \u201cport of embarkation\u201d on December 9, 1943, where the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital eventually left for the European Theatre of Operations on December 23, 1943.<\/p>\n

\"Movements<\/a>

Map of the movements of the 25th General Hospital: note the location of
Lison, Li\u00e8ge, Morlanwelz, and Tongres.<\/p><\/div>\n

Many events surrounding the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital and its movements throughout Europe may be explored; however, the majority of the Hospital\u2019s experience in Belgium is perhaps of particular relevance and interest today. Regardless, very generally, the 25th<\/sup> operated by requisitioning and repurposing various buildings at each of their assigned locations. Thus, after \u201c[t]he hospital plant at Lison, France, was turned over to the 195th<\/sup> General Hospital \u2026 on November 23, 1944,\u201d the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital commenced moving to Li\u00e8ge, Belgium, where they had intended to occupy the city\u2019s Palace of Justice. The move was successfully effectuated on November 29th<\/sup>, 1944; however, local officials refused to relinquish the building. Without a central area of operations, nurses and enlisted personnel were \u201cbilleted\u201d through December to a school and apartment building, respectively, and sporadically utilized on \u201cdetached service and temporary duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"25th<\/a>

The school (left) and apartment (right) building utilized by the 25th General Hospital in Li\u00e8ge<\/p><\/div>\n

At this time, the entire surrounding city of Li\u00e8ge was experiencing intense bombing \u2013 \u201cthe average of one every ten minutes day and night\u201d \u2013 very fortunately without a single casualty belonging to the 25th General Hospital. This is rather miraculous given that \u201c[m]ore than half the houses in Li\u00e8ge were destroyed.\u201d In contrast to the 25th<\/sup>, the Belgian population endured something like 5,000 deaths and 21,000 cases of injury within six months. Bombing was concentrated from about the middle of November 1944, to the middle of January 1945. In her Memoirs<\/em>, Ashbaugh confesses that: \u201c[i]t still terrifies me to write about the Belgian experience\u201d and that \u201c[e]very day was dominated by the emotion of fear \u2013 fear that the exploding bombs would wipe us all out.\u201d The 25th<\/sup> General Hospital was understandably considering other locations:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Second site considered in which to establish the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital was the Belgian Caserne at Tongres, Belgium, approximately 12 miles northwest of the city of Liege. This site consisted of 5 modern brick buildings built on a quadrangle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Germans found it necessary to withdraw from Belgium they attempted to burn and destroy the buildings to the greatest extent possible in the limited time available\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Morlanwelz\"<\/a>

Photographs of Morlanwelz presumably from Barbara Ashbaugh’s scrapbook.
This image serves as a link to more photos concerning the 25th General Hospital.<\/p><\/div>\n

Both Ashbaugh and (very probably) Dr. Murray Rich worked with the surrounding hospitals during the 25th<\/sup>\u2019s stay in Li\u00e8ge. In late December of 1944 though, Ashbaugh recounts how she witnessed American tanks retreating from the Battle of the Bulge. In January, the 25th<\/sup> necessarily then moved to Morlanwelz because the location in Tongres\u00a0had remained\u00a0unsuitable; regardless, Ashbaugh describes the change\u00a0as an immense relief. The 25th would stay in Morlanwelz\u00a0for a little less than a month only to\u00a0arrive at Tongres by February 20th<\/sup>, 1945. At Tongres, the Red Cross volunteers were generously \u2018given\u2019 a barn on the property, which was then repurposed and outfitted for their personal convenience. By March 25, the hospital had rapidly reached its total capacity: 1250 beds. V-E Day was announced a bit later on May 9, 1945.<\/p>\n

\"25th<\/a>

Dr. Murray Lambert Rich among other officers of the 25th General Hospital on the
steps of one of the Belgian Caserne buildings. Not all officers are present.<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite the fantastic, modern significance of the University of Cincinnati\u2019s Twenty-Fifth General Hospital, relevant historical information remains fairly limited or otherwise not readily accessible. Consequently, the public does not generally know about this portion of the University\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

I must mention, perhaps even dolefully, that the information for this article would likely not have even existed if not for the dedication of two people: Barbara Lincoln Ashbaugh through her Memoirs<\/em> and Colonel H.J. Nimitz in A Brief Historical Sketch of the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital In World War II<\/em>. Many Regards to them: it was their hope that information on the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital be preserved and recognized as a significant portion of the University\u2019s history in subsequent years.<\/p>\n

Contributing to the fulfillment of this wish today, Dr. Charles Lambert\u00a0Rich has made a commendable effort of developing the 25th<\/sup>\u2019s history through exploring the life events of his father, Dr. Murray Lambert Rich. His findings will be shared and preserved along with other information on the 25th<\/sup> General Hospital at The Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions.<\/p>\n

The upcoming blog\u00a0exploring the history of\u00a0the 25th General Hospital will include insights generously shared by Dr. Charles Rich!<\/p>\n

For more information, to view a collection, or for a tour of the Winkler Center, please call 558-5120 or email chhp@uc.edu<\/a> to schedule an appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Nathan Hood In the summer of 1941, the United States federal government requested that the Cincinnati General Hospital \u2013 now a division of the University Hospital \u2013 organize the 25th General Hospital. Intended as a military organization similar to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[600,31,13,282],"tags":[897,894,797,898,893,779,895,896],"class_list":["post-28693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-collections-2","category-uc","category-uclibraries","category-winkler-center","tag-25th-general-hospital","tag-barbara-lincoln-ashbaugh","tag-cincinnati-general-hospital","tag-dr-charles-rich","tag-dr-murray-lambert-rich","tag-dr-stanley-dorst","tag-red-cross","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}