A Medic's Story: A World War II oral history as told to Aaron Elson

By Edward Madden

"The fellow whose group I was with, Tommy McGowan - he was a staff sergeant - told us to go ahead and pull back and he would cover us until we got off the hill and then he'd come down. So we left and we got down the hill. "A little bit later I saw one of the guys that had stayed up there with McGowan and I said, 'Where's Tommy?' "And he said, 'He got hit pretty bad and he can't get out of there.' "I told the captain, 'Those tanks were a long ways off, where we could see them, and I'm going to go back up the hill and see if I can get McGowan before the Germans get all the way in.' "So I go back up the hill all by myself, and there are some houses up there. I get to a corner and I turn the corner, and there's a German tank sitting right in front of me. And they have some SS troopers right there with them. So I'm standing there, my mouth open, and saying, 'oh God, how did I get into this?'" Edward Madden, of Naugatuck, Connecticut, was a medic in the 90th Infantry Division, which suffered the third-highest rate of casualties of any division in the European Theater of Operation during World War II. At a 90th Division reunion in the 1990s, Ed sat down with oral historian Aaron Elson and related some of his experiences. Elson has been recording the stories of America's World War 2 generation for more than 25 years. He has written several books, including "The Armored Fist," "Tanks for the Memories," "A Mile in Their Shoes," "The D-Day Dozen" and "Nine Lives," and developed the World War II Oral History web site at www.tankbooks.com.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1490438076
• ISBN13: 9781490438078
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 24 Pages
• Weight: 0.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"