Navy Lt. Mary Jane Foster found a touch of home when she boarded a new hospital ship in San Francisco in the autumn of 1945.
The USS Tranquility was one of six ships built to handle anticipated casualties from the planned invasion of Japan, but the atomic bombs ended World War II before the ships were ready. The Tranquility had 600 beds and all the facilities and equipment of a modern hospital circa 1945.
“I was so happy to see that all the mattresses were made at Page Bedding in Johnstown, Pa.,” Foster said. “I don’t know whether Page made the mattresses for the other five ships, or any of them, but they did for the ship I was on.”
Her assignment to a hospital fulfilled a dream for the young Johnstown nurse, but it came a little later than she had hoped.
Now a resident of Westmont, Foster was born Oct. 2, 1920, in Johnstown, one of four children of James and Mary Foster. She graduated from the former Johnstown Catholic High School and entered the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing.
She was still in training, working in the hospital diet kitchen, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
“I had part of the afternoon off and I was at home, and I heard the news on the radio,” Foster said. “That night, I was lying in bed and thinking, ‘I’ll be in it,’ and I was.
“My aunt had some friends who were Army nurses in the first World War, and I admired them. I thought it was marvelous to be a nurse in the service.”
But first she had to complete her training.
“I went in the Navy in June 1943,” she said. “My brother Frank was in the Army shortly after the war started. My sister Barbara had joined the WAVES. My brother Jim was permitted to leave for the service after completing half of his senior year of high school, and he went in the Navy.
“I was worried about the boys. I thought, ‘What if they get hurt and there were no nurses to take care of them?’ ”
She has fond recollections of her Christmas trip home from the Naval Hospital in Quantico, Va., and the bedlam at the train station. A lot of servicemen and women were trying to get home, and trains were crowded. Many didn’t get on.
“An Army man said, ‘Hold onto the back of my coat and I’ll get you on the train, Ma’am,’ ” Foster said. “I did and he got me through the crowd.”
She got home to her family for the holiday, and she returned to the base afterwards.
Her mother had been a fan of Father McGuire, the priest who had written the song “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” while a chaplain on an aircraft carrier. Mrs. Foster had read a book about him and told her daughter she hoped she would meet him in the Navy.
“I was assigned to the hospital in San Diego and when I got there Chaplain McGuire was a patient.”
Then she got ordered to the hospital ship. The war was over.
“The first place we went was Okinawa,” Foster said.
“It was right after the famous typhoon went through, about November 1945. Everything was blown down except round chimneys. The guys hadn’t seen any girls for a long time, and when we went in they were lined up on the ships whistling and shouting.”
Only seven nurses were on the ship, along with about eight doctors, a chaplain and a number of corpsmen. Foster didn’t get seasick but she did get an attack of the hiccups that lasted for about 24 hours when the ship sailed.
Foster was discharged in August 1947 with the rank of lieutenant senior grade.
Foster received a bachelor’s degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., a master’s from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate from New York University.
She taught at Georgetown University School of Nursing for seven years and worked part time at the New York Medical College’s Mental Retardation Institute for a while before returning to Johnstown.
Foster worked for Cambria County Mental Health/Mental Retardation for 10 years and retired in 1985.
Next week: Sickness a stroke of luck.
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BILL JONES | Nurse served aboard hospital ship in WWII
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