IN MEMORIAM

Alberta Bowes, 91; Bassett’s Nursing Director

Treated Dachau Survivors During World War II

COOPERSTOWN – Alberta Anna Bowes, retired director of nursing at Bassett Hospital who as an Army nurse during World War II  treated Dachau’s survivors, died Monday afternoon, June 16, 2014, at Bassett.  She was 91.

On Oct. 2, 1944, Alberta joined the Army as a second lieutenant, serving her country during World War II as a general duty nurse in the Army Nurse Corps 25th Hospital Train.

Assigned to the European Theater of Operations in December 1944, she shipped out to Cherbourg, France, from Liverpool, England in January 1945.  She was assigned to Hospital Train No. 19 which carried wounded from battle areas in France to hospital ships and rehabilitation centers in southern France.   She also traveled throughout Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands, treating over 320 patients, including GIs, POWs, repatriated Allied Military personnel, as well as enemy POWs and children released from labor camps.

The week after the concentration camp at Dachau was liberated, her unit visited the camp and treated survivors.  While there she saw the ovens (some of which contained half cremated remains), the gas chambers and the laboratories where human experiments were carried out.

In December 1945 she was reassigned from the hospital train to the American Hospital in Paris, France.  On April 6, 1946, she was honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant and received two Battle Stars for the Battle of Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge) and the Battle of the Rhineland.