Sixty-eight years ago today, thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy attempting to secure an Allied foothold in Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.” I’ll leave the military history to others more familiar with such matters, but I would like to introduce you to a friend and neighbor who witnessed the battle’s aftermath from a unique vantage point.
Evelyn Kowalchuk, a first-generation American who grew up in New Jersey, graduated from nursing school as the United States was about to enter World War II. With the men and women of her generation enlisting to do their part to defend the nation, Evelyn attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army as a nurse. Evelyn’s mother, who had immigrated from Ukraine some years before, still had difficulty reading English, but she knew enough to recognize the Army seal on the letters her daughter kept receiving and would always throw them away before Evelyn got home. Finally, realizing that her mother must be intercepting her letters, Evelyn gave the recruiter her sister’s address, received her paperwork and finally took her oath of enlistment in October 1942.
After training, Evelyn volunteered for a relatively new program, the flight nurses program, situated in the Army Air Corps’ 818th Medical Evacuation Squadron. The flight nurses were based in southern England where, unbeknownst to them at the time, they would play a critical role in the largest amphibious invasion ever attempted.
The Allies had already secured the beaches around Normandy when Evelyn made her first flight into France that June of 1944, yet the battle was far from over. Northern France remained a war zone when the 818th started evacuating the treatable wounded from Normandy to hospitals across the Channel. Because the C-46s and C-47s used to evacuate the wounded were also used to bring in supplies and materiel to the Allied forces, the planes could not bear the Red Cross, thus they frequently came under enemy fire. On at least one occasion, Evelyn and the other flight nurses on her crew had to spend the night in Normandy after it grew too dark to fly safely back to England. That night, she recalls sleeping–to as much of a degree as possible–in a foxhole with Nazi shells whizzing overhead.
Evelyn Kowalchuk and the flight nurses didn’t only transport wounded Allied troops, once she recalled having to shield the identity of a badly wounded German POW from the American GIs on the plane in order to protect him.
After the war, Evelyn returned to New Jersey where she married a fellow veteran, Andrew Kowalchuk, and had two sons, one of whom, followed his parents’ example and joined the Marine Corps. She pursued her master’s degree in nursing and would spend the next 30-plus years working as a nurse both at a hospital and later for the Newark city schools. The Kowalchuks retired to Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia in the late-1980s where they built their dream home and became active in the community. At one time, Mrs. Kowalchuk was an active member of six civic groups, ranging from the VFW, to the Firebelles (the women’s fundraising auxiliary for the local volunteer fire department) and the SML Republican Women’s Club. She also spent a significant amount of her time talking to school and church groups about the sacrifices the Allies made on D-Day and the role of women during World War II and volunteering at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford.
Like so many members of the Greatest Generation, Mrs. Kowalchuk is getting older. Her health isn’t what it once was and she no longer drives. She’s had to curtail her involvement in the community, but “Chappy” (as we all affectionately call her, using a nickname she earned during the war) remains spunky with sparkling blue eyes that appear to still view the world with the same gusto that lead her to volunteer for that dangerous mission 68 years ago.
If you want to hear Mrs. Kowalchuck describe her wartime experience in her own voice–and you should–you can hear her here and here.
