CPL. George Chall
U.S. Army – Surgical Technician 5th Grade
3rd Army 110th Evacuation Hospital
France, Luxemburg, Germany
Sept. ’43 - Jan. ‘45
U.S. Army – Surgical Technician 5th Grade
3rd Army 110th Evacuation Hospital
France, Luxemburg, Germany
Sept. ’43 - Jan. ‘45
George Chall was born in New York City on October 9th, 1922. He lived on the lower east side until he was 5 years old and moved to the Woodlawn section of the Bronx. Most of his childhood was spent in the Kingsbridge area of The Bronx, near Fordham Rd. George recalled living close to a veteran’s hospital and visiting the long-term residents on holidays. He met many of these veterans who had been gassed during World War I. This spurred him on in later years to get involved with an organization that preserved the memory of veterans. More on that later. George was a Yankee fan while growing up in Gotham. “So much so that I used to take the elevated train, Seventh Avenue line, and got off at the platform that looked into Yankee Stadium and watch snippets of the game before the next train arrived.
George came of age during the Great Depression, and it left some indelible memories etched in his mind. “I remember seeing pencils being sold on the street for survival. If a person had a job in the post office, that was a very secure job.” George’s parents owned a restaurant on East 14th street in Manhattan “but it didn’t survive the economic distress of the time.” His father was able to get a job with the National Laundry Company and his mother took in piece work. “We got along.”
During the Depression George worked nights as a waiter at Schrafft’s Restaurant, a noted up-scale eatery in Manhattan. The restaurant provided dinner before his shift began which was a big benefit during the depression. George also recalled earning enough in tips to make more money that the common man at the time. The staff dressed in secondhand tuxedos. One night George had to stop his co-worker from going into the dining room with shoes that had big holes in the soles. “Kirk, you can’t go out looking that way.” That would be Kirk Douglas.
George kept busy growing up. He was active in the Boy Scout and just missed reaching the top rank of Eagle Scout. The swimming gave him a problem. “Surface diving was one of the tests and I almost drown trying I was so determined.”
He graduated from the all-boys DeWitt-Clinton High School in June of 1940 and received a scholarship to Long Island University (LIU) in the pre-med program. The U.S. started the draft in October of that year and George received his draft notice. He was able to defer his service until he graduated and he went on to complete a four year degree in two and one half years. George recalled the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was in Times Square hazing some pledges to his fraternity when they saw the news on the electronic sign on the side of the building. The hazing was cut short.
After graduating from LIU at the age of 19, George headed to Fort Dix in New Jersey to be inducted. His next stop was Camp Swift in Texas for basic training. George was given the military occupation of medic based on his pre-med degree in college. While George was at boot camp in Texas his mother suffered a stroke. The Army gave George the option of serving on active duty in New York so he could help his relatives and the Red Cross care for his mother. Both George and his mother decided that he should do the hard thing and go and serve his country. After basic training George was assigned to a local hospital to receive advanced medical training.
George is Jewish and he had relatives in Latvia. In June of 1940 the Red Army invaded Latvia and began a reign of terror. The Soviet terror was cut short by the declaration of war between Germany and Russian and in July of 1941 the Nazi’s stormed into Latvia. They instituted their own reign of terror including the extermination of the Latvian Jews. George’s aunt and two nephews were shot by the Nazi’s outside of Riga in Latvia. The family was unsure of what was going on in Latvia, but they assumed the worst. Later George was to learn the details making his decision to serve in combat more personal.
George was assigned to the 110th Evacuation Hospital and was attached to General George Paton’s 3rdArmy. He was sent to New York City where he boarded the Mauretania and headed for Liverpool, England. The trip took 9 or 10 days because ships were constantly zig-zagging to avoid Nazi u-boats. After landing in Liverpool, they traveled over land to Southampton where they waited for a month until their supplies arrived. Once fully supplied they headed for Utah Beach, where they landed on August 19th, 1944. I asked George what was going through his mind on the trip across the English Channel. He said he was focused on doing his job and getting ready to disembark.
It was 6 weeks after the D Day invasion when George landed on Utah Beach. His unit followed the path up the beach, through the small towns of France such as Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Bayeux, Carentan and Saint-Lo and then through northern France and into Luxembourg and then into Germany. George had the opportunity to meet General Patton. “It was a very intimidating experience.”
George recalled being one of the first medical units in the war to dispense penicillin which had arrived in the military just prior to D-Day. At that time Penicillin was considered a miracle drug and had to be administer every four hours, often awakening unhappy GI’s.
Evacuation Hospitals were one of several medical facilities used to treat injured GI’s. Aid stations were closest to the fighting, next were field hospitals, then the evacuation hospital, and then the general hospitals. The evacuation hospitals were designed to be early MASH units providing triage to stabilize the patients until they could be transported back to a general hospital. It was a real challenge for these hospitals to keep pace with the rapidly advancing 3rd Army. Patton put tremendous pressure on the enemy and drove the 3rd Army forward at breakneck speed, which would ultimately lead to an Allied victory.
One of the 110th’s first tastes of combat came on September 27th at the Battle of Metz. Metz was a medieval French city where the Nazi forces had entrenched themselves. It was a bloody battle that resulted in countless casualties. From there they proceeded west towards the Ardennes Forest just as the Battle of the Bulge kicked off.
In mid-December of ’44 the Nazi’s launched a counter-offensive. This was Hitler’s last ditch attempt to stop the Allied momentum by breaking through the Allied lines. The 110th Evacuation Hospital was near the Ardennes Forest and in close proximity to the Battle of the Bulge. George recalled the evenings during the fighting. Every night “buzz bombs” would pass overhead. “You could hear them. It was an eerie thing”.
The Nazi’s experienced some early success by breaking through the Allied lines. “I remember very vividly two Luxembourg Melitz. They were similar to the French Underground. They told us, ‘There is nothing between you and the enemy except cooks with carbines.’ There was no defense against Von Rundstedt’s army.” George started thinking about what would happen to him, a Jew, if he was taken prisoner. However, good fortune prevailed, and Von Rundstedt changed his course which took them away from the 110th. The 3rd Army managed to continue to advance during the Bulge until they reached the Rhine.
I asked if he was worried. “I didn’t have time to worry. I was certainly concerned but I was young.” What George didn’t know at that time was the Nazi’s were taking the Jewish U.S. GI prisoners and sending them to Nazi slave camps. Years later George read the book, Given Up For Dead, that chronicled the history of U.S. POW’s in Nazi concentration camps. After reading the book, he began to think, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I was captured?’
George recalled a very significant event during this period although the 3rd Army was not involved. On December 17th 113 U.S. GI’s surrender to the Nazi’s near the town of Malmedy, in Belgium. A short while later the Waffen SS directed the GI’s into an open field where they opened fire with a machine gun. 29 GI’s escaped by faking death but 113 Gi’s were dead. Malmedy was intended to strike fear into the American troops, but instead, it served as a rallying cry and the intensity of the fighting in this area increased dramatically.
“I had quite a number of experiences with German POWs.” George spoke German and was assigned to care for the wounded Nazi’s. “I was in charge of the wounded Nazi’s. I treated them as respectfully as I treated our own to the extent the medical supplies allowed. I didn’t know the full extent of what had happened in Germany (the Holocaust), but I knew enough of it at that point. I asked some of the wounded Germans to help to take care of some of their wounded comrades.” They resisted. George was so angry; he shouted at Nazi’s and ordered them to help. They instantly jumped. “They responded to orders.”
On May 3rd of 1945 the 110th Evacuation Hospital saw one of the Nazi atrocities with their own eyes. The following description paraphrases the notes created at a re-union of the 110th some years after the war. ‘Super-horrors of the war were seen while at Tittling, Germany. Less than two miles from the camp of the 110th, a common grave was found with over 800 bodies of men, women, children and forced laborers from eastern Europe. They had been herded into railroad box cars that carried them to a hillside. They were unloaded along the edge of a steep incline and were systematically murdered. Their bodies conveniently rolled down the hill to a watery grave below. When the mass grave was found the American commander ordered captured SS troops to dig the bodies from the pit using only their hands. The bodies were then lined along the hillside.’ General Eisenhower had issued orders that all troops in the vicinity of concentration camps to observe the scene so that it would never be forgotten nor disputed in the future as memories of WWII faded. In keeping with the spirit of the order members of the 110th were brought to view the gruesome scene. “No one can forget the foul stench, nor the ghastly and frightful expressions recorded on the faces of the victims of the German atrocities.”
On the last day of the war the 110th was near the town of Passau, Germany, on the Danube River. Although the Germans had surrendered, a German Luftwaffe strafed the 110th Evacuation Hospital despite clear markings it was a medical unit. Fortunately, no one was injured but in an ironic turn of events that plane was immediately shot down by the American’s and the pilot was captured. Suffering from extensive injuries the pilot was brought to the 110th and placed in George’s care. “We put him in a fully body cast and after he came out of the anesthesia, I asked him, ‘wo hast du schmerzen‘ (where do you have pain?). Despite being flat on his back, he tried to spit in my face. If he was in his 40’s that would have never happened. They were thrilled and relieved to be in Allied hands. He was obviously a recent product of Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth).”
“I did treat a number of patients who were horribly wounded and each of those remains a capsule in my mind to this day. I was fortunate not to be wounded and not suffer from PTSD.”
When the fighting ended in Europe the 110th Evacuation Hospital was in Passau, Germany approximately 120 miles northeast of Munich. There they transitioned to the Occupations Forces and George was involved in administering medical care to the batter and beleaguered German citizenry. I asked how it was to interreact with the civilians of a defeated nation. “Most were very grateful and greatly relieved to be in U.S. or allied hands. There were still some that were rabid Nazi’s, part of Hitler’s Germany. While George was waiting to be sent back to the United States, he was offered the opportunity to study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He attended classes there until January of ’46 when he boarded a Liberty Ship head for New York Harbor.
When George arrived in New York he headed straight for Florida where his mother was convalescing. After eight months George returned to New York City and used the GI Bill to enroll in a master’s program at Columbia University. His area of study was Political Science and government. While attending Columbia George met his first wife Marion and they were married in 1952. They remained married for 47 years until Marion passed away in April of 2000.
Just before George began his master’s program he was diagnosed with “battle fatigue”. Like many of the men of his time he decided to ignore it and press ahead with life. George completed his master’s program and began a teaching career at Rutgers University and then Penn State teaching classes in Political Science and American Government. At the same time, he began working on his PhD at Columbia. In 1968, after 6+ years of teaching George was given a one-year appointment to a position in the Federal Government. He would become Associate Director of the first interagency Executive Development Program. This was the first time the Federal Government brought together executives from across different agencies for Executive Development. At the time, every department had its own training, but this format allowed for the exchange of different ideas and approaches in policy and management. His one-year appointment turned into a permanent appointment.
During his career George was active in the National Association of Management and the American Society of Public Administration. He was also the Vice President of CIOS which was an international organization founded in 1925 at the end of WWI. During his tenure this organization worked to restore political and economic life for the European countries after WW II as well as the developing countries of Asia and Latin America.
After a 20-year career, George retired from public service and formed his own consulting firm, The Chall Group, Inc. His firm focused on international affairs including working with newly independent members of the former Soviet Union that broke away to form their own countries. He managed agricultural reform with Uzbekistan.
In 2002 George met Victoria and they were married.
George and Victoria were living on 90th Street in Manhattan, one block from Riverside Drive where they could walk to Lincoln Center and many of the museums. They were also within walking distance of Soldiers and Sailors Monument on 89th Street and Riverside Drive. The monument cornerstone dedication was given by Theodore Roosevelt on Memorial Day in 1902.
George had noticed the lack of public consciousness in recognizing the service of American military veterans. George had a very vivid recollection from his youth that has stayed with him to this day. That recollection sent him down a path that would turn out to be very important to veterans, the City of New York and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.
“On Memorial Day we had a survivor of the Civil War riding in the parade. I’ve never forgotten the determination in that man’s eyes.” George realized that people were losing site of the valor and sacrifices of U.S. military veterans and was determined not to let that happen. In 2003 he founded The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Association to preserve the Soldiers and Sailor’s Monument. George successfully brought together 24 organizations to lay wreaths at the monument each Memorial Day. After 10 years George passed the reins of the organization.
WW2 had a significant effect on George. “I came to believe I had to make a difference in the world somehow and do some things that would improve relationships among nations…..and that’s how I evolved from pre-med to an international consultant.”
George, thank you for doing the hard thing in heading off to war when you had the option to remain stateside. The world also owes you thanks for facing down true evil and helping to save humanity from oppression and terror.
George came of age during the Great Depression, and it left some indelible memories etched in his mind. “I remember seeing pencils being sold on the street for survival. If a person had a job in the post office, that was a very secure job.” George’s parents owned a restaurant on East 14th street in Manhattan “but it didn’t survive the economic distress of the time.” His father was able to get a job with the National Laundry Company and his mother took in piece work. “We got along.”
During the Depression George worked nights as a waiter at Schrafft’s Restaurant, a noted up-scale eatery in Manhattan. The restaurant provided dinner before his shift began which was a big benefit during the depression. George also recalled earning enough in tips to make more money that the common man at the time. The staff dressed in secondhand tuxedos. One night George had to stop his co-worker from going into the dining room with shoes that had big holes in the soles. “Kirk, you can’t go out looking that way.” That would be Kirk Douglas.
George kept busy growing up. He was active in the Boy Scout and just missed reaching the top rank of Eagle Scout. The swimming gave him a problem. “Surface diving was one of the tests and I almost drown trying I was so determined.”
He graduated from the all-boys DeWitt-Clinton High School in June of 1940 and received a scholarship to Long Island University (LIU) in the pre-med program. The U.S. started the draft in October of that year and George received his draft notice. He was able to defer his service until he graduated and he went on to complete a four year degree in two and one half years. George recalled the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was in Times Square hazing some pledges to his fraternity when they saw the news on the electronic sign on the side of the building. The hazing was cut short.
After graduating from LIU at the age of 19, George headed to Fort Dix in New Jersey to be inducted. His next stop was Camp Swift in Texas for basic training. George was given the military occupation of medic based on his pre-med degree in college. While George was at boot camp in Texas his mother suffered a stroke. The Army gave George the option of serving on active duty in New York so he could help his relatives and the Red Cross care for his mother. Both George and his mother decided that he should do the hard thing and go and serve his country. After basic training George was assigned to a local hospital to receive advanced medical training.
George is Jewish and he had relatives in Latvia. In June of 1940 the Red Army invaded Latvia and began a reign of terror. The Soviet terror was cut short by the declaration of war between Germany and Russian and in July of 1941 the Nazi’s stormed into Latvia. They instituted their own reign of terror including the extermination of the Latvian Jews. George’s aunt and two nephews were shot by the Nazi’s outside of Riga in Latvia. The family was unsure of what was going on in Latvia, but they assumed the worst. Later George was to learn the details making his decision to serve in combat more personal.
George was assigned to the 110th Evacuation Hospital and was attached to General George Paton’s 3rdArmy. He was sent to New York City where he boarded the Mauretania and headed for Liverpool, England. The trip took 9 or 10 days because ships were constantly zig-zagging to avoid Nazi u-boats. After landing in Liverpool, they traveled over land to Southampton where they waited for a month until their supplies arrived. Once fully supplied they headed for Utah Beach, where they landed on August 19th, 1944. I asked George what was going through his mind on the trip across the English Channel. He said he was focused on doing his job and getting ready to disembark.
It was 6 weeks after the D Day invasion when George landed on Utah Beach. His unit followed the path up the beach, through the small towns of France such as Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Bayeux, Carentan and Saint-Lo and then through northern France and into Luxembourg and then into Germany. George had the opportunity to meet General Patton. “It was a very intimidating experience.”
George recalled being one of the first medical units in the war to dispense penicillin which had arrived in the military just prior to D-Day. At that time Penicillin was considered a miracle drug and had to be administer every four hours, often awakening unhappy GI’s.
Evacuation Hospitals were one of several medical facilities used to treat injured GI’s. Aid stations were closest to the fighting, next were field hospitals, then the evacuation hospital, and then the general hospitals. The evacuation hospitals were designed to be early MASH units providing triage to stabilize the patients until they could be transported back to a general hospital. It was a real challenge for these hospitals to keep pace with the rapidly advancing 3rd Army. Patton put tremendous pressure on the enemy and drove the 3rd Army forward at breakneck speed, which would ultimately lead to an Allied victory.
One of the 110th’s first tastes of combat came on September 27th at the Battle of Metz. Metz was a medieval French city where the Nazi forces had entrenched themselves. It was a bloody battle that resulted in countless casualties. From there they proceeded west towards the Ardennes Forest just as the Battle of the Bulge kicked off.
In mid-December of ’44 the Nazi’s launched a counter-offensive. This was Hitler’s last ditch attempt to stop the Allied momentum by breaking through the Allied lines. The 110th Evacuation Hospital was near the Ardennes Forest and in close proximity to the Battle of the Bulge. George recalled the evenings during the fighting. Every night “buzz bombs” would pass overhead. “You could hear them. It was an eerie thing”.
The Nazi’s experienced some early success by breaking through the Allied lines. “I remember very vividly two Luxembourg Melitz. They were similar to the French Underground. They told us, ‘There is nothing between you and the enemy except cooks with carbines.’ There was no defense against Von Rundstedt’s army.” George started thinking about what would happen to him, a Jew, if he was taken prisoner. However, good fortune prevailed, and Von Rundstedt changed his course which took them away from the 110th. The 3rd Army managed to continue to advance during the Bulge until they reached the Rhine.
I asked if he was worried. “I didn’t have time to worry. I was certainly concerned but I was young.” What George didn’t know at that time was the Nazi’s were taking the Jewish U.S. GI prisoners and sending them to Nazi slave camps. Years later George read the book, Given Up For Dead, that chronicled the history of U.S. POW’s in Nazi concentration camps. After reading the book, he began to think, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I was captured?’
George recalled a very significant event during this period although the 3rd Army was not involved. On December 17th 113 U.S. GI’s surrender to the Nazi’s near the town of Malmedy, in Belgium. A short while later the Waffen SS directed the GI’s into an open field where they opened fire with a machine gun. 29 GI’s escaped by faking death but 113 Gi’s were dead. Malmedy was intended to strike fear into the American troops, but instead, it served as a rallying cry and the intensity of the fighting in this area increased dramatically.
“I had quite a number of experiences with German POWs.” George spoke German and was assigned to care for the wounded Nazi’s. “I was in charge of the wounded Nazi’s. I treated them as respectfully as I treated our own to the extent the medical supplies allowed. I didn’t know the full extent of what had happened in Germany (the Holocaust), but I knew enough of it at that point. I asked some of the wounded Germans to help to take care of some of their wounded comrades.” They resisted. George was so angry; he shouted at Nazi’s and ordered them to help. They instantly jumped. “They responded to orders.”
On May 3rd of 1945 the 110th Evacuation Hospital saw one of the Nazi atrocities with their own eyes. The following description paraphrases the notes created at a re-union of the 110th some years after the war. ‘Super-horrors of the war were seen while at Tittling, Germany. Less than two miles from the camp of the 110th, a common grave was found with over 800 bodies of men, women, children and forced laborers from eastern Europe. They had been herded into railroad box cars that carried them to a hillside. They were unloaded along the edge of a steep incline and were systematically murdered. Their bodies conveniently rolled down the hill to a watery grave below. When the mass grave was found the American commander ordered captured SS troops to dig the bodies from the pit using only their hands. The bodies were then lined along the hillside.’ General Eisenhower had issued orders that all troops in the vicinity of concentration camps to observe the scene so that it would never be forgotten nor disputed in the future as memories of WWII faded. In keeping with the spirit of the order members of the 110th were brought to view the gruesome scene. “No one can forget the foul stench, nor the ghastly and frightful expressions recorded on the faces of the victims of the German atrocities.”
On the last day of the war the 110th was near the town of Passau, Germany, on the Danube River. Although the Germans had surrendered, a German Luftwaffe strafed the 110th Evacuation Hospital despite clear markings it was a medical unit. Fortunately, no one was injured but in an ironic turn of events that plane was immediately shot down by the American’s and the pilot was captured. Suffering from extensive injuries the pilot was brought to the 110th and placed in George’s care. “We put him in a fully body cast and after he came out of the anesthesia, I asked him, ‘wo hast du schmerzen‘ (where do you have pain?). Despite being flat on his back, he tried to spit in my face. If he was in his 40’s that would have never happened. They were thrilled and relieved to be in Allied hands. He was obviously a recent product of Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth).”
“I did treat a number of patients who were horribly wounded and each of those remains a capsule in my mind to this day. I was fortunate not to be wounded and not suffer from PTSD.”
When the fighting ended in Europe the 110th Evacuation Hospital was in Passau, Germany approximately 120 miles northeast of Munich. There they transitioned to the Occupations Forces and George was involved in administering medical care to the batter and beleaguered German citizenry. I asked how it was to interreact with the civilians of a defeated nation. “Most were very grateful and greatly relieved to be in U.S. or allied hands. There were still some that were rabid Nazi’s, part of Hitler’s Germany. While George was waiting to be sent back to the United States, he was offered the opportunity to study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He attended classes there until January of ’46 when he boarded a Liberty Ship head for New York Harbor.
When George arrived in New York he headed straight for Florida where his mother was convalescing. After eight months George returned to New York City and used the GI Bill to enroll in a master’s program at Columbia University. His area of study was Political Science and government. While attending Columbia George met his first wife Marion and they were married in 1952. They remained married for 47 years until Marion passed away in April of 2000.
Just before George began his master’s program he was diagnosed with “battle fatigue”. Like many of the men of his time he decided to ignore it and press ahead with life. George completed his master’s program and began a teaching career at Rutgers University and then Penn State teaching classes in Political Science and American Government. At the same time, he began working on his PhD at Columbia. In 1968, after 6+ years of teaching George was given a one-year appointment to a position in the Federal Government. He would become Associate Director of the first interagency Executive Development Program. This was the first time the Federal Government brought together executives from across different agencies for Executive Development. At the time, every department had its own training, but this format allowed for the exchange of different ideas and approaches in policy and management. His one-year appointment turned into a permanent appointment.
During his career George was active in the National Association of Management and the American Society of Public Administration. He was also the Vice President of CIOS which was an international organization founded in 1925 at the end of WWI. During his tenure this organization worked to restore political and economic life for the European countries after WW II as well as the developing countries of Asia and Latin America.
After a 20-year career, George retired from public service and formed his own consulting firm, The Chall Group, Inc. His firm focused on international affairs including working with newly independent members of the former Soviet Union that broke away to form their own countries. He managed agricultural reform with Uzbekistan.
In 2002 George met Victoria and they were married.
George and Victoria were living on 90th Street in Manhattan, one block from Riverside Drive where they could walk to Lincoln Center and many of the museums. They were also within walking distance of Soldiers and Sailors Monument on 89th Street and Riverside Drive. The monument cornerstone dedication was given by Theodore Roosevelt on Memorial Day in 1902.
George had noticed the lack of public consciousness in recognizing the service of American military veterans. George had a very vivid recollection from his youth that has stayed with him to this day. That recollection sent him down a path that would turn out to be very important to veterans, the City of New York and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.
“On Memorial Day we had a survivor of the Civil War riding in the parade. I’ve never forgotten the determination in that man’s eyes.” George realized that people were losing site of the valor and sacrifices of U.S. military veterans and was determined not to let that happen. In 2003 he founded The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Association to preserve the Soldiers and Sailor’s Monument. George successfully brought together 24 organizations to lay wreaths at the monument each Memorial Day. After 10 years George passed the reins of the organization.
WW2 had a significant effect on George. “I came to believe I had to make a difference in the world somehow and do some things that would improve relationships among nations…..and that’s how I evolved from pre-med to an international consultant.”
George, thank you for doing the hard thing in heading off to war when you had the option to remain stateside. The world also owes you thanks for facing down true evil and helping to save humanity from oppression and terror.