Lt. Albers

  The 187th  Army Hospital was located near several fighter and bomber air bases, and most of the patients before D Day were airmen. One day while she was in surgery a nurse came to relieve her and told her she had a visitor. Robert Dierks was from Goodhue, and Eleanor's Aunt Margaret had given him an address to find her when he was sent to England. He had hitched a ride on a delivery truck to the hospital to see her.That was the biggest surprise she remembers from her time in England.
    Social life consisted of going to dances on the airbases. Lots of scotch and water-- they were in Scotland after all. The bomber squadrons had the best parties because they had ice for the drinks, and some airmen would actually churn ice cream while flying to and from a bombing mission. I never realized that it would get that cold at high altitude, but I'm sure things like making ice cream and ice cubes for the party that night would take your mind of more serious concerns.
   D-Day. Things really changed after D Day. The hospital became much busier. Eleanor said everyone knew it was going to happen-- both our side and theirs. The roads were full of men and trucks. The hospital wasn't that far from the coast and Salsbury. The flights to the United States became more frequent as the casualties came in.In all the time she was in England she remembers only one trip to London, it was tough to get off and transportation was difficult. London was pretty torn up with all the damage from bombings and areas of rubble. The clean up comes after the war in most cases.