203rd General Hospital

The United States Army's 203rd General Hospital was activated on February 10, 1941, to meet anticipated military medical needs of a country preparing for war. Initially, the group was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, as a subsidiary of the base hospital there, and its primary function was to train medical technicians as army hospital and clinic support staff. In 1942 the 203rd, commanded by Colonel James H. Turner, was reorganized as an independent general hospital unit and was ordered to prepare for combat operations overseas. The unit departed Camp Murray, Fort Lewis on December 15, 1943, by train for the six-day journey to an unknown destination, that turned out to be the New York Port of Embarkation staging camp, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. After arrival on December 21, ninety nurses under Chief Nurse, Captain Nina E. Piatt, joined the unit, now numbering 600. They were sequestered with no outside contacts, until departure by train on 28 December 20, for a ferry to the embarkation piers on Staten Island. There the unit boarded a troop ship SS Brazil which joined a 118 ship convoy bound for Greenock, Scotland. They arrived there January 8, 1944. They then boarded a waiting train and traveled south, passing through London just after an air raid. Their ultimate destination was Petworth, Sussex, England, where they were quartered in British Army Nissen huts through which

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