A day before her 90th birthday, June Sullivan donned her Army uniform to walk in Rockport's Memorial Day parade, walking nearly two miles and holding her cane, not using it.
She has walked that route for more than 40 years, all following her service as an Army nurse in Europe during World War II.
The young Sullivan was forever changed by her experience. She touched the lives of many wounded soldiers, as well as prisoners of war who didn't expect humanitarian care in an enemy hospital. She in turn was touched when one Nazi soldier took his wings off his uniform and gave them to her in gratitude for her care.
In the wake of Memorial Day, Sullivan, a resident of 45 years, shared her story of a life full of both struggles and joy since she was born in Minneapolis in 1920 — the year women finally got the right to vote.
As a young girl, she was virtually an orphan. After her mother died of tuberculosis when June was 6, her grandmother took custody as her parents were divorced. But when she was 10, her grandmother died.
She and her elder brother were slated for state custody until a family friend located the father, a train engineer traveling the country, who lived in Brockton and ultimately took custody of his children.
Sullivan said she always wanted to be a nurse and after she graduated from Brockton High School, she studied nursing. She graduated from Cambridge City Hospital in 1942 at the age of 22. Months later, she enlisted in the army and began her service in the army nurse corps.
"Our group was sent overseas on June 10 of 1943 in civilian clothes because there was no time to issue uniforms, nor was there any time for basic training," she said.
They sailed out of New York on the Queen Mary.
"It was the safest fastest transport across the Atlantic Ocean. The nurses and doctors in the group were from all over the country," she recalled.
"Approximately six days later, we landed in Scotland and then traveled to England. The goal was to set up hospitals in various sites to handle injured soldiers that were sure to result from future invasions," she said. Their first patients were American and British soldiers from the African-Italian campaign.
On June 7, 1944 — a day after the launch of the "D-Day" Allied invasion of Normandy — Sullivan's group drew an influx of American patients in England at multiple hospital sites.
"Suddenly, our group's status changed to a 'prisoner of war hospital,'" she said, "and we began to receive many German, Austrian, Mongolian and Russian wounded soldiers."
A couple of soldiers in particular remain vivid in Sullivan's memory, after she cared for them over a long period.
One was Wenard Parak from Austria, who spoke good English, unbeknownst to Sullivan. When she was dressing his chest wound, she commented how young he was to a corpsman who was assigned to watch over nurses taking care of the POWs. She also commented that the POW had striking blue eyes.
When she finished with the dressing, Wenard looked up at her and replied in very good English: "Thank you very much for that nice compliment."
Parak was later transferred to Russia for care when Sullivan's group was moved to France. He eventually returned home to Austria to be cared for by his family.
Sullivan knows this because Wenard memorized her address and, in 1947, she received a letter from Wenard's sister thanking her and asking for details of his wounds and treatment. Sullivan responded to the letter and hoped that it was received — even though all mail was still censored at the time.
The other soldier she will never forget is Gunther Polle, a German soldier. When Sullivan's group received orders to move operations to France, Polle gave his wings to Sullivan as an expression of his thankfulness. The wings symbolized the branch of service in which Polle had served — the Luftwaffe, or air force.
She still has the set of wings, which includes a tiny swastika, tucked inside a photo album devoted to her World War II experiences. That album also contains a photograph of England's then-Princess Elizabeth, taken years before she became queen.
After the war, Sullivan returned to the Boston area and resumed her friendship with fellow Cambridge nurse Helen Sullivan, a woman who would become her sister-in-law when her older brother finally took notice of her friend. While Sullivan was in Europe, Francis Sullivan was serving in the Navy aboard the destroyer, the USS Edwards.
"Helen, a fellow nursing student, had brought my mother home a couple of times for the holidays when they were in school because my mother didn't have anywhere to go, and he didn't give her the time of day back then," said Sullivan's daughter, Erin Battistelli, who knows well the history of her family.
"Both went to war and, when they came back, they started to date and then there was romance," Battistelli recounted.
Sullivan would create a large family of her own, as the mother of seven children. She now has 17 grandchildren and five great-grandsons.
For many years, the couple also took in foster children, sometimes long term. She also worked at Cambridge City Hospital, then at Addison Gilbert Hospital after they moved to Rockport.
She retired around the age of 70, and for the next 18 years, she worked part-time at the local children's library where she also delivered books to the elderly as the outreach coordinator. She retired from these jobs at the age of 88.
Sullivan attributes her positive attitude to her Scottish heritage and her grandmother who took her in.
"My mother is an inspiration to me and all my siblings," said Battistelli. "Her early life was not an easy one. Yet she persevered and — in my opinion — fits right in with 'The Greatest Generation.'"
"Some people have a calling," Battistelli added, "and my mother's calling was as a caregiver. She always knew how to make her patients comfortable.
"It never failed that, when we were out walking or taking a trip to the shopping center, someone would always come up to her and thank her for the care she gave them when they were sick."
Battistelli recounted one added sense of family pride.
"When I was growing up, there used to be a teasing phrase that kids would say to each other: 'Your mother wears army boots,'" she said.
"When kids would say that, I would proudly respond 'Yes, my mother was in the Army — and did wear army boots.'"
Gail McCarthy can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3445 or gmccarthy@gloucestertimes.com.
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