It is also a story of discovery, of uncovering the words, photographs and deeds of hundreds of World War II heroes whose stories lie in dusty trunks in attics across America.
As a tribute to his parents, who served in the unit, author and historian G. Jesse Flynn has opened those trunks and gathered those voices and images into a comprehensive battlefield-by-battlefield account of the 48th/128th which served 70,000 patients in 31 months of combat duty.
For Flynn the research involved a personal as well as historical interest. His parents, 1st Lieutenants Gladys Martin and John Flynn, served with the 48th/128th from the beginning. Their wartime letters and photographs, recently discovered in an attic, sparked Flynn’s curiosity about his parents’ war service and launched him on a literal voyage of discovery, tracing the movements of the unit from Africa to Sicily to western Europe. In addition, Flynn began a personal quest to contact virtually all of the surviving members of the unit in an effort to tell their previously untold stories of heroism, sacrifice and breakthroughs in combat medical care.
The result is the first thorough history of the 48th/128th, told in their own words by the soldiers, nurses, and doctors who were there at Oran, Kassarine Pass, Sicily, the Normandy beaches, the Battle of the Bulge and the long drive into Nazi Germany.
