As Ruth Dickson states in her story of the beginning of the 120th Evacuation Hospital Reunions, we were contacted by her after she had gotten our names and address from Mickie and Herb James. Mickie was a nurse in our outfit and Herb was a truck driver, and they met in the 120th and were married before the unit was disbanded. Since I was an enlisted man (working in the pharmacy),and met Aldean Nelson (nurse) and subsequently got married, we had something in common with Herb and Mickie and had exchanged correspondence from time to time.

When Ruth contacted us in regard to the possibility of a reunion of the 120th Evac. Hosp., Aldean was enthusiastic, but I was a little more pessimistic. I thought it would be unlikely that we could find enough of the surviving members of this relatively small unit to make such a reunion practical, but I was swept up by Aldean’s enthusiasm, so we determined that we would give it a try. This was late in 1992 and early 1993.

There were a handful of former members which we each had maintained some sort of contact since the end of World War II, but other than those, we had only our

“Buchenwald and Beyond” book, a history of our unit, that had a listing of the names and addresses at the back of the book. As we were to learn later, the fact that it listed, in most cases, their complete names,including middle initial, to be an invaluable asset in narrowing down searches where the last name was fairly common.

We started in our search in early 1993 with telephone books from areas where members of the unit listed their addresses in 1945. This was a most frustrating task! About that time we discovered that one of the local library branches had a computer with CD ROM drive and a CD that listed names and addresses with listed phone numbers in the USA. This proved to be our most productive resource. Our computer time was limited in the library since we could not monopolize that resource in a public library. The librarian, however, was very sympathetic to our cause when we explained our mission, an allowed us as much time as possible as long as nobody was waiting to use the computer.

We compiled a list of names with our best guess as to their present location, based on their original address etc. We telephoned many, but we sent out a great number of letters which stated: “To whom it may concern; The name of the person to whom this letter is addressed was a member of the 120th Evacuation Hospital which served in Europe in World War II . This unit is planning a 50th yr. reunion. If you are this person, or know of his or her whereabouts, we would appreciate it if you would contact the following”: Then we gave Ruth’s and our name, address and telephone numbers.

The response to these letters and telephone calls are what kept us going. We were amazed as to the number who responded, and although they were NOT the ones we were looking for, the offered encouragement and gave us good suggestions as to where we might look for those we sought. Many went out of their way to contact someone who might know etc., etc. Some reported that the person had died, but it later proved to be a false report. It is sad to say, but I’m afraid a lot of those survivors really did not know or understand exactly where or with what unit their loved ones had served. That type of communication was never really established or seldom spoken about.

When we found the name and address of a member that we had a strong hunch that “this might be the one”,we made the telephone calls. Sadly, in many cases we found that the member had passed away, but their widows or next of kin seemed happy that someone remembered, and the calls lasted long as they would want to tell you about their loved ones and their families, and their lives. They seemed to want to tell how the deceased and his or her experiences in the 120th had affected their lives. These experiences were like a shot of adrenaline that changed a tedious search to a labor of love

Often a son, or next of kin responded by offering to contact some members he knew his father had written to or knew of the whereabouts. We had several such recruits who took pleasure in aiding us in our search by providing us with new leads.

Other methods were used, including contacting their former schools, voting districts, newspapers in their area (in small communities some offered to run an ad at no charge to contact someone who might know the whereabouts of the person we were seeking) County court houses and places where meaningful records were kept were contacted, and almost without exception, the cooperation was enthusiastic. In one instance a court house worker put us in contact with a local historian.

This process went on for many months, and as we “found another one “ , we would call Ruth and others to share our news and keep the enthusiasm flowing,

As Ruth’s original story states, we picked up a few key volunteers early. All

contributed to the effort of discovery, but each had a special skill witch complimented our efforts in the reunion process. We had made some preliminary plans for location, date,entertainment, etc.,but when we finally got enough names to be confident that a reunion could actually take place, we were fortunate to have talented people to help us complete the task! Milt Silva, a retired judge, was a natural to arrange and negotiate for the hotel and banquet facilities, Leonard Herzmark, a computer expert and engineer among other things, established data bases, made mailing lists and labels etc.; and Carl Lee, a retired army colonel and engineer, acted as our treasurer as the need for collecting and disbursing funds became a reality.

As a result of our collective efforts, out of the 378 original members of the 120th Evacuation Hospital unit, we were able to determine where, or what happened to all but about 35 to 38 members. Our first reunion was held in Kansas City , MO

Sept. 23-25, 1994. We had 83 attendees, of whom 48 were original members of the unit.

THE REST IS HISTORY

Respectfully submitted,

Walt and Aldean Mason