This picture and captions were sent by my sister, Barbara, to the New York Times blog called “Home Fires: Lives during Wartime.” It just appeared on the front page of that paper as a lead to that blog. My father was very proud of his service, and also very affected by his time with this recovery unit.
John Bedway
The photo above is of my father, John Bedway, at the Haydock Park Race Course, site of a U.S. Army Recovery Center during World War II. My father, who died in 2007, spoke often of his service in this little-known unit of the Army, set up at a racetrack where each horse stall was converted into a two-bed billet. He’d been assigned to the infantry, but two weeks after landing as a private in England in 1944, he was pulled out and told he was going to help set up this recovery unit, for “soldiers who can’t perform their duty, but the docs can find nothing wrong with them.”
The men had to be kept busy and fit — the Army didn’t want to send them back to the States. My father was chosen, he said, because the Army had been combing soldiers’ records for anybody with a background that could help in the rehabilitation of soldiers, and my father had four years of teacher training at the University of Cincinnati, and was a physical education major. I interviewed him many times over the years, and the quotes below the picture are from my notes. After ten months with this unit, my father, after passing the officers’ training course in Fontainebleau, served with the First Division in Europe and on Occupation duty in Germany until May 14, 1945.
Barbara Bedway, Nyack N.Y.
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Marcia Bedway has lived most of her life in Cadiz Ohio... except for 25+/- years when she lived in Cleveland, Washington, Atlanta and San Francisco.
I want to know more! =)
what a great pic!! and story!