Edwin W. Norgard
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Edwin W. Norgard was inducted into the Army on April 25, 1942, at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Home at entry: Brimson, Minnesota.
He served as a Private First Class with the 300th General Hospital in Naples-Foggia and Rome-Arno, Italy.
Mr. Norgard shared the following:
"On August 21, 1943, we boarded the the Thomas H. Barry troop ship and headed out to the European Theater of Operations, landing in Bizerte, North Africa, on September 3 with 600 enlisted men and over 100 doctors and nurses,,, They moved us on November 10th on a U.S. hospital ship, the Shamrock, and arrived in Naples, Italy, on November 12th.
"We set up out hospital there, taking over an Italian TB hospital built by Mussolini in 1939. The Italians moved their operations to the west side of the hospital while we set up on the east side - first as a 1,000 bed hospital and later we took in German prisoner-of-war patients who were in another section. We operated our hospital until the fall of 1945.
"After VJ day most of our personnel were discharged under the point system. Under the 1944 Special Order, our unit was awarded a Meritorious Service Unit Citation for taking care of a record number of patients during the battles fought in Italy and the Normandy invasion."
Mr. Norgard was awarded the following: Meritorious Unit Commendation, Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with two bronze battle stars, World War II Victory Medal and our overseas service bars.
He was honorably discharged November 27, 1945, at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.
Source: Hometown Heroes: The St. Louis County World War II Project. 222.
