By Angela Marshall
And he knows love -- a girl he left behind and lost, then found again.
'We're in the Army'
Storz was an impetuous 18-year-old when he joined the Army. Tired of his job at the Guaranteed Trust Company in New York City, he and two buddies decided to enlist during a 45-minute lunch break one day in February 1942. They returned to work 2 1/2 hours later sworn in and with orders to ship out at 3 a.m. the next day. When his angry boss confronted the three about their tardiness, Storz said they didn't care; they had new jobs. "We're in the Army."
After months of training, Storz and 499 other enlisted men were sent to Duke University in North Carolina, where they became members of the 65th General Hospital. Affiliated with the university, the hospital was staffed by Duke doctors and nurses.
Storz had been trained by the Army as a doctor's assistant, but the Duke doctors rejected the Army's techniques and his training began again.
"Evidently they knew what they were doing," Storz said. If a wounded man made it to the 65th, he was likely to survive. The 65th General Hospital treated over 17,250 patients during its 20 months of overseas operations in World War II and had a 0.4 percent mortality rate.
The doctors were "meatball surgeons" of the highest caliber, trying and perfecting new procedures in the midst of war. One Duke doctor, Lt. Col. Clarence Gardner, successfully performed open-heart surgery three times, and Storz assisted during one of the operations. He closed his eyes as he recalled the tense moments during which he held sutures at the ready while Gardner probed a heart for shrapnel with his fingers. These were some of the first open-heart surgeries ever performed.
A reunion of the 65th was held at Duke University on Oct. 26 and a monument was unveiled in honor of all the men and women who served in it.
While general hospitals were supposed to be the last stop in an elaborate system of patient treatment and evacuation far from the front, the 65th was located near the Eighth Air Force in East Anglia, England.
Bombing raids by the Eighth were conducted around the clock, keeping the hospital on a similar schedule as the B-17s returned with their wounded. Storz recalled how bombers would light flares as they flew overhead to alert the hospital to the coming casualties. It wasn't abnormal to spend 30 hours in the operating room without a break, Storz said.
During their 20 months at war and the training that came before it, the men and women of the 65th grew close. "We were just like a big family, when you come right down to it," Storz said.
Six weeks before D-day, Storz was reassigned to the Navy as part of one of 30 surgical teams being readied for the battle. For weeks his team practiced beach landings in preparation for the invasion of Normandy.
On D-Day the team reached the shores of Omaha Beach about 3 1/2 hours after the initial invasion, when the Allies were still trying to secure the cliffs. Bodies were everywhere. "You could walk without touching the sand," Storz recalled.
For three days he helped doctors treat the wounded and remove the bodies of those killed within minutes of stepping off the ships. "We didn't know when one day ended and another one started," Storz said.
Even after the enemy fire stopped, the medics faced constant danger. There were mines buried all over the beach. "You didn't have time to think of yourself," Storz recalled. "You just had time to think about what you were doing." To this day he doesn't like to talk about what he saw on the beach. For years the memories gave him nightmares, and when the movie "Saving Private Ryan" came out, Storz said, all the emotions and memories surfaced again.
'A striking redhead'
A few weeks after the invasion, Storz was transferred back to the Army and given a 10-day pass that would change his life. Ronald's best friend, Russ, who had been with him since basic training, convinced Storz to come with him to Nottingham during his leave. Russ had a girl in Nottingham, and said she had a friend for Storz.
The friend, Dorris, was late for their first meeting and Storz was ready to give up. He told Russ and his girlfriend, Irene, that he was going for a walk. Storz hadn't gone far when he spotted a "striking redhead" standing on a corner and knew he had to talk to her.
She was Dorris.
It would be nice to say that they fell in love, got married and lived happily ever after, but that wasn't the case. They did fall in love, and they talked about getting married, but Army regulations got in the way of the fairy-tale ending.
By the end of the war, GI's needed permission to get married. Storz filled out the paperwork, endured the many required interviews and was waiting for the OK when time ran out. He was awakened at 2 a.m. one morning and told to "pack up your gear -- you're out of here."
He was shipped home. "I never did get a chance to see Dorris and get married," Storz said. He wrote letters to her that went unanswered, and after a while he started dating a girl he'd known before the war. Faith and Ronald were married and shared "53 lovely years together." They had three children, Ronald Jr., Stephen and Pamela-Anne.
After the war, Storz tried out a few jobs before settling at the Rockville Centre Department of Recreation, from which he retired in the early '80s. He also served 30 years in the Army Reserves, and has been a member of the Rockville Centre Fire Department's Engine II for 56 years. Faith also worked for the village. She was the first Rockville Centre meter maid, according to Storz. She died in 1998.
A year after Faith passed away, Storz started wondering what had happened to Dorris. He had received a Christmas card from her friend Irene in the 1980s saying that Dorris had been married but was now a widow.
With nothing to go on but that Christmas card, Storz decided to fly to England to find Dorris and see how she was. Irene was still at the same address, and Storz showed up at her house unannounced his first night in England. She was shocked, having been told he died of cancer.
Before long, though, they were reminiscing about old times, and Storz asked her to call Dorris. Not telling her friend why, Irene asked Dorris to come over. When Dorris knocked on the door the next day, Irene made Storz hide in a closet. Once Dorris was settled on the couch, Irene told her to turn around to see a surprise, and there was Storz standing behind her. They hugged and kissed and spent the next several days catching up.
A few days before he had to leave, Storz tried to talk to Dorris about finally getting married. But she had had a rough couple of years, losing many loved ones, and said she needed time to think.
Storz, now 80, is planning another trip to see Dorris soon and hopes that this time she'll say yes. He knows that it's a long shot, but feels that if he doesn't pursue it, he'll always wonder what her answer might have been. "If it's no, it's no," he said, "but I hope it's yes."
JH
