Edward Stinson Brown, Jr. (March 9, 1920 – June 6, 2005) was an American World War II Army veteran and a civilian atomic weapons maintenance specialist at Sandia Base. He was a paraplegic for 62 years, following injuries by ordnance fragments (shrapnel) at age 23 in the Main Attack of the Battle of Monte Cassino. At Sandia Base, from his wheelchair, he trained groups of officers how to maintain atomic bombs using manuals that he co-authored. He married after his injuries, a union that lasted 61 years. He and his wife adopted two boys. He volunteered extensive community service, and was a lay leader in the First Presbyterian Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Early life Brown was born in Bloomington, Indiana, US, to Edward Stinson Brown, Sr., and Golden Glee Ragle Brown. His father was a bricklayer, secretary of YMCAs in Kentucky, Indiana, and Helena Montana, "well known for his work among immigrants", building advisor to the American Red Cross, a lay leader in the Methodist Church, and a 32nd degree Mason
. Brown's mother died when he was 10, after which he was raised by his father and sister, Margaret Rebekah Brown (later MartzMargaret Rebekah Brown married Karl Martz in 1935.), who was six years older. Brown graduated from Mt. Vernon High School (Mt. Vernon, Indiana) in 1937
and graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1941
. While at Purdue, in about 1939, he founded the first men's coop residence, Kagawa House, later Kneale House, still operating in 2024, and, as a senior, was president of the Purdue Wesley Foundation . Brown studied Military Science and Tactics for four years in the Purdue Reserve Officers' Training Corps
.
Military service and injuries Upon graduation from Purdue in 1941, Brown was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant
in the Field Artillery and ordered to active duty. After 3 months of advanced officer training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, he was assigned to the First Field Artillery Observation Battalion of the 36th Field Artillery Brigade at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. He was trained to provide location of enemy artillery, surveying, and meteorology data to the US Army artillery for purposes of counter fire, work that required engineering skills and advanced mathematics. At Ft. Bragg, he was assigned to lead physical training drills and to train other officers in the use of the .45-calibre pistol, .30-calibre rifle, and .30 and .50 calibre machine guns. Next, they were sent to Camp Blanding, Florida, for training under challenging simulated field and battle conditions. Shortly after their arrival at Camp Blanding, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In February, 1942, the troops boarded a 46-ship convoy to Liverpool, England, which took 28 days and luckily avoided German submarines. In England, they kept in shape while they awaited arrival of sufficient troops and supplies to invade North Africa.
North African Campaign
In November, 1942, Brown took part in the US and British invasion at Oran, Algeria, in Operation Torch, joining the ongoing North African campaign. French troops there, who disliked the Nazis, had been ordered to repel the invasion, but gave little resistance against the overwhelming attack. Their next objective was Tunis, Tunisia, heavily fortified by the Germans—the Tunisian campaign. The Allies were miserable in the bitter winter cold and wind, while tens of thousands were killed, injured, or captured as prisoners of war. In May, 1942, German General Rommel's Afrika Korps surrendered, putting 85,000 German prisoners in the care of the Allies.
Invasion of Sicily
In July, 1943, Brown took part in the invasion of Sicily at Gela Beach. His platoon was involved in the capture of nearby Ponte Olivo Airfield. During the invasion of Sicily, Brown served as a leading infantry squad Forward Field Artillery Observer. It took 38 days of brutal fighting for the Allies to capture Sicily.
Invasion of Italy
In September, 1943, Brown took part in the Allied invasion of Italy, landing on the shores of the Salerno corridor. Brown was in a Corps Artillery battalion with 155 mm long range artillery that supported "whatever infantry division was most desperate for heavy artillery support". In January, 1944, Brown's platoon was supporting the Second Moroccan Division in the mountains East of the Abbey of Cassino. It was the beginning of the Battle of Monte Cassino. It was an early winter, cold with rain and snow. Brown recalled never being warm or dry in Italy. Many of the men were sick.
Twist of fate
Brown was called back to battalion headquarters while another lieutenant, who was ill, replaced him at the front. At headquarters, he learned that he was selected to return to the States to help form a new battalion – but the written orders would not arrive for a few days. Although expected to stay at headquarters until the orders arrived, Brown persuaded his colonel to let him return to the front until the orders arrived, so that the sick lieutenant could return to battalion headquarters to recover.
Injured at the front On January 21, 1944, there was a major thrust across the Rapido River towards Monte Cassino as part of the Battle of Rapido River, with devastating casualties on both sides. Several men in Brown's platoon were killed or wounded. Brown was critically wounded when he was hit with shrapnel which severed his spinal cord mid-back, shattered his right leg and left elbow, and caused several flesh wounds.
. Brown lay in the bitter cold until, hours later, an evacuation team of four men struggled through knee-deep snow to get to him, and carried him down the mountain. They drove him to the nearest aid station, staffed by French personnel, in a barn. There were no beds or cots. The wounded lay on the ground in or near the barn. They had run out of bandages and pain killing drugs. Because the barn was under German observation, the wounded could not be evacuated until dark. There was no water, but sips of wine were given to the wounded, desperately thirsty from loss of blood. After dark, a hospital train (convoy of trucks with enclosed backs) arrived. Four men per vehicle on stretchers were transported over rough roads that has been bombed. By midnight, they arrived at an American aid station, and Brown received a shot of morphine. He was immediately taken to the 38th Evacuation Hospital
about ten miles behind the front. There, Brown was placed in the "shock ward", army cots in a big tent with a dirt floor, where he was expected to die, as did many men around him. The ward was understaffed, so the doctors and nurses worked beyond exhaustion. "Those nurses were so overwhelmed they would sometimes fall to their knees and weep."
When it appeared that Brown might survive, he was flown to the 33rd Field Hospital in Bizerte, Tunisia, North Africa.
Brown developed violent involuntary spasms of his legs, one of which had been shattered. To enable his leg to heal, doctors improvised, putting Brown in a full-body plaster cast, neck to toes. He was in "almost intolerable pain", and the cast caused multiple pressure ulcers. Brown wrote "I have known hundreds of World War II paraplegics but I am the only one I ever knew who was placed in a plaster cast."
Years in hospitals Brown and about 3,000 other patients were taken on the Hospital Ship Algonquin (painted white with a red cross and lit with floodlights at night to deter German attacks) across the Atlantic to Stark Hospital
in Charleston, South Carolina.
Within a few days, he was put on a hospital railroad train to Billings Hospital
at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana. A doctor there immediately removed the full body cast, revealing many pressure ulcers. These took months to heal, and can be deadly without expert care. The doctor also prescribed surgery to control Brown's violent leg spasms. Brown was next moved by ambulance to Nichols General Hospital
in Louisville, Kentucky. There, Major Warren V. Pierce MD
was in charge of a new section exclusively for patients with spinal cord injuries, where Brown was the first such patient. Pierce had seen only one spinal cord injury prior to World War II. Physicians were only beginning to learn how to treat spinal cord injuries. Prior to World War II, nearly all died. The then-new antibiotics sulfonamides and penicillin were a huge help. Before long, Pierce had about 120 men with spinal cord injuries. To allow his pressure ulcers to heal, Brown was in a Stryker bed
for several months. It "sandwiched" him in so that nurses could easily turn him over at regular intervals. It was uncomfortable and terribly boring, but the sores healed.
Brown was in Nichols Hospital for more than a year
.The date of Brown's discharge from Nichols Hospital has not been discovered, but was likely in late 1945 or early 1946. By July, 1945 (a year and a half after his injury), he was able to visit relatives in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, accompanied by a nurse from Nichols Hospital .
Car with hand controls
In March, 1946, at Mt. Vernon, Indiana, Brown purchased a car adapted with hand controls, and planned a tour of the Western USA . PHOTOGRAPH of Brown in his new hand-controlled car. In April, the couple visited the parents of his wife (see #Marriage) in Lawton, Oklahoma .
Promotion to captain Brown was commissioned as a second lieutenant
in 1941. At some point during active duty, he was promoted to first lieutenant, his rank at the time of his injuries
. Newspaper articles in 1945, the year after his injuries, continued to refer to him as a lieutenant
. In early 1946, he is referred to as captain, evidently promoted after his injuries.
Marriage
At Nichols Hospital, one of Brown's visitors was Betty Jane Christian, a native of Lawton, Oklahoma, whom he had dated while at Ft. Sill. Christian was then working as a clerk typist for the War Department in Washington, D.C. During her second visit, Brown asked her to marry him, and "unbelievably she said 'yes'". (Several years later, his wife told him that Dr. Pierce had warned her that Brown would likely die within a few years.) Christian and Brown were engaged in September, 1945, at which time they planned to be wed in the chapel at Nichols Hospital . But six weeks later, the wedding took place in the Evansville Indiana Methodist Church, after which the newly weds spent two weeks at the home of the groom's sister, Becky and Karl Martz, in Nashville, Indiana . They then resided at the home of the groom's father in Mt. Vernon, Indiana. In December, 1945, Brown attended a luncheon in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, featuring a speech by the Vocational Rehabilitation Counsellor for Southwestern Indiana .
Employment at Sandia Base In 1946, Brown and his wife moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and bought a house. Mrs. Brown's parents visited the couple in Albuquerque in September, 1946. While looking for a job in 1947, Brown was recruited for a civilian job at Sandia Base by Colonel John A. Ord, Colonel John A. Ord was Commander of the Technical Training Group at Sandia Base in 1947. See pages 31 and 34, where he reported for duty to the Sandia Special Weapons Depot. One of Brown's assignments was technical writing. He recounted When the U. S. began to stockpile atom bombs, military troops were responsible for transporting, handling and caring for them. The scientists at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories wrote technical manuals about these weapons and how to keep them ready for use. But those scientists wrote in technical terms that the average soldier could not understand. My job was ot translate the scientific manuals into plain English the average soldier could understand. This was a challenging job and I enjoyed it. I received several commendations for my work.