Veterans of key mission in World War II gather

The campaign 'had a lot to do with ending the war,' a former Army nurse says.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
HOWLAND -- About 85 veterans of a strategically important, but little known, World War II campaign in the Persian Gulf region are gathered here for their annual national convention.
The 56th annual convention of the Persian Gulf Command Veterans Organization of World War II is being held now through Sunday morning at the Avalon Inn, bringing veterans here from across the country.
These veterans were among 30,000 troops who participated in a secret mission to transport war materials and supplies some 800 miles by truck and by rail from the Persian Gulf to Russia in searing desert heat.
"You couldn't wear a watch or dogtags. They would blister you. It was that hot. It was the hottest place in the world," with temperatures ranging up to the 160s in the sun, said Robert Patterson of Danville, Pa., the organization's national commander. "We didn't have air conditioning," he noted.
Patterson, 81, an Army truck driver in the Persian Gulf, recalled being hospitalized for 17 days with sand fly fever -- an ailment with flu-like symptoms caused by the bite of the sand fly -- and malaria. Patterson was later a truck driver in civilian life, retiring in 1979 from Cooper-Jarrett Trucking of Sharon, Pa.
Supplied the Russians
"Most of the ships were being sunk by the Nazi submarines going up into the Black Sea,'' he observed, explaining that the Allies used the Persian Gulf as an alternate supply route to Russia. "The Russians turned around and started driving the Germans back as soon as we got the supplies to them," he recalled.
Had it not been for the Persian Gulf campaign, Russia would likely have been defeated and the war prolonged, said Ann Connelly Wilson, 84, an Army nurse in the World War II Persian Gulf campaign, and the organization's national vice commander. "I think we had a lot to do with ending the war," said Wilson, who served as the organization's first female national commander in 1976.
Wilson, who resides in Madison, was a registered nurse in Cleveland hospitals in civilian life after World War II. During her Persian Gulf service, she treated victims of heat stroke, accidents and sand fly fever, she recalled.
The veterans were to tour Amish areas, including Mesopotamia and Middlefield, today, and visit the World War II Museum in Hubbard and the National Packard Museum in Warren on Friday. Business meetings and a banquet are set for Saturday, with a concluding memorial service Sunday morning.