A World War II Flight Nurse who tended to scores of wounded soldiers, First Lieutenant Christine Annette Gasvoda lost her life in a horrible crash. She was not just a great nurse but a great person. She was popular with everyone and was very talented and very charming, according to a film remembering her.[i]

She was born to Louis and Gertrude Kuznik Gazvoda in 1915, joining brothers and sisters at home. Her parents were both Austrian immigrants. They married in 1901 when he was 19 and she was 20. The young couple spoke both English and their native tongue, Slovenian. The Slovene language is spoken in Slovenia and adjacent parts of Austria.[ii] They became American citizens in 1909.[iii]

The family was living in the far reaches of Northern Michigan. The family grew with the birth of Frank Louis Gazvoda, 1902 and Maria Gazvoda, 1903. Sadly, they lost Maria the next year in 1904.[iv]

After that loss, they had more children: Annie T. Gazvoda, 1906, Agnes Gazvoda, 1908,[v] and Rudolph Matthew Gazvoda, 1910.[vi] At that time, the family was renting a house in Houghton County, Michigan. They were being supported by Louis’ work as a laborer in a copper mine and Gertrude’s work running a boarding house. Living with them were five Austrian men who also worked at the copper mine. Additionally, there was a live-in servant from Austria which must have been needed with five children and five boarders for which to cook, clean and tend.[vii]

Another baby boy joined the family in 1913 and they named him Joseph Walter Gazvoda.[viii]

When Christine was born in 1915, she had sisters and brothers waiting for her.[ix]

When Christine was just 4, her family was still in Houghton. Her parents hard work at the copper mine and keeping boarders had paid off. They now owned their own home on Oak Street, free and clear without a mortgage. Her dad still worked as a miner in a copper mine to support the large family. Christine was at home with her mother while the older children went to school.[x] That year, 1920, saw another baby boy arrive. They named him Edward Gazvoda. In all, Louis and Gertrude had ten children. Eight survived and they lost two children.[xi]

When Christine was 12, she lost her mother. Gertrude passed away from breast cancer in 1927.

When she was 15, in 1930, Christine gains a stepmother and stepbrothers and sisters. Her father, Louis, remarried to Michigan native Mary Greek Saitz. Mary brought her children with her from her previous marriage. They were Joseph Saitz, 17, Valerie Saitz, 13, and Clara Saitz, 5. That made for a household with five teenagers and two children. Louis and Rudolph were at the copper mine and Joseph Gazvoda was a hotel porter.[xii]

Just a year later, Christine loses her stepmother, Mary, who dies during childbirth. This leaves Christine, 16, the oldest girl at home, trying to attend school and handle many things including a little brother age 10. Even with all the upheaval in her life, she graduates from Calumet High School.[xiii]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

Christine left Michigan and headed for Chicago to attend Loyola University. She graduated as a registered nurse in 1938. She worked at St. Elizabeth Hospital.[xiv]

In the summer after graduation, she celebrated her brother Rudolph’s wedding. Then in the winter of 1938, Christine suffered another blow when her younger brother, Edward, was stricken with meningitis and died three days before Christmas. He was just 18.[xv]

As the war years loomed, Christine Gasvoda, now spelling her name slightly differently than her parents, has done what many women her age dream of doing. At 25, she is in the big city of Chicago and has found two other young ladies to share an apartment. The women, Christine and her roommates, Naomi Swem and Louise Koth, are all nurses.[xvi]

She is remembered as a very talented singer who loved to entertain. She enjoyed singing at church and at dances.[xvii]

Back home in Michigan, the Gazvoda children are adults and off living their own lives. Louis, now widowed, lives with his son, Rudolph, and his wife, Eleanor. Louis is now a rock crusher and Rudolph has a job in the copper mine.[xviii]

HER MILITARY STORY

Christine A. Gasvoda enlisted as a United States Army Nurse , service number N-731360.[xix]

Before heading overseas, she served at Chanute Field, downstate from Chicago, in Champaign, Illinois. One edition of the Chanute Field Wings newspaper, announces “Nurses Win Quiz Show.” Lt. Christine Gazvoda led her team of nurses in the quiz competition in a variety show there.[xx] She also made the news with a life-saving blood drive for a four-year old boy.[xxi]

First Lieutenant Christine Gasvoda left for overseas in January of 1944.[xxii] She served as a flight nurse for the 817th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron.

D-Day was June 6, 1944 and Christine would have been heavily involved in treating the wounded that came into the hands of the 817th. Between D-day and August 21, there were 153,475 wounded.[xxiii]

On June 12, 1944, the 817th landed on Omaha Beach. According to a fellow 817th nurse, Ruth M. Haddick Dorsman, the nurses immediately went into action treating wounded. They were quickly attending to urgent medical needs from setting IVs to passing stomach tubes and changing bandages.[xxiv]

As a flight nurse, Christine’s duties were tending to patients as the 817th used C-54s to move 18 patients at a time. According to Air Force Medicine website, the flights were dangerous with crashes and perilous flights with engine failures.[xxv]

Christine made those flights filled with the wounded from Europe to New York and back. She made several Atlantic crossings.[xxvi]

On one visit to New York with the wounded, she was able to take a two day leave to spend with family in Michigan and stayed with her sister, Agnes.[xxvii]

Her unit was transferred to France and then assigned to the 100th TCS.[xxviii]

HER LAST DAY

On April 13, 1945, Christine was serving as a nurse on C-47A #43-15086, 100th Troop Carrier Squadron, 441st Troop Carrier Group, of the U.S. Army Air Force. [xxix] Her unit usually flew with the 53rd Troop Carrier Squadron.[xxx] She had just returned to her base in France from one of her Atlantic crossings with the wounded.[xxxi]

First Lieutenant Randolph D. Burchfiel from Oklahoma was in the pilot’s seat. First Lieutenant Homer T. Hornberger from Texas was the co-pilot. The rest of the crew included T/Sgt./Engineer Earnest A. Burke of Maine and Flight Officer John E. Henwood from Michigan.[xxxii]

The C-47A took off as part of a formation of 14 planes moving from France to Germany under a mission to resupply and evacuate. As they began to encounter bad weather, 13 of the planes turned back.[xxxiii]

Christine’s C-47A continued, crashing in a storm related accident. According to Lt. Burchfiel, the weather was fair up to the Rhine River but after crossing the river they began having to fly on instruments. Through one opening in the fog, it looked as if they had enough altitude but after the fog closed in, they heard trees slapping the wings and knew they would crash.[xxxiv]

The crash occurred near Altenbeken, German. When Lt. Burchfiel, the pilot, regained consciousness after the crash, he was several feet from the upside-down plane. He checked on Christine and all the men aboard and all appeared dead. He followed a path into the nearest village and forced the town doctor by gunpoint to the crash site. The doctor checked each person and declared them all to be dead.[xxxv]

At first, her family was informed she was missing in action in Germany as she removed wounded soldiers from the front.[xxxvi] Three days after the report she was missing in action, her sister, Agnes, received the news she was killed.

Christine was 30.

COMMENDATIONS

Purple Heart[xxxvii]

Air Medal[xxxviii]

World War II Victory Medal

Nurse Corps Badge

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign[xxxix]

MEMORIALS

Christine Gasvoda is remembered at the Women’s Military Service Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.[xl]

HER GRAVE

First Lieutenant Christine Annette Gasvoda is buried in the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Limburg, Netherlands.[xli]

RESEARCH NOTES

Growing up, Christine spelled her last name with a “z,” – Gazvoda- but sometime after she graduated from high school records began appearing with her name spelled Gasvoda. The military records spell it “Gasvoda.”

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

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[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqMEGSLcd74

[ii] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Slovene-language

[iii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4311594-00140?pId=74919790

[iv] https://search.ancestryinstitution.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?viewrecord=1&r=5561&db=MIdeath&indiv=try&h=1881072

[v] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/31111_4330145-00703?pId=197244012

[vi] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4311594-00140?pId=74919790

[vii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/31111_4330145-00703?pId=12083375

[viii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4311594-00140?pId=74919790

[ix] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4311594-00140?pId=74919790

[x] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6061/images/4311594-00140?pId=74919790

[xi] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/31111_4330145-00703?pId=197244012

[xii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/M-T0627-01009-00417?treeid=11168169&personid=292192587394&usePUB=true&_phsrc=xxD419&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=148461164https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4609247_00904?treeid=11168169&personid=292192587394&usePUB=true&_phsrc=xxD414&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=14434689

[xiii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/1265/images/1265_b881350-00119?treeid=11168169&personid=292192569272&usePUB=true&_phsrc=xxD427&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=1436239383

[xiv] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/1265/images/1265_b881350-00119?treeid=11168169&personid=292192569272&usePUB=true&_phsrc=xxD427&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=1436239383

[xv] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/60872/images/44471_355151-00305?pId=751700585

[xvii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqMEGSLcd74

[xviii] https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/M-T0627-01756-00380?pId=80268968

[xix] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

[xx] https://www.newspapers.com/image/668133644/?terms=%22Christine%2BGazvoda%22

[xxi] https://www.newspapers.com/image/668139432

[xxii] https://www.newspapers.com/image/668146584/?terms=%22Christine%2BGasvoda%22

[xxiii] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/06/fact-sheet-normandy-landings

[xxiv] https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2019/04/d-day-journeys-nurses-on-the-ground-and-in-the-sky/

[xxv] https://www.airforcemedicine.af.mil/News/Article/582688/d-day-for-the-816th/

[xxvi] https://www.newspapers.com/image/98047170/?terms=%22Christine%2BGasvoda%22

[xxvii] https://www.newspapers.com/image/98047170/?terms=%22Christine%2BGasvoda%22

[xxviii] https://www.facebook.com/137655809602362/posts/the-sad-ending-for-flight-nurse-christine-gasvoda-she-was-in-the-817th-maets-her/3212480015453244/

[xxix] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

[xxx] https://www.facebook.com/137655809602362/posts/the-sad-ending-for-flight-nurse-christine-gasvoda-she-was-in-the-817th-maets-her/3212480015453244/

[xxxi] https://www.newspapers.com/image/98047170/?terms=%22Christine%2BGasvoda%22

[xxxii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

[xxxiii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

[xxxiv] https://www.facebook.com/137655809602362/posts/the-sad-ending-for-flight-nurse-christine-gasvoda-she-was-in-the-817th-maets-her/3212480015453244/

[xxxv] https://www.facebook.com/137655809602362/posts/the-sad-ending-for-flight-nurse-christine-gasvoda-she-was-in-the-817th-maets-her/3212480015453244/

[xxxvi] https://www.newspapers.com/image/380739278/?terms=%22Christine%2BGazvoda%22

[xxxvii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

[xxxviii] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

[xxxix] https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=61270

[xl] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqMEGSLcd74

[xli] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56298992/christine-a-gasvoda

Christine Gazvoda-Wings_Fri__Dec_31__1943_.jpg