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Lt. Gertrude A. Brazil Nursing Corps album - Republic of Tunisia, Tunisia | Morocco | Casablanca, Morocco, Casablanca-Settat

Date1942

Mediumalbum 1: 466 photographs album 2: 531 photographs album 3: 660 photographs album 4: 491 photographs

Dimensions34cm x 27cm (13.39 x 10.63 inches)

Credit LineAnonymous gift, 2020

Object number2021/263

ProvenanceFirst of four albums by Lt. Gertrude A. Brazil (born 31 August 1914), a US Army nurse from San Francisco who served in North Africa, and subsequently in Sicily, on the Italian mainland, in France and finally in Germany. In this album her photographs document her arrival by ship in Morocco from the United States and relaxed camp life in and around Casablanca prior to military action, with her duties limited to helping to establish the tented 59th Evacuation Hospital and treating local Moroccans for typhus and smallpox in the 'pest house'. For the most part, Brazil's snapshots focus on tourist sites, entertainment and excursions during her eight months stay in North Africa: street scenes, beach visits, camel rides, dances, a USO performance by comic actress Martha Raye ('wowing the 59th'), social visits and excursions to Marrakech and Rabat. Of interest is a Casablanca street sign 'San Francisco 8000 miles, New York 4600 miles...'). In July 1943 Brazil and the 59th Evacuation Hospital travelled by rail to Bizerte (Tunisia) in preparation for transfer to Europe. Ephemera includes Algerian banknotes, a map, trans-Atlantic shipboard menus, a menu from La Mamounia (Marrakech) and Brazil's own poems. Captions.

LocationNot currently on display

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