Dear Reader,

Thank you for joining Hutch and Georgie on their journey. If you’d like to see interactive maps of Sicily and Italy with accompanying photographs, please visit my website at www.sarahsundin.com.

The 802nd Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron was a real unit, the first to fly a true air evacuation mission. Although all characters in the 802nd in this story are fictional, with the exception of the commanding officer, Maj. Frederick Guilford, their movements, locations, joys, and challenges are real.

Likewise, the 93rd Evacuation Hospital was real. Real-life people in this story include Col. Donald Currier, Major Etter, and Sergeant Paskun. The incident with General Patton did occur at the 93rd, one of two slapping incidents within a week. Patton’s “dialogue” in the novel is adapted from Colonel Currier’s account.

I am indebted to Dennis Worthen’s fine book, Pharmacy in World War II (New York: Pharmaceutical Products Press, 2004), for many of the details on the Pharmacy Corps and the state of the profession in the wartime military. While Hutch and his father are fictional, the frustrations they faced are real. The “any intelligent boy who can read a label” comment was spoken in Congressional hearings. On a sad note, Robert Knecht is listed among the pharmacists killed in action. Mr. Knecht served as an enlisted pharmacist with the 95th Evacuation Hospital and was killed at Anzio on February 7, 1944. His service and death are poignantly described in Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee’s And If I Perish: Frontline US Army Nurses in World War II (New York: Anchor Books, 2003). He was secretly engaged to an Army nurse. His name is included in this story as a tribute to all pharmacists who served their country.