Madeline Fraser stood on the deck of a ship making its way across the Mediterranean Sea en route to Italy. The year was 1943 and the young nurse was making her way to the front lines having already served two years at a hospital in England.
The convoy in which she was traveling consisted of 26 transports escorted by 15 warships sailing from Liverpool to Naples. The transports carried roughly 28,000 American, British and Canadian soldiers as well as war supplies and nurses.
Most, if not all of the vessels were armed with small naval and anti-aircraft guns, the American and Dutch ships had armed guards aboard who manned the weapons. They were well protected but it was wartime.
Madeline stood on the deck and looked skyward.
“I looked up and saw a swarm of swastika-covered planes coming out of the sky and all hell broke loose,” recalls Madeline almost 70 years later from her home in Niagara Falls.
Sirens sounded and everyone was ordered below decks.
“There was shouting and loud noises and I could hear the planes flying overhead,” she said.
The lights were knocked out and smoke bombs set off to darken the sky and screen the ship from attack. She and the group of nursing sisters huddled in the darkness and listened to the terrifying sounds of war as machine-gun fire shattered the night.
“Then the boat shook, we had been hit right in the center knocking out the engine – of course we didn't know that until after. Then there was a second hit and the boat shook violently.”
The order was given to abandon ship. There had been lifeboat drills and the brave women who had been living in war-torn England were well prepared to deal with this eventuality – all but one.
“The nurses all stayed calm,” recalls Madeline. “All except my friend Aileen. She fainted.”
They had been headed for the stairs when Madeline turned and saw her friend on the floor.
“I muttered a few words under my breath and called for water, someone has fainted.”
Some soldiers who were headed to their own lifeboat stopped and splashed water on the unfortunate Aileen's face.
“We dragged her up the stairs and made our way in the darkness to the lifeboat station.”
Madeline pauses for a moment in the telling of this tale from so long ago..
“We were all friends. They are gone now. I just lost a friend in London and I miss her dearly but we had a good life.”
There were about 1,500 people on board and they scrambled into their
lifeboats.
“The attack began at sunset. We sat in the darkness adrift for four hours. We were pretty silent in that boat,” says Madeline. Then out of the darkness came a ship.
“We didn't know if it was the enemy or not but then the lights came on and we knew we were rescued.”
It was the Monterey under Captain Elis R. Johanson. An ocean liner with the convoy, she was used for transporting troops and armed with 20-milimeter anti-aircraft guns and had herself come under attack that night but the Monterey's gunners downed the plane before a torpedo could be dropped. The aircraft began to lose altitude and as it passed over the Monterey, it struck and tore off some radio equipment.
The ship, damaged as it was, was a most welcome sight for the stranded nurses who were still faced with climbing a rope net more than 60 feet to reach safety.  During the climb one young woman lost her grip and fell into the sea. A cook jumped overboard and saved her.
Young soldiers stood on deck to help the women climb over the side after they struggled to reach the top. “They were so young, they should have been at home – they really were the cream of Canada, those boys. We were officers so as much as they enjoyed helping all these young women they had great respect for us and were on their best behavior. All these women coming on board and all commissioned officers so they couldn't date us!,” she recalled with a smile.
She later learned they had just survived the largest battle of the Second World War.
The attack left six Allied vessels sunk or damaged and six German aircraft were destroyed. German forces declared a tactical victory though the Allied warships involved received credit for defending their convoy and reacting to their losses quickly.
Madeline, without her luggage and with only the clothes on her back, arrived in Italy where she would spend the next two years performing miracles in a canvas tent on the battlefield.
“Our patients came from the battles of Rimini, Cassino, Ortona, the Gothic and Hitler line,” she says.
They were the first Canadian nurses to serve on the front line in the thick of the battle.
“There were all kinds of these hospitals.  Bombs would drop around us and we would say ‘well, that one didn't get us'. We were proud that we were the first and we survived.”
With two doctors, an assistant, an orderly and a nurse, limbs were sawed off, wounds stitched shut and young men died.
“They were 18, 19. During a lull in the fighting I would go out and talk to them, ask them where they were from and tell them that they had the very best caring for them.”
About a year after arriving in Italy, the medical unit began to follow the troops as they won.
“The fellas had it very hard.”
The life of a young woman during the war left much to be desired. Madeline had lost all of her personal possessions and clothing at sea and it took a month for her to get a change of clothing and a uniform. She was permitted only one bucket of water a day and had to choose to wash either herself or her clothes – and there might be a dance or two to go to.
“I would brush myself off, I didn't have a comb or a lipstick – I think I missed the lipstick most of all!  But I would get out and meet people and dance my feet off!”
At the end of the war, Madeline returned to Canada, married Howard Shavalier and had a son and a daughter, David and Mary. She was widowed in 1973. She has three grandchildren.
Lieutenant Madeline Fraser Shavalier also has a lifetime of memories. She was able to collect a number of items to replace the things she had lost and the walls of her home at Stamford Estates display photos of her dear friends the nursing sisters, a photo of the ship that rescued her in the night and a special plate designed by a doctor in her unit depicting some of the experiences they all shared.
This year, 2012, marks the 70th anniversary of women being permitted to enlist in the military, however many served well before it was made official.
“It is a terrific life.  It made me stronger. I was able to stand on my own two feet and it made me stronger. I have no regrets. I would recommend it to all women.”

Photo captions:
Old photos, notes and mementos can be found throughout Madeline Fraser Shavalier's Niagara Falls home. Each preserves a memory of war and those with whom she served her country.

Madeline Fraser Shavalier remembers life as a younger woman, serving in the Second World War as a nurse with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.