U.S. Navy Infirmary Afragola, Italy (ca. 1952).*
"Plankowners" at U.S. Navy Infirmary Afragola, Italy (ca. 1952) **
11-0009-02
U.S. Naval Hospital Naples (ca. 1954)
11-0009-05
In July 1965, construction began on a new eight story, reinforced concrete structure on the slopes of a volcanic crater within the city limits of Pozzouli, a suburb of Naples. The new hospital was occupied in October 1966 and in July 1968 was commissioned as Naval Hospital Naples. After severe damage to the hospital as a result of a series of earthquakes in the Pozzuoli-Agnano region the Navy began planning a newer facility that would keep pace with the latest seismic requirements. In April 2003, the new Naval Hospital opened in the Gricignano area of Naples.
U.S. Naval Hospital Naples (1966-2003)
11-0009-07
*1st floor - officers + 12 bed medical ward. 2nd floor - 21 bed Surgical ward + Operating room. 3rd floor - Dependents Ward + Del. Room. SOQ not shown.
**1st row L-R: LT M.M. Lepine, LT A. Vitillo, LT J.E. McCarthy, LT R.D. Clarke. 2nd row: Lt. M Petrusky (MSC), CAPT F.J. Weddell Jr. (MC), CDR P.J. McNamara (MC). 3rd row: LT D.C. Dixon (MC), LT D. Mundie (MC).
Sources
Kane, Joseph. Naples Delivers: The Birth of a Naval Hospital. Navy Medicine Magazine. July-August 2003.
Patton, W. Kenneth. “Naval Hospital Naples.” History of Navy Hospitals (unpublished), ca 1970.
Smith, Robert L. Naval Pharmacist-Italian Style. U.S. Navy Medicine Magazine. Volume 58, August 1971.
My God, I have been attempting to find a picture and "proof" that the infirmary in Afragola truly existed. I was a Corpsman HM3 who helped set up this infirmary some time in 1951 or 1952. I was stationed there for 2 years. I remember the Nurses and the Doctors very well and so many others that I worked with and were buddies with during that time.
ReplyDeleteThe most memorable 2 years of my whole life was spent there. I am going to steal the picture and have it blown up to hang on the wall. I have so many 'sea stories' about that duty that I could write a book. Wait, I did. Beautiful, beautiful Italy and Afragola certainly.
Thank you, whoever put this site up.
Billy E Peterson
Arvada, Colorado
billyglo@comcast.net
If you're on facebook please join our Facebook USNH Naples Italy family: https://www.facebook.com/groups/USNHNapoli/
DeleteI lived in Italy from 1970-1973 when my father was stationed there while in the Navy. I went to the school just down the hill from the old hospital. So nostalgic. I miss Italy. It has been 43 years since I was last there. My dad retired in Naples before moving back here to the states. I remember our picnics at Carney Park the movie theaters swimming pools and lots more.. such great memories! :)
ReplyDeleteIf you're on facebook please join our Facebook USNH Naples Italy family: https://www.facebook.com/groups/USNHNapoli/
DeleteI was stationed at
ReplyDeleteUSNH Naples 1968-1970. Anyone interested in joining my group on Facebook please visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/138593919595984/
When I first arrived the barracks was up on the hill off Via Caravaggio near Via Manzoni where the old hospital was located.
Everyday we would take the shuttle bus to the 'new' hospital in Agnano - near NSA Naples base. We finally moved to the new barracks, on the base, in 1969 sometime because I remember watching the moon landing at the barracks on Via Caravaggio.
Duty in Naples was an experience I enjoyed and will never forget!
Roger Ski Gapinski
Green Cove Springs, FL
ski@gapinski.net
Hello Ski! I was only a kid when we lived on Via Carravagio 1960 -1966.The "pink hospital" we called it was across the street from the school I went to..just up from "the presidente hotel" We used to go to the mess hall there at the barracks for Thanksgiving dinners.Good memories. I would love to join your group if that would be ok? Rita
DeleteRita, if you were "just a kid" in those years you probably had Dr. Bailey as your pediatrician. I worked for him as his "assistant" corpsman in 1963-64 in the hospital on Via Manzoni. He was a great doctor and looked after all the military dependent kids.
DeleteDad in the Hospital in Naples Italy
ReplyDeleteOKAY OKAY...you talked me into telling a short story of my time as a little boy in Naples concerning the Hospital.
It was 1960, I think late 60 or could of been summer time of 61. I was 5 or 6 years old. My father was stationed there at the NAVY Base, in the U.S. Coast Guard. He was an AT2 flying as a radio and Nav crewman on the C-123's, Cargo/ SAR aircraft at USCG Air Station Naples, located at on the Naval Air base in Naples.
One day, I got the word that my father was in the hospital, and they did not know why...I was told by my mom and our Maid Anna, who was also my babysitter. Anna was so kind to me and my baby brother, we just loved her so much.
My mom was so busy running around Naples while Dad worked or stood duty(or off flying around the Med). I got worried and kept asking Mom and Anna why my Dad was not coming home, again and again, daily. Finally I could not take it anymore. I asked Anna to take me to see my Dad. So she did, within a day or two.
We got on a local bus, public bus. It took what felt like hours to get there, it was hot and smelly on the bus. I was a little scared, so I would not move or talk to anyone on the bus. Finally we arrived at the Hospital.
As we walked in, hand in hand, I saw a large room, with a lot of wooden chairs and other places to set down and talk. Many people were in there visiting patience I noticed. We immediately turned to a desk, and asked to see my Dad, AT2 Thomas Wynn SR. USCG. It seemed to take a good while for him to come, but he came down from his room. He was dressed in a hospital outfit and a robe, all Govt issued.
He was very surprised to see us. I ran up to him and hugged him. I immediately questioned him when he was coming home and why in the world was he there. He was somewhat shocked I was there, and asked me why I came.
Well, this is not what I had in mind, I wanted to know when he would be home again. He began to tell me he had a kidney stone the doctors figured out, and so it would be a few more days before he could come back home or go back to work. I was very troubled by this, and told him so.
Anna was somewhat in trouble for bring me there, I figured by now, by the way he talked to her. But I talked to him about this many years later, when I too was in the USCG Aviation, as an AECS, he had long since retired. I now wanted to know the full story from him.
He told me, he was only gone about a week, which felt like months to a 5 year old. He was there for a week before they figured out he had a stone and had to pass it before they let him go home. Finally after a few days, he came home, boy! was I glad to see him home.
He was a wonderful father and took me and my little brother everywhere in the Naples area, to see the all that was to see in the area every weekend, it was a two year vacation, that only the rich can afford. He made friends with an old bum that grew up in New York City, but kicked out and sent back to Italy for teen misbehavior, he was now 60 years old and picking up cirgarette butts on the streets to smoke. But Dad liked him and so he became our tour guide on weekends. His name was Guy Itanno or Guyitanno. In any case, for about two years he was our best friend, until he snapped at the maid, and bossed her around, Dad did not like that, so he never came around again.
I loved my time there, and quickly picked up the language to his surprise. He studied Italian every night by books, but I was learning from Anna and local folks. I had to translate for him at the gasoline station one time, He was shocked that I knew what the gas station attendant wanted, the key to his gas cap. LOL!! I was wondering about what hospital he went to, so thanks for your posting of the photograph of it. My wonderful and loving father passed the bar in May of 2007 in his home, at the ripe old age of 78. thanks,
In all Sincerity, AECS Tom Wynn Jr. USCG (Ret.)
If you're on facebook please join our Facebook USNH Naples Italy family: https://www.facebook.com/groups/USNHNapoli/
DeleteI was born in 1952 in the first infirmary. So glad to find a picture of it.
ReplyDeleteI was born there in 1953 to Stanley and Eleanor Ashton.
DeleteIf you're on facebook please join our Facebook USNH Naples Italy family: https://www.facebook.com/groups/USNHNapoli/
DeleteI was the first baby born in that hospital facility, a few days before the official inauguration. I can provide with a scanned copy of the Bulletin.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWould love to see that bulletin and read your story on our facebook page. If you're on facebook please join our Facebook USNH Naples Italy family: https://www.facebook.com/groups/USNHNapoli/
DeleteI was also born there in May 1953. My dad took a picture of the infirmary and I recognized this online picture immediately. Seeing it is making me feel a little nostalgic. Wish it were still there.
DeleteI just realized that the doctor who delivered me in 1953 is shown in the picture above…Dr. Dixon.
DeleteI was a corpsman at the hospital on Via Manzoni 1962-1964... I'm not on facebook (and don't want to be)... is that content available to non-facebook people? I've been trying to find some old buddies from the day and swap stories.
ReplyDeleteI was born in that dispensary in 1953. My dad was in the Navy.
ReplyDeleteOnly people who were stationed in Naples can appreciate the story I'm about to tell.
ReplyDeleteMy wife, 2 kids and I arrive in Naples in January, 1981. Lived in the Tennis Hotel (where, we were told by the owners) "the heat comes and goes" while house hunting. I was working long hours, had several TADs and, in general, not really paying attention to my health. Finally got to the point where I was literally exhausted.
My wife drives me to the USN hospital in Agnano where I'm put into a waiting room to be Xrayed. An HMC positions me in front of the machine and says "Raise your hands over your head", which I proceeded to do.
The next thing I (vaguely remembered) is that I was groggily looking up at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. As I started to come to and am still lying on the floor HMC tells me "This (other) corpsman is going to take care of you. I have to go. I have an appointment at the NSA Housing Office. I can't be late." And off he went.
The other corpsman got me into a wheelchair and a bit later the Xray was completed. Turned out I'd had walking pneumonia for some time. Most likely contracted while we were temporarily in the Tennis Hotel.
Oddly enough I never begrudged the HMC who bailed out for his Housing Office appointment. I'd been home-ported in Naples a decade earlier and well understood the vagaries of the Housing Office.
Still laugh about it today. My wife, not so much.
I am researching babies born in 1960-1972 at Naples Naval Hospital born normal and within a year having mental retardation issues.
ReplyDeleteI was a Hospital Corpsman in the Naples hospital on Via Manzoni from 1962 through most of 1964. I worked for one of those years with Dr. David Bailey, the pediatrician. There were plenty of babies and toddlers but I don't recall encountering the sort of case(s) you're looking for.
DeleteWas there some sort of issue during that time which would have caused such a demographic?
DeleteLeary here again... you should note that the hospital was on Via Manzoni until 1966, and thereafter was moved to Agnano, which was a monumentally stupid place to put it, and is probably the reason that Frank C. wants to research this. The Agnano site was basically a sulphur pit, and that hospital lasted only a short while because of that, I believe. There would be less likely to be neonatal problems at the "older" site on Via Manzoni, which is now an apartment building once again. Visit Google Maps here (and compare to the picture of the hospital as it looked in 1954, above): https://www.google.ca/maps/@40.8328649,14.2117017,3a,75y,187.44h,101.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snjMZ2A28FKnEXc48myYsWg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&authuser=0
DeleteWhat was the address or street of the naval hospital in Afragola, Italy in 1962? Does anyone know? I’m trying to find the exact location of my birth. Thank you for any assistance.
ReplyDeleteIf you were born in the naval hospital in 1962, it was not the Afragola site, but the Via Manzoni site... which is Via Alessandro Manzoni 52, Naples. If you were born in 1952, that would have been Afragola, but I don't know where it was
DeleteStationed at the Hospital in Anano in 89-90. Good times.
ReplyDelete