Abram I. Chasens
Age: 98
Born: Sept. 7, 1912
Hometown: Hawthorne, N.J.
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army; 5th Army, 505th Anti-Aircraft
Years served: June 1942 - January 1946
Rank: Captain
Family: Wife, Sylvia
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Abram I. Chasens graduated from Temple University Dental School in 1936 and was operating a general dentistry practice in Manville, N.J., when the U.S. declared war on Japan and Germany in December of 1941.
Chasens, 29 at the time, applied for a commission in the Army rather than wait around to be drafted.
“I could get a commission as second lieutenant in the medical corps — or go in as a private,” he said.
“I was called up in June 1942 and was sent out to Camp Edwards in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.”
In the morning, Chasens worked in a dental clinic, getting the troops ready for shipment overseas.
In the afternoon, Chasens took part in military training, which included marching, firearms handling and mock invasion landings.
Chasens was assigned to a medical detachment — comprised by two physicians, two dentists and 18 medical corpsmen — and shipped out overseas on the Queen Mary in November 1942.
The seven-day journey across the stormy seas of the Atlantic was a rough one for the passengers aboard the converted luxury liner.
“Everybody was sick,” he said.
When the medical detachment — assigned to the 5th Army, 505th Anti-Aircraft division — landed in England, the enemy had the upper hand, Chasens said.
“The Germans still had control of the skies.”
The detachment was stationed at locations including Liverpool and London.
“They kept moving us around England,” he said.
Later, “they shipped our outfit to North Africa — to Algiers — to stage for the invasion of Italy,” he said. “We left North Africa in an armada of several hundred ships.”
The medical corps sailed on a ship carrying aviation gasoline and bombs.
“All of our medical equipment was on another ship,” he said.
Allied forces landed in Salerno, Italy, on Sept. 3, 1943. Chasens' detachment waited offshore — the medical supplies wouldn't arrive until a few days later.
“We were bombed and strafed by the Germans,” Chasens said. “They landed us on day three on the beach.”
The men, carrying only their backpacks and collapsible shovels, were told to dig in and take cover.
By the time the strafing ended, the detachment had lost nearly half of its corpsmen.
“We were on that beach until day seven,” he said.
That's when the medical gear finally arrived.
“The equipment was unloaded and we started acting as a medical corps,” Chasens said. “Our air force came in and took over the skies.”
The heavy air support provided cover for the troops to advance.
The detachment, traveling with an anti-aircraft outfit that protected ground troops from enemy air attacks, made its way through Italy.
“Rome, Florence, up to Bologna — fighting all the way,” he said.
“Ninety-percent of the time I was not doing any dentistry,” he said. “I was acting as evacuation officer, working in aid stations,” evaluating patients.
“I patched up wounded soldiers. I was doing the same job the physicians were doing,” he said.
Chasens also evaluated wounded soldiers to determine if they could be treated locally. Those with more serious injuries would be transported to a field hospital.
“Every once in a while I'd get back (behind) the line and I'd set up my office,” he said.
Chasens performed his procedures — including emergency extractions and bridge repair work — with a drill powered manually, with a foot pedal.
“Corpsmen with strong feet kept it going,” he said.
Chasens also provided soldiers with regular injections that had been prescribed by a doctor, including antibiotics or medication for those with chronic medical problems who were still in the service.
“A lot of them had venereal disease they picked up in England,” he said. “They'd line up in the morning for their injections. Sometimes there were dozens of them. You couldn't send them back,” to the States.
When the war was over Chasens was sent home for a two-week leave before shipping off to the Pacific, “I hadn't seen my bride in three years,” he said.
Chasens, 98, and his wife, Sylvia, 99, had only been married a few months when he was called to duty. The couple met at Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel— in the Catskill Mountains — in late December 1941, during the Christmas holidays.
His bride-to-be was working as a New York City policewoman at the time. She served in that capacity during the 1939 New York World's Fair, where she took care of lost children.
“The worst part of it — we were just married and on our first, second and third anniversaries we were apart,” he said.
Chasens returned to his general dental practice after the war, but by 1953, after completing post-doctoral graduate training in periodontology and oral medicine at the New York University College of Dentistry, he limited his practice to these specialties.
During this time, he began teaching part time at New York University College of Dentistry, and in 1957, was appointed chairman of Periodontic and Oral Medicine at Fairleigh Dickinson University School of Dentistry in Hackensack, N.J.
In 1971, he gave up his private practice and began teaching full time as a tenured professor, when he started a post-doctoral training program inperiodontology and oral medicine, which he operated until his retirement in 1988.
