Major Dr. Rhoads Mustain 0-493652

Major Dr. Rhoads Mustain O-493652 US Army. He was also called Captain MUSTANG by his men. He was born on September 24, 1914, in Aubrey, Texas, he was the son of Aquillas Quitman “Quillie” Mustain and Bertha Frances Rhoads. He grew up in a community, surrounded by distant cousins ​​and neighbors. He was very active from an early age, hunting and fishing, he raises cattle and rabbits, he was also very good at riding horses. He attended North Texas State Teachers College AKA University of North Texas UNT,  he was president of the senior class of 1935, and earned his degree in biology. After UNT he taught high school for a year in Kaufman, Texas. He spent a year in graduate school at the University of Texas in Austin, studying microbiology. He was then transferred to the UT Medical Branch in Galveston, receiving his MD Doctor of Medicine in 1941. He married Carolee Blackburn of Denton Texas on June 22, 1941.

After a year of internship at King’s County Hospital in Brooklyn, NY, Rhoads became a surgeon for the US Army. He entered the US Army on January 30, 1943 at the age of 28. They had two children during their marriage. When he entered the US Army he was 5 foot 11 inches tall weighed 156 pounds had brown hair and hazel eyes. He served in combat during World War Two, as a surgeon in the the Medical Detachment, 7th infantry regiment, 3rd infantry division. He served in North Africa, then took part in the hardest fights of Anzio in Italy. Captain Mustain had landed and carried TNT amid blood and water during the Anzio landing. He had walked in the mud in the rain and enemy fire the long road to Rome. He was alongside the GI’s making their first landing in the south of France. During his time in combat, Captain Mustain was constantly at the front with the men of the 7th Infantry. On many occasions Mustain escaped close calls. One time a barrage of mortar shells struck his position killing 5 men, Captain Mustain calmly continued to amputate a wounded soldier’s leg using his hunting knife, while the mortar shells fell around him. Mustain said “you shouldn’t lose your temper as the effects of war linger all around you.” Some of his interesting experiences include setting up a first aid station in Mussolini’s offices, delivering an Italian baby, visiting Vatican City.  Captain Rhoads Mustain battalion Medical officer liked to set up his forward station just as close to the front line as possible but even he’ll admit that good thing can be carried too far. “we were looking for a good spot to set up the aid station near the front. We came to one house a better location could be found. We asked the French family about another house further up the road and they nodded that it was okay but I thought at the time that they looked at us rather queerly. Well we started up the road toward this other residence when a soldier leaped from the bushes alongside the road and wanted to know where we were going. After I told him he said: ” Listed Doc you’re up ahead of the front lines right now.” 

On October 6, 1944 at 10:18 in Vagney France he was riding in a jeep on the road to Chèvre-Roche (Hill 828), accompanied by two men, according to Mustain “we were on reconnaissance on a road that had just been taken over from the Germans (route de Chèvre-Roche). Our jeep passed tanks and went ahead and just as we got to the top of a hill something hit our jeep, then I don’t remember anything else.” What had happened is his jeep ran over a mine, near the ruin of the Erclos farm. The explosion killed the driver, and threw the other soldier that was seated behind Mustain from the jeep. In the explosion Mustain leg was severely mutilated. Many of the men in the 7th Infantry believed that Mustain was dead for 45 years until he went to his first 3rd division reunion that was held in Savannah, Georgia. Capt. Mustain came to two days later he learned that the jeep had run over a mine. He would spend the next four months at Walter Reed Hospital.

According to Walter Henry Jr.  “Mustang would come to the front line to see how his boys were doing. As soon as he was there, he always found someone to patch up. On his last trip up the hill, his jeep hit a mine, killed his driver, and tore off his leg. We had heard he was dead.”

He was Awarded The Silver Star Medal, the Purple Heart Medal, the Bronze Star Medal, The American Theater of operations, the European Theater of Operations Medal ETO and the World War Two Victory Medal. He was discharged on November 3, 1947. After the war he was a urologist in Dallas Texas until his retirement. He lived at 9314 Forest Hills Blvd. Dallas, TX 75218. He died on February 8, 2004, in Dallas, Texas, at the age of 89, in a nursing home in Urbana, Illinois, and he was buried in Aubrey, Texas.

 

North Texas State Teachers College UNT 1935 yearbook

University of Texas 1941Yearbook

Denton, TX Record-Chronicle article written 23 Oct 1944 on Capt Rhoads Mustain

https://northtexan.unt.edu/archives/w04/friendswellmiss.htm#a4

http://www.warfoto.com/Watch_Nov-Dec%202003.pdf

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/6116043/aug-2002-world-war-ii-memoirs-3rd-infantry-division

Headquarters, 3d Infantry Division, General Orders No. 33 (1946) & General Orders No. 46 (1946)

the U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

file:///C:/Users/462313/Desktop/Histoire-du-M%C3%A9decin-Capitaine-Am%C3%A9ricain-Lionel-PARET.pdf