Chess Review, Vol. 13, No. 5

Here, at the Thomas M. England Hospital in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Gisela Gresser visits with Private First Class (Pfc.) Thomas Zabicki while Pfc. George Meyers, watches from behind. For injured soldiers confined to their beds, chess served as a strenuous mental game with minimal physical requirements.

This issue of Chess Review(/i) contains a detailed illustrated account of chess-based aid efforts in hospitals, including the story of Sergeant James Day. Day, a former state chess champion, lost his hand to a grenade in Europe and had sunk into depression during his recovery at the hospital but found relief through chess. It also includes the story of Lieutenant Harold Eck, who recounted learning chess in a prisoner-of-war camp before being transferred to hospital in the United States. His chess partner, Captain Joseph Brady, said that, “When you’re in the hospital, you have lots of time on your hands and chess keeps us going. I don’t know what we’d do without it,” before recounting how he and Eck played chess from their respective hospital beds by shouting the moves to each other.