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The
Combat Medics Badge
Web Site Award
Presented
by
the
American
Military Medical
Impressions, Inc. Please visit their fine web site at:
AMERICAN MILITARY MEDICAL
IMPRESSION, INC.
Please pick a category:
History of WWII Medicine
Equipment of a WWII Combat Medic
Personal Accounts of WWII Medics
WWII Medical Items For Sale
WWII Medical Detachment
WWII African American Medics
The WWII Navy Corpsman
WWII Medic Helmets
and
Markings
WWII Medical Kits &
Miscellaneous Medical Equipment
WWII
Medical Tentage
and Related Parts
Army Ambulances of WWII
The intention of this web site is to
honor all the brave men and women who supported the life saving aspect
of war. The study
of army medicine is so vast that it would be hard to cover all aspects
in a single
website.
The inspiration for this website came
to me after viewing the movie, "Saving Private Ryan". Anyone who has
seen this
movie cannot easily forget the death scene of Medic Wade.
As stated by Stephen Ambrose,
"It was the universal opinion of the frontline infantry that the medics
were the
bravest of all".
SOME OF MY FAVORITE WEB SITE LINKS
King & Country
At the Front
International Military Antiques
Inc.
Militaria-
Military Marketplace
Welcome to RZM.com- Your
online source for WWII books & more!
Jerry's Military
Collectibles
Texas Military
Forces Museum
Preserve History
Stan Wolcott’s Lucky
Forward Militaria:
B & L Collectibles
eBay - Your Personal Trading Community
.US ARMY Medals
and Awards Page.
US Military
Combined Service Uniform Decorations
The Unofficial
Tommy Gun Page
Research
Page for Collectors of Lee-Enfield Rifles
Militaria International
Military
Collectibles
Larry Stone Books &
Collectibles
P & K Military
Antiques
Fulton Armory
Lost Battalions Homepage
Military Transport Association of
Northern New Jersey
MVPA ONLINE
World War Two
Impressions. A virtual showroom of WWII U.S. uniform reproductions.
Notched Dog Tags
Reenacting World
War II
Military Personnel
Records - NPRC(MPR)
What
Price
Glory
COMBAT! Home
Page
Welcome To The 83rd Infantry
Division Re-Enactment Group Online
Replicas and
Models
Jon's Swords
134th Infantry Regiment Home
Page
Band Of
Brothers : A site dedicated to Medic Eugene Roe
USMC & USN
Reenactors Association
33rd Signal
Construction Battalion
Strictly G.I. WWII US ARMY RE
ENACTMENT ASSOCIATION
Norman D Landing US Militaria
TheTroubleshooters.com Home
The Crile Archives and Center
for History Education
45th Infantry Division WWII
Reenacting Group and Living History Venture Crew
752nd Tank Battalion in WWII
World War II-Research
&Reenacting
The
following
books
are
a
excellent read on the WWII
combat medic and WWII medicine
Fighting For Life - American
Military Medicine in World War II by Albert
E. Cowdrey
Combat Medic by Isadore Valenti
Combat Surgeon - On Iwo Jima with the
27th Marines by James S Vedder
Combat Medic Memoirs -
Personal World War Ii Writings and Pictures by
Richard L. Sanner
V-Mail - Letters of a World War
II Combat Medic by
Sarah Winston
The German Army Medical Corps in
WWII by Alex Buchner
All of the above books can be
ordered from
Amazon.com--Books,
Music,
Video
&
More
The Military Bookman Military
Books Military History
Second World War
Books, News $ Informationl
Please feel free to email me with any comments,
corrections or constructive criticism. I want to keep the information
in this website as
accurate as possible.
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This
website is dedicated to the brave men of the World War II Medical Corps
and Naval Hospital Corps who risked and many times gave their lives in
the aid of a wounded or sick comrade. The intention of this website is
to share information on the history, equipment and combat experiences
of the World War II combat medic
"Few people are aware of
the personal sacrifices the aid men went through. We were not strangers
with the platoon we served with, everyone was a comrade. And
unlike the other members of the platoon who can't stop to aid a wounded
buddy, have no idea how it tears the aid man apart to witness one of
his buddies wounded and helpless. We eat, sleep, laugh, and yes
even cry with these comrades, we become a family, and like
any family, death effects us all. But more so because it is the aid man
who remains with the wounded, until he can stabilize the wounds and
have him delivered to batt. aid station. I can never describe the
feeling you get when you see your closest friend dead from his
wounds, and knowing that you were unable to save his life. But it has
one advantage, you learn not to become to close to anyone,
because the pain is to deep when it was a friend who had died. You have
to remove every emotion in your body, or end up a raving madman. No one
can ever understand that unless they themselves lived it. In every war
history book you read, there is never a description of what the aid man
truly feels, and you never will. That is why I have chosen to give a
detail account of the pain and sorrow that the aid man lives with every
single moment of the day. It isn't the acts of the aid man that
becomes important but rather the inner pain that he carries
within himself. A pain he dare not show publicly, for to do so you risk
the probability that others may see that pain, or (fear) which would
demoralize the riflemen who puts their trust in your hands. I'm human
and like all humans I'm born with fear, but we can control that
fear when faced with the realization that there are others who depend
on you're ability to save their lives. I never considered myself a
brave man.There wasn't a moment that I wasn't scared, but that's a
disadvantage an aid man has to live with, we either control it,
or demand to be relieved of their duties. There is one thing I
discovered in combat, the vast amount of soldiers can control that
fear, While there are others who are to stupid, to understand the
meaning of fear, and they are the most dangerous, because in
their drive to win medals and return a hero, they take risks that
eventually ends up getting someone else killed."---Albert Gentile, Aid-Man for Company B, 333rd
Infantry, 84th Infantry Division, WWII.
Duties
of a WWII Combat Medic
Brief History of
the Medical Corps
The
WWII Medical Department
World War II and
the Combat Medic
Evacuation
of
Wounded
During
World
War II
The
Function of a Field Hospital During WWII
The
Function of a WWII Aid Station
Listing of
WWII Hospitals
Camouflage
of
Medical
Installations.
Medal
of Honor Citations-Medical Personnel
Please
remember all WWII Veterans and donate to the WWII National Memorial.
For more information, please visit the organization's website:
The National World War II Memorial
The
combat medic was one of the unsung heroes of World War II. He lived
with the front line infantrymen and was the first to answer a call for
help. He gave first aid to his wounded comrades and helped them out of
the line of enemy fire. More often than not, he faced the enemy unarmed
and was the foundation of the medical system with hundreds of thousands
of surgeons, nurses, scientists, and enlisted medics. (above painting by Lawrence Beall Smith in the
U.S. Army Art Collection)
Medics
help a wounded medic in France, 1944
(National Archives, Washington D.C.)
If a wounded
soldier was still alive when the medics got to him , he had an
excellent chance of survival. The medics could do whatever was
necessary to stabilize the wounded soldier. They could stop the
bleeding, lessen the pain, bandage the wound and get him to the aid
station.
Brief
History
of
the
Medical
Corps
The Medical Service Corps
traces its beginnings to the establishment of an Apothecary General
during the American Revolution, and the creation of the Ambulance Corps
and US Army Storekeepers in the Civil War. It was during the Civil War
that Surgeon Jonathan Letterman, Director of the Army of the Potomac,
realized a need for an integrated medical treatment and evacuation
system with its own dedicated vehicles, organizations, facilities, and
personnel. The Letterman plan was first implemented in September 1862
at the battle of Antietam, Maryland, and has continued as the basis of
Army medical doctrine ever since.
The next major development of the Medical
Service Corps occurred in World War I. The Army’s requirement for
medical and scientific specialty officers to support combat operations
resulted in the creation of two temporary components: the US Army
Ambulance Service established on 23 June 1917 as a descendent of the
Ambulance Corps, and the Sanitary Corps, established on 30 June. Today
the Medical Service Corps mirrors the Sanitary Corps, which quickly
expanded to nearly 3,000 officers during World War I. The Sanitary
Corps enabled the Medical Department to make available to itself a
group of officers commissioned in specialties which were at the
forefront of the medical technology of the day. Officer’s of the
Sanitary Corps served in medical logistics, hospital administration,
patient administration, resource management, x-ray, laboratory
engineering, physical reconstruction, gas defense, and venereal disease
control. They were dedicated members of the medical team that enabled
American generals to concentrate on enemy threats and not epidemic
threats.
Between World
War I and World War II. it became apparent that the Army needed a
permanent source of medical administrative specialty officers. This led
to the establishment of the Medical Administrative Corps in June 1920.
The Medical Administrative Corps expanded to include a variety of
administrative positions and freed the physicians, dentists, and
veterinarians for medical care responsibilities. Following World War
II, Congress established a permanent component in the Army for medical
administrative and scientific specialty officers. On 4 August 1947,
Congress created the Medical Service Corps. For the first time, the
Medical Department had a permanent home for both its administrative and
scientific specialty officers. Since 1947, U.S. military actions have
demonstrated the efficiency of that decision. The Medical Service Corp
have been important members of the U.S. military medical support team
for combat operations in Korea, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam,
Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. The story of the Army’s operations in
Vietnam would not be complete without mention of the magnificent record
of the evacuation helicopter pilots, who carried on in the tradition
begun in the Civil War. World War II and the Combat Medic
World
War
II
and
the
Combat
Medic
It wasn’t any different to be killed
in World War II then it was during the Civil War or World War I.
However, if the World War II GI was wounded by a bullet, shrapnel or
fallen by a disease such as malaria, without killing him, his chances
for survival were much greater then his ancestor in the Civil War.
During the Civil War, 50 percent or more of the men admitted to
hospitals died, during World War I, it was 8 percent, World War II, 4
percent.
During World War II drugs such as
sulfa (Sulfanilamide) and penicillin were discovered and advanced
surgical techniques were introduced to make these improvements
possible, but the first reason for such successes in improving the
mortality rate was the speed with which wounded men were treated. It
began with the frontline combat medics. In the beginning of the war at
training camps, medics had been mildly despised because many of them
were conscientious objectors and often ridiculed. Sometimes called
"Pill Pushers" or worse. But in combat they were loved, respected and
admired. Medic Buddy Gianelloni recalls, ‘Overseas it becomes
different. They called you medic and before you know it, it was Doc. I
was 19 at the time."
The main objective of the medic was to get the wounded
away from the front lines. Many times this involved the medic climbing
out from the protection of his foxhole during shelling or into
no-man’s-land to help a fallen comrade. Once with the wounded soldier,
the medic would do a brief examination, evaluate the wound, apply a
tourniquet if necessary, sometimes inject a vial of morphine, clean up
the wound as best as possible and sprinkle sulfa powder on the wound
followed by a bandage. Then he would drag or carry the patient out of
harms way and to the rear. This was many times done under enemy fire or
artillery shelling. In most cases, the Germans respected the Red Cross
armband.
Evacuation of Wounded During World War II
The evacuation process of the wounded during World War II
is best described by Pfc. Keith Winston, a combat medic during WW2 for
the 398th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry
Division. He explains the evacuation process in a letter to his wife
during the war;
"You
asked
me
to
describe
the exact function of the Aid Station. First let
me tell you how evacuation works: A boy gets hurt on the line. Within a
minute or less a telephone message is sent back to our forward Aid
Station, a distance of 300 to l000 yards from the front where a Sgt.
and 4 litter-bearers are always on hand. They rush right up to thc line
with a litter. During this time, thc Company in which the casualty is a
member, has their Aid-man administering first-aid on the spot—usually
consisting of stopping the bleeding with Sulfanilamide powder,
bandaging and giving wound pills internally. By that time, another
litter team is there and carries the casualty to thc nearest point
where a jeep can travel--anywhere from 25 to 3000 yards, depending on
conditions. The injured boy is then rushed to the Aid Station, one to
three miles behind the line. Here the physician removes the first-aid
bandage, makes a proper diagnosis and applies a more permanent bandage,
administers blood plasma if needed, and in severe cases, gives
morphine; makes the patient comfortable, warm, gives coffee, etc.
Whereupon he's rushed back to a point known as Clearing Company, pretty
far in thc rear--this time by a comfortable ambulance which stands
ready for action at thc Aid Station's door. Now--here, if the wound
requires it, he's given emergency operation or attention. This place is
well-staffed and well-equipped. Then the casualty is taken by ambulance
to an Evacuation hospital further back where first-class attention is
administered. If thc case is one whereby the wound or casualty is so
severe and he won't get better very soon, he's shipped back even
further to a General Hospital, and eventually back to the States.
Reason for the continual moves? One of room. As the patient warrants a
further move back, he leaves space for another boy, and needed room is
of the essence. The Aid Station has no beds. Its job is the most
important--to evacuate the wounded boy from place of incident to the
rear, after essential treatment is administered to save his life. The
well-equipped rear station the soldier and bandage him with the skill
that is possible only in a quiet hospital".
Anyone
who
attended,
taught,
or
was stationed at
Lawson General Hospital in Chamblee, Georgia during World War II and in
particular
attended the X-ray Technicians School and remembers Staff Sergent Fred
W. Buch, please
email me.
ALWAYS INTERESTED IN PURCHASING WWII
MEDICAL ITEMS
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