426 - The Surgical Legacy of World War II - Part 3: Blood and Valor

B L O O D R E D W A V E S U P O N T H E S A N D Simulation training drills and final medical preparations for D-Day were carried out all over joint military bases on the shores of the English Channel in the late spring of 1944. The Medical Corps speculated that as many as 22,500 servicemen would be wounded on the beaches in the first few days before medical support personnel and their equipment could safely reach the theatre. In actuality, casual- ties among Allied forces on D-Day numbered 10,000 wounded and 4,414 confirmed deaths. The Allied advance did not occur as rap- idly as had been planned. It was six days before the beach heads were joined from the five of the landing beaches. In terms of medi- cal services, it would be D-Day +5 before the 128th Evac hospital, set up six miles inland, would be able to treat its first patients. Infan- try unit medics with basic tourniquets and morphine ampules would be the only on- scene treatment available to the wounded in the first few waves of men fighting their way across the Normandy beaches. Transporting the doctors, their medical teams, and all of their equipment to the battle zone in relative safety as soon as possible was an overriding concern for commanding officers in all phases of planning. The casualty count was a grimly unavoidable concern. D-Day began on June 6, 1944, and it took two weeks for the invasion to achieve its stated initial goals of crossing the beaches, advancing past the cliffs, re-taking a number of key villages, and creating a unified front. The importance of this day as a turning point in WWII is impossible to overstate. The risk of harm that the first waves of men would surely face was known to everyone. A total of 2,400 soldiers were killed at Omaha Beach on June 6 alone. The members of the 3rd Aux- iliary Surgical Group (ASG) were attached to the 101st Airborne Division, among other front-line units, and they knew that just get- ting into position to treat the massive number of mangled bodies would put them close to death themselves. M ary Edwards Walk- er, MD, is the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. Walker, who graduated from Syra- cuse Medical College in 1855, initially volunteered with the Union Army dur- ing the Civil War as a nurse before she served as the surgeon she was trained to be. Her medal was con- tested and rescinded in 1917 when the standard for receiving it was revised to be limited to direct combat, but was reinstated posthu- mously for her “distinguished gallantry, self-sacrifice, patriotism, dedi- cation, and unflinching loyalty to her country, despite the apparent dis- crimination because of her sex.” The first female medical officer commissioned in the WWII was a Johns Hopkins-trained surgeon, Dr. Margaret Craighill. President Frank- lin D. Roosevelt signed legislation to allow women to enter the Army and Navy Medical Corps. The women served mostly in the newly estab- lished Women’s Army C o r p s (WA C S ) , a n d Dr. Craighill was com- missioned as an Army major. She traveled to all theaters of operation to report on the duties, mission and health con- dition of 160,000 WACS nurses. A tireless advo- cate for women in the military, Dr. Craighill consulted extensively for the VA healthcare system after the war regarding the needs of the women veterans in their system. T HE F IRS T FEMA L E MI L I TARY DOC T ORS Photo credit:USMilitary Photo credit:USMilitary | The Surgical Technologist | JUNE 2019 256