Foreword
Imagine if you can the entire population of the city of NewYork suddenly dispersed around the world, dependent upon the U.S. Army formedical attention under every conceivable circumstance, and you will begin tocomprehend the magnitude of the medical supply operation in World War II. Then,remember that the medical materiel used to care for these 8 million people wasonly the end-product. The process began with forecasting requirements for globalwar, and planning procurement. It included the acquisition of raw materials inthe face of unprecedented competition, the construction of factories, and thecreation of entire industries. It included transportation from mine or farm orforest to processing plants, from plants to depots, and from depots to the farcorners of the earth, wherever American troops were stationed. It included theclassification and selection of items and the packaging of these into anincalculable number of hospital assemblies, dispensaries, medical and dentalchests, kits, and packets designed for individual use. It entailed thecontinuous flow in enormous quantities of more than 7,000 standard medical itemsand many, many more that were not standard: billions of Atabrine tablets,millions of surgical needles, thousands of X-ray machines. It included hugestorerooms piled high with hospital beds, vaults filled with narcotics,refrigerators by the tens of thousands filled with antibiotics and vaccines, andplanes carrying penicillin and whole blood packed in Dry Ice. The individualitems ranged from the simple, inexpensive wooden tongue depressor to the costlyand delicate electroencephalograph. In overall terms, more than a billion poundsof medical supplies were purchased between 1 July 1941 and 30 June 1945, at atotal cost of a billion dollars. Packed in freight cars, the items purchasedover this 5-year span would fill a train 400 miles long.
The following account of the U.S. Army medical supply systemas it existed during World War II is neither strictly chronological nor whollyfunctional, but a combination of both, balanced to show so far as possible howcompletely interrelated were the various aspects of the system. The account isbased on hundreds of documents-reports, correspondence, directives, andstatistical records-generated as the war progressed; and on the recollectionsand personal narratives of scores of individuals who participated in the varioussupply activities, at home and in the theaters of operations. If passage of timehas dimmed and softened memories, it has also brought a sense of perspective,expressed in a more considered view of the triumphs and the failures than wouldhave been possible immediately after the events had taken place.
With all due allowance for the inadequacies of documentshastily prepared in the midst of combat, for memories modified by time, and forthe understandable bias of each Medical Supply Officer in favor of his ownoperation, it is an impressive and inspiring story. The unstinting labors,unending sacrifices, and limitless devotion of medical supply personnel aroundthe world provided the means of treating and caring for some 14 million hospitalpatients
and of dispensary cases beyond the counting. However fine the doctor orskilled the surgeon, both were helpless without the drugs and instrumentsflowing uninterruptedly through the smoothly organized channels of medicalsupply.
LEONARD D. HEATON,
Lieutenant General,
The Surgeon General.
