CHAPTER IV
Troop Medical Care Under Other Commands
Although The Surgeon General, under the Services of Supply, was responsiblefor all Army medical care, there were three areas in which a medical servicedeveloped more or less independently of the Surgeon General`s Office. FromMarch 1942 to the end of the war, a surgeon and a staff medical sectionexisted at the headquarters of the Army Ground Forces and of the Army AirForces. Within the Army Service Forces the Office of the Chief of Transportationwas the only functional element, other than the Surgeon General`s Officeitself, which administered any extensive system of medical care for troopsin the United States.1 In the early years of the war it hadno medical officers assigned to it, but it controlled medical care affordedby hospitals at ports of embarkation, and on rail and water carriers.
MEDICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OUTSIDE THE SURGEON GENERAL`S OFFICE
The Army Ground Forces was created in March 1942, assuming the trainingfunctions of General Headquarters but without responsibility for overseatheaters or bases. Medical Department officers assigned to General Headquarterswere reassigned to the new headquarters at the Army War College, wherethey formed a special staff medical section, originally headed by Col.(later Brig. Gen.) Frederick A. Blesse, MC. To the end of the war thismedical office had top responsibility for the training, tactical as wellas medical, of Medical Department units assigned to the Army Ground Forces.
The following commands were placed under Army Ground Forces at the outset:the field armies; the Antiaircraft Command, with headquarters originallyat Richmond, Va., and later at Fort Bliss, Tex.; the Armored Command, withheadquarters at Fort Knox, Ky.; the Replacement and School Command; andthe Tank Destroyer Command. These and other subcommands, or training centers,of the Army Ground Forces created in the course of 1942 developed, trained,and equipped specialized fighting units or trained regular units for fightingin certain climatic conditions. Among the chief subcommands added to theArmy Ground Forces in the course of the war were: The Airborne Commandcreated in March 1942 with headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C.; the DesertTraining Center, which trained troops for desert fighting in a simulatedtheater of operations in southern California and Arizona; the MountainTraining Center in Colorado, which trained men to operate over steep terrainat high
1The Office of the Chief of Engineers operatedits own station hospitals in the earlier part of the war, but at basesoutside continental United States.
126
altitudes; and the Amphibious Training Center, originally located atCamp Edwards, Mass., and later at Carrabelle, Fla. These subcommands developedand trained specialized types of tactical units-airborne, armored, andmountain divisions and their subordinate elements, and the antiaircraftbattalions; the Amphibious Training Center trained several divisions inamphibious operations.
Hence the work of the Ground Medical Section at the Army War Collegein Washington, D.C., and of the small medical sections at the headquartersof its subordinate commands was chiefly that of developing the MedicalDepartment detachments and mobile units which should render service overseasto the tactical elements mentioned above. These staff medical sectionshad the functions commonly entrusted to the headquarters medical sectionof any command in the United States: assigning Medical Department officersand enlisted men to subordinate elements, maintaining channels for distributingmedical supplies and equipment throughout their respective commands, andtaking the usual measures that fall into the category of preventive medicine.Their direct medical care of ground troops, however, was generally limitedto that furnished by dispensaries at ground force installations. For mostground troops, hospitalization was supplied by station or general hospitalsunder control of the Services of Supply. Only for troops being trainedin a simulated theater of operations did the Army Ground Forces operatefixed hospitals of a communications zone type.
After the reorganization of March 1942, responsibilities for trainingMedical Department units for use in an oversea theater of operations weredivided among the Services of Supply, the Army Ground Forces, and the ArmyAir Forces. Previously, Medical Department units designed for use in overseatheaters of operations had been assigned to the field armies, and thento General Headquarters (predecessor of Army Ground Forces) for training.After the reorganization, those service units (Ordnance, Engineers, andso forth, as well as Medical Department) designed to support troops withinthe combat zone of a theater of operations were assigned to the Army GroundForces for activation and training, while those intended to give sup-portwithin the advance, intermediate, and base sections of the communicationszone became the responsibility of the Services of Supply. The third majorcommand of the War Department, the Army Air Forces, was made responsiblefor certain service units which supported it. In October 1942 the War Departmentbroadened the responsibilities of the Army Ground Forces for the build-upof tactical units by authorizing that command to prepare the tables oforganization, tables of equipment, and tables of basic allowances for (aswell as to activate and train) the units that served ground elements.2
2(1) Memorandum, Commanding General, Army GroundForces, for Commanding General, Services of Supply, 2 June 1942, subject:General and Station Hospitals. (2) Memorandum for Record, Deputy Chiefof Staff, Army Ground Forces, 16 Oct. 1942, subject: Journal of ActionsTaken. (3) Memorandum, Brig. Gen. Larry B. McAfee, Assistant to The SurgeonGeneral, for Commanding General, Services of Supply, 28 Oct. 1942, subject: Recommendations in Regard to Activation, Control, and Training of MedicalUnits. (4) Interview, Col. William E. Shambora, MC, formerly Surgeon, ArmyGround Forces, 22 Apr. 1949.
127
By January 1943, responsibility for developing tables of organization,equipment, and basic allowances for the following medical units and fortraining them had devolved upon the Army Ground Forces: Medical battalions,including those for such specialized divisions as the motorized, armored,and mountain divisions; medical squadrons for cavalry divisions; medicalregiments; medical companies to serve the airborne divisions; ambulancebattalions; animal-drawn companies; veterinary companies; evacuation hospitals,including the motorized type; and medical supply depots. Medical Departmentunits for whose training the Services of Supply was then responsible consistedof general, station, and convalescent hospitals (including veterinary types);veterinary evacuation hospitals; field hospitals; hospital centers; headquartersof Medical Department concentration centers; general dispensaries; generallaboratories and laboratories of the army or communications zone; surgicalhospitals; sanitary companies; medical gas treatment battalions; hospitaltrains; three types of units concerned with evacuation by sea-hospitalship platoons, hospital ship companies, and ambulance ship companies; auxiliarysurgical groups; detachments for the museum and medical arts service; andmedical sections for the headquarters of a communications zone.3
This division of responsibilities that prevailed early in 1943 was byno means final. Many of these units were altered in name, size, or organization;some types were abolished or superseded by others; some new types weredeveloped to meet special oversea needs. A few units, such as the fieldhospital, were to be used in both the combat and the communications zone,and a few others, such as those used for evacuation of patients by seafrom the theater of operations to the United States, did not serve in eitherzone. Hence many readjustments took place in the list above. Nevertheless,the allocation of responsibilities between the two commands for developing,activating, and training Medical Department units continued to rest, untilthe end of the war, upon the basis of the zone of the oversea theater withinwhich they were to be employed. The Army Air Forces trained less than halfa dozen types of medical units designed to fit the special needs of airtroops-chiefly a medical supply, an evacuation, and a dispensary unit.
MEDICAL WORK OF THE ARMY GROUND FORCES
The position of the Ground Medical Section, the office which guidedmedical activities within the Army Ground Forces and its subordinate commands,within its own headquarters was similar to that which the Surgeon General`sOffice had had in the War Department before the March reorganization, forArmy Ground Forces headquarters had a general staff similar to that ofthe War Department. The Ground Medical Section had to obtain
3Tabulation, Responsibility for Tables of Organizationof Service Units, 8 Jan. 1943, and amendments, 27 Jan. 1943, Headquarters,Army Ground Forces.
128
concurrence from the elements of this general staff, especially fromG-3, which had responsibility for operations and training, and G-4, chargedwith matters of supply, evacuation, transportation, and construction. ColonelBlesse continued as head of the medical section until December 1942, whenhe was promoted to brigadier general and sent to North Africa. From theclose of 1942 to May 1944, Col. William E. Shambora, MC (fig. 32), servedas Ground Surgeon, and from mid-1944 to the close of the war, General Blesseonce more. This medical section remained small throughout the war, containingonly about a half dozen officers, assigned chiefly to plans and operations,supply, personnel, and preventive medicine. Army Ground Forces headquartersimposed strict limits on the size of its staff sections, and it Was thereforenecessary for the Ground Surgeon to get along with a minimum number ofofficers. Technical information was supplied in the circular letters comingout of the Surgeon General`s Office, and specialist personnel were availablein the Services of Supply hospitals which served ground troops.4
4(1) General Order No. 22, Army Ground Forces,13 July 1942. (2) Ground Medical Section, Chronological file, 1944. (3)Greenfield, Kent Roberts, Palmer, Robert R., and Wiley, Bell I.: Organizationof Ground Combat Troops. United States Army in World War II. Washington:U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947, p. 359.
129
The Ground Surgeon`s Office
However, over the long run the Ground Surgeon, as well as the SurgeonGeneral`s Office, noted that a representative of each of the major fieldsof medical work handled in the Surgeon General`s Office was needed in theGround Medical Section. Many matters-for example, the question of whethera neuropsychiatrist should be added to the staff of the division-calledfor coordination and conferences between the Surgeon General`s Office andthe Ground Medical Section. In such cases, General Blesse`s office neededan officer with training in the special field concerned to discuss thematter with the Surgeon General`s Office. By March 1945, General Blesse(who had returned to Army Ground Forces in May 1944 after a tour of dutyas Chief Surgeon of the North African Theater) was pressing for the assignmentof additional Medical Department officers to his medical section-particularlyto fill the posts of chief of professional services, dental officer, andveterinary officer. Pointing out that the commanding general of each ofthe three major commands was responsible for the medical service of hiscomponent, he noted that the Surgeon General`s Office then had 336 officers,the office of the Air Surgeon 63, while the Ground Medical Section containedonly 6. However, the office underwent no appreciable increase to the endof the war.5
The Ground Force surgeon`s staff traveled throughout the United Statesinspecting hundreds of medical units activated by Army Ground Forces, aswell as health conditions among tactical ground units being readied foroversea duty at maneuver areas and camps of the Army Ground Forces andat the ports of embarkation controlled by the Services of Supply. A goodmany of their problems, as well as those of the staff surgeons of subordinatecommands had to do with establishing measures for protecting the healthof, and keeping up standards of physical fitness for, men undergoing rigoroustraining on maneuvers. The fitness of men being trained for mountain duty,for example, aroused concern among commanding officers at the MountainTrain-ing Center in Colorado, and in 1943 a board of medical officers determinedthat it would be desirable to establish special physical standards formountain troops. The Mountain Training Center approved the board`s recommendationsfor special standards, but Army Ground Forces and the Surgeon Gen-eral`sOffice were alike averse to the establishment of special qualificationsfor particular types of duties, maintaining that the, two broad categoriesof general and limited service were adequate. The discussion of physicalstandards for mountain troops continued until mid-1943, when the commandinggeneral of the Mountain Training Center was given permission to administer
5(1) Annual Report, Personnel Service, Officeof The Surgeon General, 1942. (2), Memorandum, Brig. Gen. Frederick S.Blesse for Brig. Gen. William L. Mitchell, 16 Mar. 1945. (3) Letter, Brig,Gen. Frederick A Blesse to Chief, Historical Division, Office of The SurgeonGeneral, 6 Sept. 1951. (4) Army Ground Forces Memorandum No. 14, 19 May1945, subject: Allotment of Officers. (5) Medical Department, United StatesArmy. Dental Service in World War II. Washington: U.S. Government PrintingOffice, 1955, p. 33.
130
special tests to units of the center and to have those physically unfitfor moun-tain duty reassigned by Army Ground Forces headquarters.6
Through the assignment of some members of the Ground Medical Sectionto oversea service during periods of combat, the Ground Surgeon and hisstaff were able to keep in touch with the workings of the field medicalservice. The experience gained in the early months of 1944 by the DeputyGround Surgeon, Col. Robert B. Skinner, MC (fig. 33), as surgeon of severaltask forces in the Southwest Pacific Area and as a member of the Army GroundForces Board in New Guinea, for example, furnished a basis for the changeswhich he succeeded in bringing about in the tables of organization andequipment of portable surgical and evacuation hospitals, as well as ideasfor incorporation in a training bulletin for the treatment of malaria throughsuppressive drugs. General Blesse had extensive experience as theater surgeonin the Mediterranean theater of operations before returning to the postof Ground Surgeon in 1944. Oversea experience of these men and of otherswho returned to serve with the Ground Medical Section enabled them to determinewhat changes were needed in the tables of organization to be issued bythe War Department for Army-wide use. Theater surgeons frequently proposedthat sporadic changes and provisional units which they found effectiveunder
6Study No. 24, Historical Section, Army GroundForces, 1948, History of the Mountain Training Center. [Official record.]
131
combat or environmental conditions in their theaters be incorporatedin tables of organization. It was the Ground Medical Section`s task tosift the experience with Medical Department units operating in variousareas and under a variety of conditions in order to determine what proposedchanges were worthy of incorporation in tables of organization.7
The Armored Force
Of the subcommands concerned with the training of troops for specializedtypes of combat, the Armored Force, under the command of Maj. Gen. (laterGen.) Jacob L. Devers, was the most nearly independent. From its inceptionin May 1941 through 1942, the year of its greatest expansion, it trainedat Fort Knox many armored units for assignment to corps or armies. Itsoriginal headquarters medical section, created in May 1941, consisted ofonly two officers, both of whom had previously been in charge of medicalwork in the I Armored Corps. During 1942 the office of the Armored Forcesurgeon, Col. Albert W. Kenner, MC (fig. 34) (made brigadier general inDecember, after he had served as Western Task Force surgeon in the NorthAfrican invasion), bad as its chief task the development of tables of organizationand equipment
7See footnote 4 (2), p. 128.
132
for the medical detachments organic to the armored division and thespecialized armored medical battalions equipped with surgical trucks andambulances-units soon to be tested in the North African campaign. It alsoprepared instructions for training these units. The office increased during1942 to 6 officers, 1 warrant officer, and 17 enlisted men, the numbersallotted the medical section by the table of organization for Armored Forceheadquarters.
During 1942, Colonel Kenner undertook the development of a special laboratory,which the headquarters medical section had proposed in the Summer: of 1941.War Department sanction for this Armored Medical Research Laboratory wasobtained in February 1942; it opened when the building to house it wascompleted in September. Its staff worked in close cooperation with theSurgeon General`s Office and with the Office of Scientific Research andDevelopment in Washington. Their task was to do research and experimentationon special industrial and combat hazards to armored force troops. Theyproduced studies on acclimatization of the human body to heat, problemsof night vision, the effects of toxic gases, and so forth. The work ofthe laboratory broadened into an examination of the mental and physicalcapacities of Armored Force combat troops, together with the planning oftheir assignments, and the adjustment of the design of tanks and theirequipment to accord with these capacities. The Medical Corps officer whocommanded the laboratory under the direction of the Armored Force surgeonwas an ex: officio, member of the Armored Force Board which conducted teststo determine the combat efficiency of Armored Force vehicles and equipment.8
THE ARMY AIR FORCES AND SUBORDINATE COMMANDS
The medical organization of the Army Air Forces expanded rapidly in1942, the four continental air forces continuing a rapid buildup in theUnited States. Large air commands, such as the Flying Training Commandand the Air Service Command, each with its own geographic districts orareas for administrative purposes, were set up in 1941 and early 1942.These had direct control of hospitals at their installations. The Officeof the Air Surgeon and the medical offices of the continental air commandsgrew with the general expansion.
Office of the Air Surgeon
The increased powers over its medical service granted to the Army AirForces by War Department Circular No. 59 of March 1942 and the interpretivememorandum of May have been pointed out. After March the Air Surgeon, Col.David N. W. Grant, MC, made brigadier general in June, reported directlyto the Chief of Staff, Army Air Forces. By June his office contained, inaddi-
8(1) Study No. 27, Historical Section, ArmyGround Forces, The Armored Force Command and Center, 1946. [Official record.](2) Historical Report, Armored Medical Research Laboratory, 10 Jan. 1946.[Official record.]
133
tion to an Administrative Section, the following six divisions: Personnel,Plans and Training, Professional Service, Psychological, Research, andStatistical. The first named, the Personnel Division, expanded primarilyas the result of the enlarged command control by the Army Air Forces overall personnel assigned to it and the permission which the Air Surgeon obtainedin June 1942 to recruit Medical Corps officers directly for the air forces.
Plans and Training Division.-The Plans and Training Divisiondetermined requirements for medical personnel, supplies, and facilitiesand developed training policies for the Army Air Forces. In 1942 its workin the following fields grew rapidly: The development and revision of tablesof organization and basic allowances and of equipment lists for the fewspecial medical units of the Army Air Forces; the calculation of hospitalbeds, types and amounts of hospital construction, and medical suppliesneeded at posts of the Army Air Forces in the United States; decision asto numbers and specialties of trained Medical Department men needed bythe command; the designing of training courses in medical matters peculiarto the Air Forces.
Professional Service Division.-The Professional Service Divisionin early 1942 had six sections, as follows: Professional Care, AviationMedicine, Aviation Cadet, Dental, Venereal Disease Control, and PreventiveMedicine. The last three of these duplicated certain units within the Officeof the Surgeon General, but apparently the Air Surgeon`s Office took theposition that the special problems of flying personnel justified the existenceof parallel units. Although the Air Surgeon had opposed the representationof dental service in his office when the Dental Division, Surgeon General`sOffice, noted a need for it in September 1941, a Dental Section of theAir Surgeon`s Office was established in late January 1942. The programfor venereal disease control in the Army Air Forces was largely autonomous,for the Air Surgeon`s Office issued many directives establishing policy.(It may be noted that the office of the Army Ground Forces surgeon possessedno venereal disease control officer.) The Air Surgeon never had a VeterinaryCorps officer on his staff.
Psychological Division.-The Psychological Division had supervisionof the pilot-selection program, which, as pointed out previously, was inlarge measure decentralized to the Air Corps Replacement Training Centers.Broadly speaking, the latter were charged with administering tests forpilot candidates, whereas the Psychological Division undertook to developthe tests, partly on the basis of psychological research by the Schoolof Aviation Medicine.
Research and Statistical Division.-Until June 1942, when theResearch and Statistical Divisions of the Office of the Air Surgeon wereseparately established, their functions were performed by a combined Researchand Statistical Division. Functions in research were: examination of anyreported new findings in the field of aviation medicine; the initiationof research studies, especially in the School of Aviation Medicine andthe Aero-Medical Laboratory, to inquire into special problems of humanadaptation to aircraft performance; the development of special equipment,such as oxygen equipment, to enable the
134
flier to adjust to the special conditions of combat aloft; and supplyinginformation to the aircraft industry on the latest physiologic data developed.The division correlated the statistical results of examinations and testsgiven Army Air Forces personnel with subsequent performance and made appropriaterecommendations.
Supply Division.-In September 1942, a Supply Division was formallycreated in the Office of the Air Surgeon. Before that date a complete systemfor handling medical supply throughout the Army Air Forces had not beenworked out. Since August 1941, plans for establishing medical supply sectionsin Air Forces depots had been underway. Five of these opened in 1942: Ogden(Utah) Air Depot; Mobile Air Depot; Warner Robins (Ga.) Air Depot; Rome(N.Y.) Air Depot; and Spokane Air Depot. But throughout the first halfof 1942, top responsibility for medical supply in the Air Forces setuphad fluctuated between the Office of the Air Surgeon and the Office ofthe Surgeon, Air Service Command, with the latter handling most of thework. The War Department reorganization of March 1942 made it desirableto clarify the relations of the Air Surgeon`s Office with the Office ofthe Surgeon General in this field. By mutual agreement between The SurgeonGeneral and the Air Surgeon it was decided that the Air Surgeon would prepareestimates of the quantities of medical items needed by the tactical unitsof the Air Forces and give them to The Surgeon General. The only itemsto be handled by the medical supply sections of Air Forces depots wouldbe maintenance and field items for the Air Forces tactical units; theywould not maintain any medical supplies and equipment for station hospitalsor dispensaries in the United States. The Hospital Construction Division,Surgeon General`s Office, would calculate requirements for Air Forces medicalinstallations in the United States and give its figures to the Supply Service,Surgeon General`s Office, which would arrange for the sending of medicalsupplies automatically to the Army Air Forces.9
July 1944 reorganization.-The Office of the Air Surgeon continuedwith seven or eight divisions during 1943 and the first half of 1944. Althoughits structure was never so elaborate as the Office of the Surgeon General,many of the organizational elements into which it was divided resembledthose of the latter, both as to name and as to function. A reorganizationof July 1944 decreased the number of officers reporting directly to theAir Surgeon and brought about an organization in his office of the typefavored by the Army Air Forces in the latter part of the war. This wasthe "directorate" system. By November all the divisions of theAir Surgeon`s Office were placed under three directors of Administration,Professional Services, and Research (chart 8.) This organization existedwith little significant change to the close of the war.
9(1) Annual Report, Office of the Air Surgeon,1942. (2) Medical History of the Second Air Force, January 1941-December1943. [Official record.] (3) Coleman, Hubert A.: Organization and Administration,Army Air Force Medical Service in the Zone of Interior (1948), pp. 138-142.[Official record.]
135
Chart 8.-Office of the Air Surgeon,21 November 1944
Major Air Commands
At the time of the March reorganization of the War Department, fourmajor air commands were in existence: The Air Service Command, the FerryingCommand, the Technical Training Command, and the Flying Training Command.The medical offices at their headquarters had certain organizational elementsnecessary to take care of special problems of aviation medical service,10as well as certain others which duplicated the medical organization inthe Services of Supply. No great homogeneity of medical organization existedin these commands. As in the medical sections at the headquarters of mostcommands, such functions as personnel administration, training, and preventivemedicine automatically called for the assignment of Medical Corps officers,or Medical Administrative Corps officers as substitutes.
Air Service Command.-The Air Service Command, established inlate 1941, was the major command of the Army Air Forces concerned withsupplies, including medical supplies, for air force troops and with themaintenance of aircraft. It was the service arm of the Army Air Forces.The most distinctive feature of its medical service was an extensive healthprogram for the thou-sands of civilians working at its huge industrialfacilities. In February 1942, Lt. Col. Lowyd Ballantyne, MC, became thefirst staff surgeon of the command. The air depots and subdepots operatedunder the jurisdiction of four air service area commands, each of whichhad a headquarters near the one of the four continental air forces whichit served. By the spring of 1942 each area command had a surgeon assigned.Hospitals for the growing depots were then largely in the blueprint stage.Besides providing the usual medical care for
10This discussion omits reference to a numberof subordinate Army Air Forces commands-some of them shortlived-whose medicalwork was limited to the normal responsibilities of any command.
136
troops and employees of the command, its medical officers trained personnelas members of the medical sections of two types of tactical units, airdepot groups and service groups, then being developed by the Air ServiceCommand.
In July Col. John M. Hargreaves, MC (fig. 35), became surgeon. Takingcognizance of the growing problem of industrial hazards to the rapidlymounting civilian population of the Air Service Command, he placed a MedicalCorps officer in charge of Industrial Hygiene Service in the Personneland Training Branch of his office. By the fall of 1942 the command employedfrom 130,000 to 140,000 civilians in the United States, largely in theair depots, and about 6,000 overseas. Late in the year a new commandinggeneral, realizing that the command, with its large depot system and heavypreponderance of civilian personnel, was essentially an industrial organization,abolished the staff organization and reorganized the command into divisions.The surgeon became the chief of the medical section. About the end of theyear his office in the command`s headquarters at Patterson Field at Fairfield,Ohio, consisted of a Medical Personnel and Training Branch and a MedicalSupply Branch. A surgeon was stationed at the following headquarters ofeach of the four air service area commands: Hempstead, N.Y., Fort Worth,Tex., Atlanta, Ga., and Sacramento, Calif.11
Before July 1942, the industrial health problems of civilian workersemployed by the Air Corps had been handled along with those of employeesof
11Medical History, Air Technical Service Command,1 January 1945. [Official record.]
137
the Quartermaster Corps, Ordnance Department, and other services, byofficers assigned to the task in the Surgeon General`s Office. Industrialmedical problems of the Air Service Command depots and facilities presumablyclosely resembled those of Ordnance, Quartermaster, and Chemical WarfareService facilities. By mid-1942, however, no special argument of medicalproblems "peculiar to the Army Air Forces" was needed to justifythis duplication of the work of the Surgeon General`s Office, for air forcecommands were now operating their medical service largely independentlyof the Surgeon General`s Office. The latter could do no more than makerecommendations on industrial hygiene matters to the medical officers ofthe Army Air Forces.12
In the spring of 1942, the new medical detachment at Warner Robins AirDepot in Georgia, an Air Service Command installation, was called on tofurnish Medical Department officers for tactical units of the command.The station surgeon, Maj. (later Lt. Col.) Richard R. Cameron, MC (fig.36), aware of the unpreparedness of doctors and dentists from civilianlife for field duty, began to give instruction in field medical supplyand asked for the support of the Air Surgeon and the Surgeon, Air ServiceCommand (Colonel Hargreaves), in establishing a school for this type oftraining. In
12Cook, W. L., Jr.: Preventive Medicine, OccupationalHealth Division (1946). [Official record.]
138
the fall a Medical Training Section at Warner Robins Air Depot begantraining men for a newly created type of unit, the medical supply platoon(aviation), which consisted of 2 Medical Administrative Corps officersand 19 enlisted men. (The First Medical Supply Platoon (Aviation) had beencreated early in the year within the First Air Force.) Field tests madeof this unit and experience with it overseas demonstrated its value forsupplying medical equipment to rapidly moving combat air squadrons independentlyof the Services of Supply in forward areas where the latter had no depots.In such areas Army Air Forces general depots were furnished with the medicalsupply platoons (aviation) necessary to supply the combat units.
The Medical Training Section at Warner Robins Air Depot eventually developedinto the Medical Service Training School of the Air Service Command. Theschool was formally established late in 1943 with Colonel Cameron as Commandant,and was sometimes termed, in reference to the long-established field serviceschool of the Medical Department, "the Carlisle Barracks of the ArmyAir Forces."13
Air Training Commands.-The training commands of the Army AirForces faced throughout the war the special medical problems concernedwith testing the fitness of personnel for flying and air combat. In January1942, an Air Corps Flying Training Command was established for the, trainingof pilots, flying specialists, and combat crews. The three Air Corps replacementtraining centers, including their psychological research units which hadbeen developed in late 1941 and early 1942, were soon put under the newcommand, which now had top responsibility for the psychological testingprogram of Air Corps candidates. The psychological research unit at MaxwellField, Ala., developed tests of emotion, temperament, and personality,while the one at Kelly Field worked out, in cooperation with the Schoolof Aviation Medicine (that is, the Research Section of the Department ofPsychology) at nearby Randolph Field, psychomotor tests and learning measures.In the early months of 1942, these two training centers were swamped withaviation cadets. The third unit, opening in March 1942 at the newly constructedWest Coast Replacement Training Center at Santa Ana Army Air Base, Calif.,developed tests in the field of intellectual functions and scholastic achievements.
In March 1942, Lt. Col. (later Brig. Gen.) Charles R. Glenn, MC, whohad been Surgeon of the West Coast Training Center, became surgeon on thespecial staff of the Commanding General, Air Corps Flying Training Command,at the latter`s headquarters in Washington (later at Fort Worth, Tex.).A fourth psychological research unit, designed to develop tests of observationand attention at another replacement training center (which never cameinto being), was transformed into a psychological section in Colonel Glenn`soffice in the spring of 1942 aircrew classification centers took the placeof the replace-
13(1) History, Army Air Forces Medical ServiceTraining School, Robins Field. [Official record.] (2) See footnote 11,p. 136. (3) History of the First Air Force Medical Department, January1941-December 1944. [Official record.]
139
ment training centers. Aviation cadets went from basic training centersto these classification centers, whence those classified for pilot trainingwent to preflight schools. The surgeon of the aircrew classification centerbecame responsible for the selection of aviation cadets, with the assistanceof the director of the psychological research unit and his staff of psychologists.At each classification center a faculty board, including the senior flightsurgeon and the director of the psychological research unit, was establishedto do the actual classification.14
The Army Air Forces Technical Training Command, first established inMarch 1941 (with headquarters at Chanute Field, Ill., later at Tulsa, Okla.,and finally Knollwood, N.C.), had the job of training mechanics and variousspecialists for ground crews to support combat teams in the air. Doctorsassigned to this command rendered the usual medical service to the troopsof the command. Since the psychological research units of the Army AirForces Flying Training Command had the proper personnel and equipment foradministering tests of psychomotor skills, they were given responsibilityfor testing personnel of the Technical Training Command, as well as thecombat crews of the Flying Training Command.
In July 1943 the two training commands, flying and technical, were amalgamatedinto the Army Air Forces Training Command with headquarters at Fort Worth,Tex. This, the largest of the continental air force commands, had a staffsurgeon`s office; surgeons and medical sections existed at the headquartersof some half-dozen subcommands and surgeons at the posts of each.15
Air Transport Command.-The Air Transport Command, which even-tuallyhad major responsibilities for air evacuation of ill and wounded troops,was established in June 1942. Its predecessor, the Air Corps Ferrying Command,had been created in June 1941 (with headquarters in Washington) to ferrylend-lease planes to the British. Its chief route was then the South Atlanticair route, which ran from Florida through the Caribbean and Brazil andacross northern Africa to Cairo. By November the President had authorizedthe extension of ferrying activities to whatever regions were deemed necessaryin order to fulfill lend-lease obligations. In January of the followingyear, the first medical officer had been assigned to Air Transport Commandheadquarters, and shortly afterward the Air Surgeon had begun sending medicalofficers to domestic and foreign stations of the command. By March thecommand bad acquired a chief surgeon, and a few medical officers and someMedical Department enlisted personnel were stationed at its bases at thefollowing sites: Accra in British West Africa; Kano in Nigeria; Karachiin India; Morrison Field,
14(1) History of the Army Air Forces FlyingTraining Command and Its Predecessors, 1 January 1939-7 July 1943 (1 March1945), vol. II. [Official record.] (2) History of the Army Air Forces TrainingCommand, 1 January 1939--V-J Day (15 June 1946), vol. II [Official record.](3) See footnote 9 (1), p. 134.
15(1) See footnote 14 (1). (2) See footnote 14 (2). (3) Historyof the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command and Its Predecessors,1 January 1939-7 July 1943 (1 March 1945), vol. I. [Official record.]
140
Fla., and Presque Isle, Maine, jumping-off places for the South Atlanticand North Atlantic air routes, respectively; and a few other domestic basesof the Ferrying Command. In May Lt. Col. (later Col.) Fletcher E. Ammons,MC, had become Surgeon, Ferrying Command, and remained in the post untilFebruary 1943. After June 1942 when the Ferrying Command was renamed theAir Transport Command, its task assumed global proportions. During thelatter half of 1942 the following "wings," with headquartersas indicated, were established to take care of the job of ferrying planesto many quarters of the globe: North Atlantic Wing, Presque Isle; SouthPacific (later Pacific) Wing, Hamilton Field, Calif.; Caribbean Wing, MorrisonField; Africa-Middle East Wing, Accra; South Atlantic Wing, Georgetown,British Guiana, later Natal, Brazil Alaska Wing, Edmonton, Alberta; andIndia-China Wing, Chabua, India Each wing had a wing surgeon stationedat or near its headquarters and flight surgeons assigned to various airbasesalong the routes of the wings. The wing surgeon was responsible, throughthe wing commander, to the Washington headquarters of the Air TransportCommand.
The general structure of the Air Transport Command may be likened tothe shape of a wheel, with the air routes stretching out like spokes fromthe United States as a hub. Its wings thus overlapped the Zone of the Interior,Oversea bases and defense commands, and the theaters of operations. Themedical service of the separate wings became somewhat independent of Armyorganization in the theaters in which they were located. Because of itshighly mobile operations the Air Transport Command held that subjectionof the activities of its wings to theater control was artificial and unfeasible.From its point of view the entire world was one vast theater for its ownferrying activities. In 1942 and 1943 it obtained various statements fromthe War Department tending to make its wings independent of theater control.Its bids for exemption resulted in conflicting claims of jurisdiction betweenthe staff surgeon at a few oversea theater headquarters and the staff surgeonof the Air Transport Command wing in the locality, especially in areasin which the Air Transport Command wing`s task of transferring men andequipment was the major Army activity in the area. Struggles of this kinddeveloped in both Brazil-between the staff surgeons of the U.S. Army Forcesin the South Atlantic and of the South Atlantic Wing, Air Transport Command-andin the Gold Coast-between staff surgeons of the U.S. Army Forces in CentralAfrica and of the Central African Wing, Air Transport Command.16
I Troop Carrier Command, established in June 1942 with headquartersat Stout Field, Indianapolis, Ind., had the task of organizing and trainingtroop carrier units, together with personnel for replacements, and furnishing
16(1) Medical History, World War II, UnitedStates Army Forces, South Atlantic. [Official record.] (2) Annual Report,Surgeon, United States Forces South Atlantic, 1943. (3) Letter, Col. DonG. Hilldrup, to Col. J. H. McNinch, MC, Chief, Historical Division, Officeof the Surgeon General, 8 Feb. 1950.
141
them to the oversea theaters.17 These units were designedto transport troops, including gliderborne troops and parachuteborne troopstogether with their equipment, by air into combat. The medical sectionbegan operations in June, when Col. Wood S. Woolford, MC, was made specialstaff surgeon. The main task of his small office in 1942 was the recruitmentof enough medical officers to supply its units. By the end of 1942, 4 wings,comprising 12 groups and 48 squadrons, had been activated; wing, group,and squadron surgeons were procured accordingly. Other major functionsof the medical section were to provide medical personnel and service forthe bases of I Troop Carrier Command in the United States, to handle medicalsupplies for tactical units and base installations of the command, andto supervise medical training of the command.
These responsibilities differed little, of course, from. those of themedical section at the headquarters of any large command. The special medicalfunction of I Troop Carrier Command came to be the development of unitsfor evacuating casualties by air. In 1942 the Air Surgeon and Colonel Woolforddeveloped plans f or a standard unit. The training of air evacuation unitsundertaken in the latter half of 1942 at Bowman Field, Louisville, Ky.(near the command headquarters at Stout Field), was the genesis of theArmy Air Forces School of Air Evacuation, which was established at BowmanField in June 1943. It trained the standard medical air evacuation transportsquadrons which the Air Transport Command used; these units attended patientsbeing evacuated by air within theaters and from theaters to the UnitedStates. The medical air evacuation transport squadron, the medical supplyplatoon (aviation) mentioned above, and the medical dispensary detachment(aviation)- designed to provide about a dozen beds at airfields where nohospital facilities were available-and the veterinary detachment, aviation(for food inspection), were the principal medical units developed for overseause by the Army Air Forces during the war.18
THE TRANSPORTATION CORPS
Within the Transportation Corps, created in July 1942 as a new serviceunder the Services of Supply, developed certain special medical activitieswhich operated under the command of the Services of Supply, but throughthe Office of the Chief of Transportation rather than the Office of TheSurgeon
17This command was originally established inApril 1942 as the Air Transport Command, but is not to be confused withthe long-lived Air Transport Command discussed in this section. At thesame date that this older Air Transport Command became I Troop CarrierCommand, the Air Corps Ferrying Command was renamed Air Transport Command.The older Air Transport Command is not discussed here, as it had no medicalsection at headquarters.
18(1) Medical History, I Troop Carrier Command, 30 April 1942-31December 1944. [Official record.] (2) History of the Medical Department,Air Transport Command, May 1941-December 1944. [Official record.] (3) FlightSurgeon`s Handbook, Randolph Field, 30 April 1943. (4) Smith, ClarenceMcKittrick: The Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation, Zoneof Interior. United States Army in World War II. The Technical Services.Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1956, pp. 438ff.
142
General. The Chief of Transportation was responsible for directing themovements of Army troops and materiel by rail, highway, and water carriers(not by air) and for operating the necessary field installations and facilities.His jurisdiction embraced both the Army`s carriers in the Zone of Interiorand the oceangoing vessels which transported men and supplies to and fromoversea theaters of operations. Army ports of embarkation were developedat Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Charleston, Boston, and other coastalcities in addition to the ones which had existed at New York and San Franciscoin 1939. The port establishment included staging areas for troops goingoverseas, storage space, piers, and ships. The port commander directedoperations in all these as well as on ships en route from his port to overseabases.
The port surgeons at Army ports of embarkation, directly responsibleto port commanders, operated within this command channel which led back,through the Office of the Chief of Transportation, to Services of Supplyhead- quarters in Washington. The port surgeon was in charge of medicalcare furnished at port dispensaries and the station hospital at the port,as well as on transports carrying troops to and from oversea areas. Hisoffice had special tasks in connection with the movement of troops overseas;it gave any necessary physical examinations to departing troops and anyimmunizations which they lacked. It was also responsible for preventivehealth measures at ports and on transports; it inspected the sanitary conditionsat port installations and on ships, supervised the work of disinfectingtransports, and recommended the necessary fumigation.
A Veterinary Corps officer in the port surgeon`s medical section directedthe port veterinary detachment in the inspection of animals and foods ofanimal origin intended for consumption at port installations and on transports,as well as those being shipped overseas. A Medical Corps officer instructedtransport surgeons in the administration of ships` hospitals; a DentalCorps officer advised on the installation of dental facilities on transportsand supervised the dental service afforded troops on transports; the VeterinaryCorps officer exercised a similar technical supervision over the care ofanimals being transported overseas. The nursing service at port installationswas supervised by a chief nurse in the port surgeon`s office. A personnelofficer made recommendations relative to the assignment of Medical Departmentpersonnel within ports and to transports. As ports of embarkation employedlarge numbers of civilian employees, some of whom were engaged in hazardousoccupations, an officer in charge of industrial medicine supervised a programwhich embraced a dispensary service for civilian employees, surveys todetermine occupational hazards, and the installation of protective devices.Some port surgeons` offices contained a medical supply officer, but atother ports the handling of medical supply was vested in a so-called "portmedical supply officer" on the staff of the commanding officer ofthe port. This arrangement relieved the port surgeon of some of his manifoldduties; it resulted in the presence of two Medical Department officerson the port commander`s
143
staff-the port surgeon who was responsible for the health of the command,and the port medical supply officer responsible for all medical supplies.
Although the duties of the port surgeon resembled those of a post surgeon,medical administration at a large port was more complex than at most posts,and medical work more varied. At New Orleans in the latter part of 1942,for example, the port surgeon gave technical direction to the work of acamp surgeon for the New Orleans Staging Area (who supervised in his turneight dispensaries within the staging area), as well as to the activitiesof the commanding officer of the station hospital located at the port.In size, organization, and functions the port surgeon`s office frequentlyresembled that of a corps area, rather than a post surgeon. Several portsurgeons had about 25 officers, representing all Medical Department corps,on their staffs. Both the preventive medicine program and the program ofmedical care which the port surgeon`s office conducted extended over anarea which, though much smaller than the corps area, was larger than thatfor which a post surgeon was usually responsible; in some instances itembraced subports. Like the corps area (or service command) surgeon, theport surgeon worked in close liaison with other officials engaged in publichealth programs. The port surgeon at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation,for example, was a member of a so-called "Joint Public Health Committee,"which handled a rodent control program. Other members were the quarantineofficer and other local U.S. Public Health Service officials, the navaldistrict medical officer, and the heads of the local county and city healthoffices.19
The port surgeon was always under the technical guidance of the Officeof The Surgeon General despite the fact that he was within the commandchannel of the Transportation Corps. In the early part of the war no medicaloffice existed in the Office of the Chief of Transportation in Washington.That office exercised somewhat more centralized control over the medicalservice at ports after the spring of 1943, however, when The Surgeon Generalassigned a Medical Department officer to it as liaison officer.
19(1) Annual reports of the various port surgeons,1942-1945. (2) Wardlow, Chester: The Transportation Corps : Responsibilities,Organization, and Operations. United States Army in World War II. The TechnicalServices. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951, pp. 55-58,95-110. (3) Medical Department, United States Army. Veterinary Servicein World War II. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962, ch.XV.
