Preface
This volume is one of a series dealing with the administrative historyof the Medical Department, United States Army, in World War II. As an accountof the organization and administration of the medical service in the UnitedStates and major oversea theaters of operations, it necessarily includesnot only a description of changes in structure and administrative techniquesbut the accompanying changes in functions and responsibilities, which aretreated here in broad terms.
Attention is focused principally upon the Surgeon General`s Office,and upon the offices of the surgeons of the more important commands, bothin the Zone of Interior and overseas. Minor theaters such as Alaska, theSouth Atlantic, and the Middle East, received no separate discussion heresince they are treated in adequate detail in other volumes of this series.Problems of organization and administration in these areas did not differin essentials from those in the larger theaters where the war was foughtout. They were problems neither exclusively medical nor purely military,but a fusion of the two.
Other volumes in the administrative series, dealing respectively withhospitalization and evacuation in the Zone of Interior, with personnel,with medical supply, with training, and with all aspects of medical servicein the European, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific theaters, necessarilyimpinge to some extent upon the subject matter of this study, but in acontext relating in each case to substantive problems. In this book organizationand adminis-tration are treated in the context of the whole medical serviceover the entire span of the defense and war years, thus supplying an essentialframework for all segments of the history of the Medical Department inWorld War II.
Although the author of this volume, Miss Blanche B. Armfield, left TheHistorical Unit before the final editing of her manuscript, judgments andevaluations, as well as content and language, are basically hers, and fullcredit for the merits of the book belongs to her. Responsibility for thevolume is shared to some extent, by Donald O. Wagner, Ph. D., who supervisedthe production of the original manuscript; by Col. John Boyd Coates, Jr.,MC, USA, who suggested a number of changes in the author`s draft; and,more especially by Charles M. Wiltse, Ph. D., Litt. D., who revised andreorganized the text after both Miss Armfield and Dr. Wagner had left TheHistorical Unit.
Others who influenced the final product are three former members ofThe Historical Unit, Mrs. Josephine P. Kyle, who served as Chief of theGeneral Reference and Research Branch; and Nora V. Lewis (now Mrs. ThomasH. Major), and William K. Daum, who assisted the author with her researchand wrote preliminary drafts of portions of the manuscript; Stetson Conn,Ph. D., Chief Historian of the Office of the Chief of Military History,Department of the Army, and members of his staff, who offered numeroushelpful comments based on a detailed review of the manuscript; and manymembers of the Medical Department, both active and retired, who sharedwith the author their firsthand knowledge of the events described. Theirnames are listed under "Acknowledgments."
CHARLES M. WILTSE.
