CHAPTER VII
Procurement, 1941-45: Other MilitaryComponents
SANITARY CORPS
Among the various specialties represented in the SanitaryCorps, the largest was the group of sanitary engineers. On 1 January 1943, theProcurement and Assignment Service, at the request of the National ResearchCouncil`s Committee on Sanitary Engineering, extended its jurisdiction over thisprofession. The committee, in making its request, cited the Army`s large needfor these men and the depletion of State health department rolls through lossesto the military forces and the U.S. Public Health Service. The committeesuggested that a system of procurement and assignment should be institutedpromptly, and that the Procurement and Assignment Service should, after study,recommend the proper allocation of the limited supply. Mr. Abel Wolman,Professor of Sanitary Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and Chairmanof the Committee on Sanitary Engineering of the National Research Council, wasmade a member of the Directing Board of the Procurement and Assignment Service.About 1 June 1943, an Adviser on Sanitary Engineers was appointed in each State,under the Procurement and Assignment Service; in most States, the Chief SanitaryEngineer of the State health department was designated the State adviser.
On 30 September 1943, the Sanitary Corps comprised 2,054officers, having grown almost 80 percent since the preceding December.1Of this number, some 600 were sanitary engineers, the bulk of the members of theprofession in the United States who were of military age and physically fit. Aslate as January 1945, of the more than 970 sanitary engineers then in theSanitary Corps, approximately 75 percent had come from the civilian profession-largelyfrom State and local boards of health. A "rough check" at that timerevealed that about 22 percent had entered the corps from State healthdepartments and 17 percent from city and county health departments. A further 20percent had come from other governmental health agencies, while 20 percent morehad been consulting engineers. In recognition of the limitations of procurementfrom these services, the experience requirement was reduced from 4 to 2 years.
1(1) Hardenbergh, W. A.: Organization and Administration of Sanitary Engineering Division, ch. 8. [Official record.] (2) Mordecai, Alfred: A History of the Procurement and Assignment Service for Physicians, Dentists, Veterinarians, Sanitary Engineers, and Nurses-War Manpower Commission. (For some time, Colonel Mordecai served as The Surgeon General`s liaison officer with the Procurement and Assignment Service.) (3) See table 1, p. 10.
212
The Army had to draw upon other sources, however, not only tomeet its need for sanitary engineers but for other types of specialistsrepresented in the Sanitary Corps. In 1943, it was decided to make use of theArmy Specialized Training Program to train enlisted personnel to serve assanitary engineers. Of the men so trained, 153 became officers in the MedicalDepartment. Upon completing their college course, they were sent to MedicalAdministrative Corps officer candidate schools to obtain commissions; aftertheir appointment in that corps, they were detailed to the Sanitary Corps.
From the beginning of the war, it had been possible tocommission men directly, not only from civil life but from the noncommissionedranks of the Army, if they possessed special qualifications that would justifytheir appointment as officers.2 As part of its effort to enlarge theSanitary Corps in this manner, the War Department issued Circular No. 333 on 15August 1944 to encourage enlisted men and warrant officers to apply forcommissions in the corps, stating that a need existed for sanitary engineers,medical entomologists, serologists, biological chemists, parasitologists, andindustrial hygiene engineers. A month later, the Medical Department succeeded inhaving a similar opportunity offered to enlisted members of the Women`s ArmyCorps who could qualify as bacteriologists, biochemists, and serologists. Inthis case, however, the successful applicants were not to be commissioned in theSanitary Corps but in the Women`s Army Corps, being simply assigned to andimmediately detailed to the Sanitary Corps.3
In addition, the Medical Department received permission touse Women`s Army Corps officers who were trained in Sanitary Corps specialties.In December 1944, the War Department directed that every effort be made toutilize in medical installations such of these officers as were qualified intechnical work appropriate to commissioned rank; the specialties mentioned asexamples were those of laboratory officer, bacteriologist, biochemist,parasitologist, serologist, "and other positions established for SanitaryCorps officers."4 No permission wasgranted, however, to commission women in the Sanitary Corps directly fromcivilian life. These moves followed a campaign begun in the spring of 1944 torecruit members for the Women`s Army Corps to serve in medical installations.
On 7 December 1944, The Surgeon General stated that the reservoir ofbacteriologists, biochemists, and parasitologists in civilian practice wasalmost exhausted and asked the Officer Procurement Service to stop procurementfrom this source.5 Two months later, at hisrequest, the War Department revoked the section of Circular No. 333 whichencouraged applications for
2(1) Letter, The Adjutant General, to Commanding Generals, Services of Supply, Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces (and others), 28 Apr. 1942, subject: Commissions in the Sanitary Corps for Enlisted Personnel, Army of the United States. (2) Army Regulations No. 605-10, 30 Dec. 1942.
3(1) Letter, The Adjutant General, to The Surgeon General, 9 Sept. 1944, subject: Procurement Objective in the Army of the United States of Sanitary Corps Officers. (2) War Department Circular No. 370, 12 Sept. 1944.
4War Department Circular No. 462, 5 Dec. 1944.
5Memorandum, Office of The Surgeon General, for Director, Officer Procurement Service, 7 Dec. 1944, subject : Procurement of Laboratory Sanitary Corps Officers.
213
appointment in the Sanitary Corps. Enough applications fromthe types of specialists referred to in the circular had been received to meetthe existing needs of the Medical Department.6
During the period from 1 September 1943 through June 1945,649 commissions were granted in the Sanitary Corps. Of these, 392 went toenlisted personnel, 239 to persons coming directly from civilian life, and therest to various others.7 The corps reached its peak strength of 2,560in April-May 1945 (table 1). In May of that year, it contained 980 sanitaryengineers, 521 bacteriologists, and 342 biochemists, each of the otherspecialties having smaller numbers.8
In the effort to build up the Sanitary Corps as rapidly aspossible, men had been commissioned who did not have the scientific backgroundto fit them for such work; they were, however, suitable for the MedicalAdministrative Corps. On the other hand, some who did have this background hadbeen commissioned in the Medical Administrative Corps. In the fall of 1944,approximately 200 misassigned officers in each of the two corps were transferredto the corps for which their education and experience fitted them, and TheSurgeon General took steps to prevent officers without an education in sciencefrom becoming members of the Sanitary Corps in the future.9
PHARMACY CORPS
When the Pharmacy Corps was created in July 1943, 58 members of the RegularArmy Medical Administrative Corps were transferred to it. No new members wereadded to it, and the strength of the corps remained the same throughout thatyear. During 1944, The Surgeon General brought about the appointment of 14officers to the Pharmacy Corps. The American Institute of Pharmacy, however,complained in 1945 that he was dilatory in building up the corps to fullstrength (72, exclusive of members taken over from the Regular Army MedicalAdministrative Corps), and that he had failed to make it a corps in function aswell as in name by not naming a chief administrator. Further, he had notrequested consultative service from a pharmaceutical association. In reply, TheSurgeon General pointed out that the new officers for the corps were to beprocured under such regulations and after such exami-
6(1) Memorandum, Office of The Surgeon General (Executive Officer), for the Office of The Adjutant General (Appointment and Induction Branch), 14 Feb. 1945, subject: Revocation of Section X, War Department Circular No. 333. (2) War Department Circular No. 61, 26 Feb. 1945.
7Monthly Progress Reports, Army Service Forces, War Department, 30 Sept. 1943-30 June 1945, Section 5: Personnel.
8The other specialties listed were entomologists, general laboratory workers, parasitologists, serologists, nutritionists, industrial hygienists, supply and other administrators. (Memorandum, Maj. H. M. Rexrode, Office of The Surgeon General, for Chief, Personnel Service, Office of The Surgeon General, 29 May 1945, subject : Semiannual History of the Medical Administrative and Sanitary Corps.)
9(1) Semiannual Report, Classification Branch, Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army, June-December 1944. (2) Memorandum, Office of The Surgeon General (Executive Officer), for Publication Division, Office of The Adjutant General (through Military Personnel Division, Army Service Forces), 30 Nov. 1944. (3) See memorandum cited in footnote 8.
214
nations as the Secretary of War might prescribe; that officials hadpromulgated rules for the expansion of the corps similar to those that existedfor the expansion of other corps and the Regular Army as a whole. Examinationshad been given, but The Surgeon General held that "it was not contemplatedthat all seventy-two appointments * * * would be made at one time." Hemaintained that to form an integrated corps it was necessary to build it up overa period of years so that it would have new officers coming in year by year toprovide continuity of changing personnel and distribution of ranks andseniority. He reminded critics that the law had not intended that everypharmacist inducted into the Army should be commissioned. Three thousand menwere engaged in pharmacy work in the Army at that time (1945); approximatelyhalf were registered pharmacists, the remainder being men trained in Armyschools in pharmacy duties directed particularly to Army needs. In addition, hepointed out that Army pharmacy service differed materially from that of civilianlife. Many drugs and prescriptions customarily filled in civilian life bypharmacists were provided to the Army by the manufacturer ready for use. Thus,compounding of drugs and medicines by pharmacists was reduced to a minimum, andcould be performed satisfactorily by specially selected and trained enlistedmen. The character of this work was not such as to justify commissioned status.10
At the end of the war, the strength of the Pharmacy Corps was 68; the peakstrength, 70, was reached in April 1945.
MEDICAL ADMINISTRATIVE CORPS
The Medical Department obtained Medical Administrative Corpsofficers from three sources, in addition to calling up those in the Reserve: (1)Civilians who by reason of their education and experience it believed qualifiedfor commissions, including nonprofessional men who were hospital administratorsand graduates of the American College of Hospital Administration; (2) enlistedmen who, having had several years of Medical Department service, could alsoreceive direct commissions in the corps; and (3) enlisted men who could becommissioned as second lieutenants upon completing a course in a MedicalAdministrative Corps officer candidate school.11Rank granted to individuals in the first two groups was not necessarily limitedto that of second lieutenant, and many were given higher initial rank. In theZone of Interior, the first two sources, although supplying several hundredofficers, furnished a very much smaller group than those who were commissionedafter completing a course at an officer candidate school.
10(1) Letter, American Institute of Pharmacy, to Surgeon General Kirk, 27 June 1945. (2) Letter, Surgeon General Kirk, to Hon. Andrew J. May, U.S. Senator, 6 July 1945.
11In addition to enrolling enlisted men who had had at least basic Army training, the officer candidate schools also for a short time, beginning early in the war, admitted Volunteer Officer Candidates. These were men who applied for induction in order to receive this training. They formed but a small percentage of Medical Administrative Corps officer candidates. (Army Regulations No. 625-5, 26 Nov. 1942.)
215
Direct Commissioning of Civilians
In the spring of 1942, The Surgeon General initiated a driveto recruit Medical Administrative Corps officers among civilian hospitaladministrators. A request for authority to appoint 100 in this category wasapproved, and The Surgeon General was directed to expand the field to includequalified hotel and restaurant managers. These men could be used as assistantexecutive officers, hospital inspectors, and medical supply officers in generalhospitals and large station hospitals. By the end of September 1942, when TheSurgeon General asked for an increase in the authorization to 200, 81appointments had been recommended.12
On 13 October 1943, the commissioning of civilians in thecorps was stopped. Some 8 months later, when The Surgeon General needed officersfor his reconditioning program, he was again empowered to commission civiliansin the Medical Administrative Corps, although Army Service Forces headquartersdirected him to make his appointments from warrant officer and enlisted ranks asfar as practicable.13
Direct Commissioning of Enlisted Men
Zone of Interior
With regard to the second source, enlisted men having had service in theMedical Department, the individual must have had a minimum of 8 years` servicein the Department, 4 of them as warrant officer or first or master sergeant,technical sergeant, or staff sergeant. In the fiscal year 1943, The SurgeonGeneral commissioned 222 of this group, 138 in the rank of captain or firstlieutenant and 84 as second lieutenants. Finally in October 1943, deciding thatpractically all who would make acceptable officers had been commissioned, theSurgeon General`s Office discontinued the program in the Zone of Interior.14
Oversea theaters
The Medical Administrative Corps in the theaters also wasaugmented by direct commissioning of certain warrant officers and enlisted men.Originally, this took place under special authorizations, granted to individual
12(1) Letter, The Surgeon General, to Personnel Section, Services of Supply, 26 May 1942, subject: Procurement Objective of Medical Administrative Corps. (2) Memorandum, Director, Military Personnel, Services of Supply, for Chief of Staff, Services of Supply, 1 July 1942, subject : Procurement of Doctors for the Military Establishment. (3) Letter, The Surgeon General, to The Adjutant General, 28 Sept. 1942, subject: Increase in Procurement Objective, Army of the United States, for duty with the Medical Administrative Corps.
13Diary, Procurement Branch, Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, 1 July-18 Aug. 1944.
14(1) Annual Reports, Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army, 1942-44. (2) Memorandum, Capt. William Wesche, Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, for Col. D. G. Hall, Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, 24 Mar. 1944.
216
theater commanders early in the war, to commissionindividuals of warrant or enlisted status in the Army of the United States.15In July 1943, however, the authority of direct commissioning by theatercommanders was restricted to the commissioning of flight officers, warrantofficers, and enlisted men who had demonstrated their fitness for suchadvancement in actual combat. Furthermore, the appointments were limited tothose needed to fill table-of-organization or table-of-allotment vacancieswithin the command.16
In the North African theater, at least, the restrictions did not prevent thedirect commissioning in the Medical Administrative Corps of personnel fromcombat divisions, even if they themselves had not actually participated incombat. The Seventh U.S. Army while in that theater seems to have met most ofits requirements for battalion surgeon`s assistants in that manner. In the FifthU.S. Army, over 85 enlisted men received direct combat appointments in theMedical Administrative Corps between June and December 1944.17To other Medical Department enlisted men, such as those with experience limitedto general and station hospitals, this path to advancement was barred. Even whenin December 1943 general prohibition of noncombat appointments was relaxed, theygained no relief. At that time, the War Department adopted a policy ofpermitting a limited number of second lieutenant vacancies in noncombat units tobe filled by warrant officers and enlisted men who, though without combatexperience, had demonstrated competence of an exceptionally high order in theperformance of their duties. The authority to make such appointments was vestedin commanding generals already possessing a similar power with regard to personswho had demonstrated their fitness for such appointments in combat. Vacancies inmedical units, however, were specifically excluded from the operation of thisprovision.18
Nevertheless, the North African theater, probably because ofits lack of an officer candidate school, was authorized early in August 1944 tomake 30 direct noncombat appointments to the Medical Administrative Corps.19Later in the year, with greatly increased need for Medical Administrative Corpsofficers and the inability of the Zone of Interior to meet this need, the WarDepartment, at The Surgeon General`s request, temporarily empowered thecommanders of various combat theaters to appoint second lieutenants to thatcorps from
15(1) Radio, The Adjutant General, to Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces, Iraq, 27 Nov. 1942. (2) Memorandum, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, to The Adjutant General, Washington, D.C., 24 Dec. 1942, subject: Appointments. (3) Memorandum, Col. W. P. Ennis, Jr., for Chief of Staff, North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 3 Apr. 1944.
16Memorandum, Maj. Gen. M. G. White, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, for The Adjutant General, 17 July 1943, subject.: Policy Governing Appointment of Officers.
17(1) Report, Lt. Col. Stewart F. Alexander, Personnel Officer, Surgeon`s Office, Seventh U.S. Army, of Medical Department Activities in Mediterranean Theater of Operations, 14 July 1945. (2) Annual Report, Surgeon, Fifth U.S. Army, 1944.
18Memorandum, Deputy Chief of Staff, for Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, 24 Dec. 1943, subject: Extension of Authority Granted Theater Commanders to Appoint Officers.
19(1) Radio, War Department, to Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces, North African Theater of Operations, 22 Apr. 1944. (2) Radio, The Adjutant General, to Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces, North African Theater of Operations, 29 Apr. 1944. (3) Radio, Commanding General, Allied Force Headquarters, Caserta, Italy, to War Department, 25 July 1944. (4) Radio, The Adjutant General, to Commanding General, Allied Force Headquarters, Caserta, Italy, 3 Aug. 1944.
217
among Medical Department warrant officers and enlisted menwithout combat experience. Other personnel, including enlisted members of theWomen`s Army Corps, were also eligible for direct appointment, but decisiveaction on applications from them was left to the War Department.20
It was under this active encouragement on the part of the WarDepartment that the great bulk of the direct commissioning of oversea personnelin the Medical Administrative Corps took place. On 15 January 1945, for example,85 noncommissioned officers and warrant officers in the Pacific were givencommissions in the corps, albeit after a brief "refresher" course.21Probably about 1,300 or 1,400 warrant officers and Medical Corps enlisted men inoversea areas became Medical Administrative Corps officers by directappointment. The number so commissioned in the European theater, it has beenestimated, was as large as 500.
War Department policy opposed the return of enlisted men directlycommissioned to their old units, and in the European theater, this policy wasobserved at least in the communications zone.22A different procedure prevailed in the Seventh U.S. Army prior to coming underthe command of the European Theater of Operations. The medical personnel officerof that command stated:
The War Department offered to send us a numberof MAC`s as trained assistant battalion surgeons and we did take a certainnumber from the War Department, but most of our requirements were filled bydirect commissions, battlefield commissions, as a rule, in the tactical units.The technical sergeant in the Infantry regiment had been there for a long timeand he was qualified for the job. The man who had done "on the job"work was commissioned and kept in the same position, and this worked out verysatisfactorily. I am not saying that those that came over from the United Stateswere not satisfactory, because they were, but the units liked the men that werecommissioned from within their own unit. The personnel that were commissioned inthis manner had the confidence of the troops.23
Officer Candidate Schools
Zone of Interior
At the beginning of the war, the only Medical Departmentofficer candidate school was located at the Medical Field Service School,Carlisle Barracks, Pa. In April 1942, The Surgeon General pointed out that unitsnot included in the planning for 1942 were being activated and declared that theactivation of these units required the Medical Department to take personnel fromother units that were already operating short of authorized strength. Hesuggested,
20(1) Letter, Assistant Adjutant General, U.S. Army Services of Supply, to Commanding General, Base Section, U.S. Army Services of Supply, and Commanding General, Intermediate Section, U.S. Army Services of Supply, 6 Nov. 1944, subject: Noncombat Appointments of Qualified Warrant Officers and Enlisted Men as Second Lieutenants in Army of United States for Duty as Medical Administrative Corps Officers. (2) Letter, Adjutant General, European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, to Commanding Generals, U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe, each Army Group (and others), 9 Nov. 1944, subject: Appointment of Second Lieutenants, Medical Administrative Corps.
21Whitehill, Buell: Administrative History of Medical Activities in the Middle Pacific. [Official record.]
22Memorandum for Record, Col. A. B. Welsh, 7 Mar. 1945, subject: Report of Visit to Pacific Theaters, with enclosure 6 thereto.
23See footnote 17(1), p. 216.
218
and the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, and the Services ofSupply authorized, a second officer candidate school to produce MedicalAdministrative Corps second lieutenants. G-3 originally established the school`scapacity at 750; it opened in May 1942 at Camp Barkeley, Tex., where a MedicalDepartment replacement training center was located,24and graduated its first class in July of that year. The number of secondlieutenants commissioned thereupon stepped up sharply, although not enough tomeet all needs.
Eighty-five percent of the peak strength of the Medical Administrative Corpson duty during World War II were former enlisted men or warrant officers who hadbeen graduated from officer candidate schools. The great majority of thesegraduates (74.0 percent of the first 31 of a total of 40 classes turned out bythe Camp Barkeley school) were men inducted by selective service. Many hadcivilian backgrounds in fields that were of direct use to the MedicalDepartment; for example, there were laboratory, medical, and surgicaltechnicians, male nurses, teachers, and men from supply and wholesale firms,whose understanding of warehousing and shipping proved useful in medical depots.Furthermore, great numbers of them were acquainted at least in an elementary waywith the work of the Medical Department, having been assigned to it beforeattending these schools.
The Officer Candidate School located at Carlisle Barracks turned out anaverage of 177 per month in 1942. Unfortunately, it became necessary to closethis school on 27 February 1943 to make room for other officer training, andeven an increased output at the Camp Barkeley school failed to attain what thetwo schools could have produced.
From July through December 1942, the officers produced by these schoolsaveraged 670 per month, or a total of 4,024. Output, however, did not meetdemand until the fall of 1943 when large numbers of Medical Administrative Corpsofficers were in replacement pools in this country. On 31 October 1943, thetotal strength of the corps was 13,867, enough to justify a sharp curtailment atthe Camp Barkeley school.
In March 1944, the decision to substitute a Medical Administrative Corpsofficer for one of the two Medical Corps officers serving as battalion surgeons,and to make similar replacements in other positions,25caused a heavy drain on the numbers in replacement pools. The officers chosen tobecome battalion surgeons` assistants were sent to Camp Barkeley for specialtraining. As class after class was sent to this school, it became evident thatthe entire corps would have to be enlarged, and in May and June 1944 bothofficer candidate schools were reopened. By this time, not only had thefacilities been
24(1) Memorandum, Office of The Surgeon General (Col. John A. Rogers, Executive Officer), for Commanding General, Services of Supply, 11 Apr. 1942, subject: Officer Candidate School. (2) Memorandum for Record, G-3, for Services of Supply, 11 Apr. 1943, subject: Additional Medical Corps Officer Candidate School.
25War Department Circular No. 99, March 1944. (In the early part of the war, the Surgeon General`s Office had planned to substitute a dental officer as assistant battalion surgeon, but the scarcity of dentists in the Army caused their removal before the table of organization was published. Letter, Maj. Gen. Alvin L. Gorby, MC, to Col. John B. Coates, Jr., MC, Director, Historical Unit, U. S. Army Medical Service, 3 Apr. 1956.)
219
scattered, but Medical Administrative Corps officers wantedfor instructors were scarce in the United States. Hence, there was somedifficulty in recruiting staffs for the reopened schools.26In any event, these schools produced no new graduates until September 1944.
The necessity and difficulty of accelerating the productionof Medical Administrative Corps officers in 1944 and 1945 might have been atleast partially avoided if the real situation had been appreciated and thedemand foreseen and if, therefore, production had been maintained at a constantrate. The presence, in the United States, of large numbers of MedicalAdministrative Corps officers in pools during 1943 was deceptive, for althoughthese officers were presumably free for assignment elsewhere, the servicecommands had actually been using them and when they were withdrawn for trainingas battalion surgeons` assistants and for other assignments the service commandswere left inadequately manned.27 The SurgeonGeneral`s Office may have hoped in 1943 that enough additional appointees forthe Medical Corps could be obtained without supplementing them to a much greaterextent by Medical Administrative Corps officers; the Surgeon General`s Officewas always conservative in its estimates of how many of them could be used toreplace doctors in administrative work. It is true also that one officercandidate school had to be closed in 1943 for reasons unconnected with anysupposed surplus of Medical Administrative Corps officers-thefacilities of the Medical Field Service School were converted to trainingdoctors in military subjects when a large number of newly commissioned officersentered the Army as the result of the procurement efforts during the summer of1942.
In the period from 1 September 1943 through June 1945, the MedicalAdministrative Corps had 6,346 accessions:28
|
September-December 1943 |
1,713 |
|
January-June 1944 |
590 |
|
July-December 1944 |
1,038 |
|
January-June 1945 |
3,005 |
Of these, 5,328 were graduates of the officer candidateschools, while the next largest number, 877, were from the ranks of enlistedpersonnel; other sources-civilian life, warrantofficers, and members of the Officers` Reserve Corps-furnishedsmaller numbers.
Oversea theaters
The administrative measures which led to the provision ofreplacements for Medical Administrative Corps officers included the grant ofcommissions to medical enlisted personnel who attended officer candidate schoolsin the
26Letter, Office of The Surgeon General (Director, Military Personnel Division), to Lt. Col. A. H. Groeschel, Army Service Forces Training Center, Camp Barkeley, Tex., 1 July 1944.
27Report, Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, to Historical Division, Office of The Surgeon General, summer 1945, subject: Medical Department Personnel.
28See footnote 7, p. 213.
220
European theater and in the Pacific.29A special branch of the Officer Candidate School in the Southwest Pacific wasdevoted to the preparation of Medical Administrative Corps officers. It began tofunction in March 1943. By the end of August 1945, the branch school hadgraduated 153 men, some of whom may originally have been warrant officers.30Eighteen men were trained as Medical Administrative Corps officers at theOfficer Candidate School in New Caledonia prior to 31 August 1945. In theEuropean theater, there was no special course for Medical Administrative Corpspersonnel, but perhaps as many as 50 men were commissioned in that corps afterhaving taken the general course for officers.
FIGURE 34.-Nurses` duty uniform, 1943.
29(1) Annual Report, Operations and Training Division, Office of the Chief Surgeon, European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1942. (2) Memorandum for Record, signed "E.G.," 5 July 1945. (3) TWX, CM-IN-2974, New Caledonia, to War Department, 6 Dec. 1942.
30(1) Essential Technical Medical Data, U.S. Army Forces, Far East, August 1943. (2) Memorandum, F. H. P[etters], to Commanding General, Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces, Far East, subject: Medical Administrative Corps, Officer Candidate School. (3) Memorandum, Col. G. D. France, for Chief Surgeon, U.S. Army Services of Supply, Southwest Pacific Area, 23 Nov. 1943, subject: Report. (4) Letter, Lt. Col. A. E. Miller, to Capt. John W. Haverty, Office of Chief Surgeon, U.S. Army Services of Supply, 20 Mar. 1945.
221
ARMY NURSE CORPS
During the first 2 years of war, the number of nurses in theArmy rose steadily, but never to a point where the Army decided it had enoughfor all present and future needs. The Personnel Service of the Surgeon General`sOffice supplemented the familiar appeals to the humanity and patriotism ofcivilian nurses by active steps that resulted in improvements in the pay andstatus of Army nurses and ultimately benefited the whole nursing profession. Theprovision of more attractive uniforms (figs. 34 and 35) was another recruitingdevice. Failure to fill the gap completely by these methods resulted in severalexpedients: The reduction of authorized nurses in the tables of organization,the use of enlisted women without professional training who could perform someof the minor nursing functions, and improved classification of Army nurses tomake better use of those already in service. It is safe to say, however, thatmuch of this ancillary personnel would have been brought in even if the nursequota had been filled, for it came to be recognized that such assistants couldperform certain duties quite as well as nurses.
Procurement, 1942-43
In the months following Pearl Harbor, the number of nursesplaced on active duty increased sharply, probably as a consequence of a keenerdesire of many to serve their country now that it was at war. An immediate lagin
222
processing applicants was overcome by February 1942 whenprocurement of 1,219 nurses tripled the figure for December. Over 18,000 nurseswere brought on active duty in 1943, the peak year for procurement during thewar.31 One factor that contributed to this wasthe news that more Americans were fighting on more fronts and that casualtieswere beginning to reach the United States in sizable number. The procurementeffort itself, however, together with the removal of certain obstacles torecruitment, must also have been largely responsible.
Early procurement agencies, 1942
During the war, the Nursing Division of the Surgeon General`sOffice, headed by the Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps, continued to haveas one of its functions a share in the procurement of nurses.32In late 1942, it was estimated that approximately two-thirds of the nurses whoentered the Army came in by way of the Red Cross after enrollment in its FirstReserve (renamed the War Reserve in December 1942). Membership in this Reserve,however, made a nurse eligible not only for active duty in the Army but for theRed Cross "disaster service," and some nurses were unwilling to committhemselves to the latter. Some also feared that even if brought into Armyservice they would be placed in a Red Cross unit and thereby lack the protectionwhich military status gave them.33 This fear proved groundless; Red Crosshospitals were used in the First but not in the Second World War. For these andother reasons, the effectiveness of the Red Cross as a procurement agency wassomewhat reduced.
Although some members of the Medical Department complainedthat the necessity of working through the Red Cross slowed procurementunnecessarily, the arrangement continued until after the close of hostilities.In fact, when testifying before the Committee to Study the Medical Department ofthe Army (in the fall of 1942), both The Surgeon General and the Superintendentof the Army Nurse Corps spoke approvingly of the help received from the RedCross. Asked if he would favor setting up his own organization for theprocurement of nurses, The Surgeon General said: "I would hate to seeanything arise to disrupt that fine recruiting scheme that the Red Cross hasestablished."
The function of the Red Cross in nurse procurement was notlimited to obtaining members for its Reserve. One of the most valuable servicesit rendered the Army was the examination of nurses` credentials for professionalqualifications. Beginning in 1942, the Red Cross performed that service on thepapers of nurses who entered the Army directly, as it had done previously in thecase of nurses joining the First Reserve.
31Strength of the Army, 1 Oct. 1946. Prepared for War Department General Staff by Machine Records Branch, Office of The Adjutant General, under direction of Statistical Branch.
32Unless otherwise noted, much of the account of nurse procurement is drawn from Blanchfield, Florence A., and Standlee, Mary W.: Army Nurse Corps in World War II. [Official record.]
33(1) Committee to Study the Medical Department, 1942. (2) Kernodle, Portia B.: The Red Cross Nurse in Action, 1882-1948. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949, p. 163, footnote 10.
223
Other organizations continued to take part in the drive fornurses. Early in 1942, the Subcommittee on Nursing of the Medical and HealthCommittee, Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services, the Federal agencyengaged in such matters, voted to "transfer the further development of aplan for initiating the procurement and assignment of nurses through localnursing councils to the Nursing Council on National Defense," theassociation of nursing organizations.34
In April, the Council (renamed at this time the NationalNursing Council for War Service) established a Supply and DistributionCommittee. This committee laid down a program which included among other tasksthat of helping through its State nursing councils (1) to recruit nurses intothe Red Cross First Reserve and (2) to distribute nurses for civilian needs. Thecommittee also decided to set State recruiting quotas, thereby giving the Statessomething definite to aim at; State nursing councils would be responsible forbreaking these quotas down to local ones. The State quotas were "determinedon 75 percent of the number of nurses eligible"; that is, the unmarriednurses under 40 years of age, as shown in the National Inventory. Presumably,the figure of 75 percent was chosen to allow for the physically unfit, thosewith heavy obligations, or those who could not accept military duty for otherreasons.35 It was to be understood that thesequotas were temporary and would be raised as needs increased.
Measures to speed procurement
Various steps were taken during the early war period, somealong well-tried lines, to bring more nurses into the Army. The Army Nurse Corpsand the American Red Cross carried on a publicity campaign, using radio andmagazine announcements and nurses` conventions to broadcast the need for moreArmy nurses. Nurses served, too, in various cities with the Army War Shows,Inc., with a view to interesting civilian nurses in Army service. No figures areavailable on the numbers of nurses persuaded by these means to accept Army duty,but the Nurse Corps stated that reports on the Army War Shows indicated"that interest is being shown in each city visited"; apparently, too,more nurses applied for assignment to affiliated units as a consequence of thesemeetings.36
As another means of filling the gap, the Army Air Forces inSeptember 1942 took steps toward procuring its own nurses. Because of shortages,assignment of the required number of nurses to Air Forces installations wasoften delayed. It was usual for new hospitals to be established without anadequate number of nurses, and at times, there were none for a matter of months;it was necessary to use enlisted men in nursing duties until adequate numbers of
34Minutes, Meeting, Supply and Distribution Committee, National Nursing Council for War Service, 16 Apr. 1942.
35See footnote 34.
36Special Report, Army Nurse Corps, to Army Service Forces, 5 Aug.1942.
224
nurses could be assigned.37 In February 1943, the Air Surgeon`sPersonnel Division began the processing of applications received from nurses.From that date until March 1944, when recruiting by the Air Surgeon`s Officecame to an end, 4,152 applications were completed and sent to the NursingSection for appointment and assignment.38
About the time that the Air Surgeon was moving to procure hisown nurses, the Secretary of War`s Committee to Study the Medical Department wassomewhat critical of the procurement activities of The Surgeon General`s NursingDivision. The committee stated that while there was conflicting testimony on therelative merits of procurement through the Red Cross or by the Army directly, itfelt that "with more aggressive leadership and stronger administration inthe Army Nurse Corps the present system of recruitment would in all probabilitybe satisfactory." Finding that the number of nurses, although adequate atthe time, might become critical in the coming year, the committee believed thatthe Director of the Nursing Division (the Superintendent of the corps) was toocomplacent about the future and had apparently given insufficient thought to themethods by which the number of nurses available for Army duty could bematerially increased.
The Surgeon General`s Nursing Division showed somewhat less confidence thanthe committee in the ability of the Red Cross to produce the number of nursesrequired and late in 1942 favored employing another agency to conduct arecruiting campaign.39 The Secretary of War disapproved the proposal.
At this time, also, the Director of the Military PersonnelDivision, Services of Supply, instructed the Army Nurse Corps to formulate aplan which would use not more than 50 Army nurses in recruiting activities, thisplan to utilize the services of the Officer Procurement Service and the RedCross. The Officer Procurement Service had offices in many cities of thecountry, which provided space and facilities, but the Red Cross, stillresponsible for all publicity and paper work in connection with the nurseprocurement program, furnished clerical assistance. The Officer ProcurementService acted in an advisory capacity to the Army nurses, arrangingadministrative details for conferences and physical examinations atdispensaries, but it was forbidden to engage in procuring, processing orpresenting for appointment candidates for the Army Nurse Corps. The Red Crossnot only retained these prerogatives, but complained when it believed theOfficer Procurement Service was encroaching on Red Cross functions by using therecruiting nurses for direct recruiting work rather than as liaison to the RedCross.40
37Coleman, Hubert A.: Organization and Administration of the Army AirForces Medical Service, Zone of Interior. [Official record.]
38Annual Report, Personnel Division, Office of the Air Surgeon, 1943-44.
39Memorandum, Col. Florence A. Blanchfield, USA (Ret.), for Col. C. H.Goddard, Office of The Surgeon General, 14 July 1952, subject: MedicalDepartment History in World War II.
40Letter, Gertrude S. Banfield, Assistant in Charge of Enrollment andProcurement, American Red Cross, to Lt. Col. Florence A. Blanchfield,Superintendent, Army Nurse Corps, 23 Mar. 1943.
225
Various measures were introduced during 1942-43 relaxing nurses`qualifications and improving their conditions of service, most of which may havehad, or were intended to have, a favorable effect on recruitment. Two earlyrestrictions were age and marital status. When the United States entered thewar, the Army Nurse Corps would accept neither married women nor women over 30years of age. In the spring of 1942, the Army raised the age limit from 30 to 45years for Reserve nurses joining the Army to serve in affiliated units or in aspecial assignment, such as anesthetist, operating-room supervisor, chief nurse,and instructor;41 and the following year, it accepted nurses up to45 years of age for general assignment.42 The age for entering theRegular Army Nurse Corps was not raised above 30 years, but this limitationceased to have meaning in January 1943 when procurement of Regular Army nurseswas stopped.
Beginning on 1 October 1942, The Surgeon General at his discretion could retainin service for the duration of the emergency and 6 months thereafter any Armynurse who married. The number of discharges from the Army Nurse Corps declinedfrom the total of 821 in the 4 months prior to October 1942 to only 265 in thefirst 4 months of 1943.43
In November 1942, the Army announced that it would acceptmarried nurses for the duration of the war and 6 months afterward, butstipulated that they would not be stationed at the same installation as theirhusbands and that nurses with minor children would be accepted only afterproviding for their care outside military reservations. Later, no married nurseswith children under 14 years of age were accepted.44
The Procurement and Assignment Service
As shortages of nurses increased in certain areas in civilianlife, a countrywide control which would effect more equitable distribution bothbetween the Armed Forces and the civilian community itself came to seemnecessary to more people. Army and Navy representatives stood against suchcontrol, believing it would limit their ability to obtain the numbers needed.The question of how to guarantee nursing service to civilian communities aroseduring hearings of the Committee to Study the Medical Department of the Army.One committee member even insisted that the procurement activities of the ArmyNurse Corps gave no consideration to the protection of community needs. Thecharge was not sustained by the record, which was good enough, on the whole, tomake understandable the reluctance of the Corps Superintendent to accept theintervention of the Procurement and Assignment Service.45
41Letter, Superintendent, Army Nurse Corps (Maj. Julia O.Flikke),to Miss Alma C. Haupt, Nursing Consultant, Health and Medical Committee, FederalSecurity Agency, 7 Mar. 1942.
42Annual Report, NursingDivision, Office of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army, 1943.
43(1) War Department Circular No. 317, 1942. (2) See footnote 31, p. 222.
44(1) War Department Circular No. 365, 1942. (2) See footnote 42.
45Letter, Col. Florence A. Blanchfield, USA (Ret.), to Col. John B. Coates,Jr., MC, Director, Historical Unit, U.S. Army Medical Service, 21 Feb. 1956.
226
In September 1942, believing that Government assistance was needed, theNational Nursing Council for War Service referred to the Subcommittee on Nursingof the Health and Medical Committee the question of the supply and distributionof nurses. In October, the Health and Medical Committee responded with aresolution urging that a Nurse Supply Board be established in the War ManpowerCommission. After the War Manpower Commission had suggested a review of theproposal, the Subcommittee on Nursing and the National Nursing Council for WarService voted on 19 December 1942 to make no change in the originalrecommendation, which presented a fairly cogent argument as follows:
1. The problem of supply and distribution of nurses was essentially the sameas that of other types of personnel and should be handled by the same overallagency.
2. Nurses, being women, fell altogether outside the jurisdiction of theSelective Service System-unlike male professional groups-and therefore neededeven more than the latter the consideration of the War Manpower Commission.
3. If a supply and distribution system was to function on local, State, andnational levels, the prestige, authority, and money of the War ManpowerCommission were needed.
4. The U.S. Public Health Service was administering a $3,500,000appropriation for nursing education and was using the Subcommittee on Nursing ofthe Health and Medical Committee as its advisory group. Needed expansions inthis program could be maintained under the Public Health Service with closeliaison with the proposed Nurses Supply Board.46
In January 1943, the Subcommittee on Nursing voted to approve the idea of theestablishment of an advisory committee in lieu of a Nurses Supply Board on theground that such a board would not have fitted in with the War ManpowerCommission`s organizational policy. In February 1943, the War ManpowerCommission approved a Nursing Supply and Distribution Service, and in May, theChairman of the Commission announced officially that this unit was establishedunder the direction of the War Manpower Commission`s Bureau of Placement at therequest of the nurses represented by the National Nursing Council for WarService. Meanwhile, he had appointed an Advisory Committee to the new Service,choosing members from a list of names submitted by the Subcommittee on Nursing.
The Nursing Supply and Distribution Service was originallyplanned as an independent unit in the War Manpower Commission, but in June 1943,it was transferred to the Procurement and Assignment Service, its name changedto Nursing Division, and the Advisory Committee attached to it. The functions ofthe newly formed Nursing Division were (1) to consider the nursing needs of theArmed Forces and establish a quota for each State to meet these needs; (2) todetermine the availability for military service or essentiality for civilianservices of all nurses eligible for military service and submit these findingsto
46Proposals for Administration and Operating Organization of the NursingSupply and Distribution Service, Bureau of Placement, War Manpower Commission,10 June 1943.
227
the American Red Cross for use in procuring nurses for theArmed Forces; (3) to insure maximum utilization of all members of the profession;(4) to maintain a complete roster of the nursing profession; and (5) to carryout these functions through State and local committees in accordance withpolicies and recommendations made by the Directing Board of the Procurement andAssignment Service.47
The organization of the Nursing Division followed in generalthe pattern of that for physicians, dentists, and veterinarians, with State andcounty chairmen and committees. In general, the State Supply and DistributionCommittees of the National Nursing Council for War Service were redesignatedState Committees of the Procurement and Assignment Service. Two outstandingmembers of the nursing profession were appointed as members of the DirectingBoard of the Procurement and Assignment Service. They were Miss Katherine Tuckerof the University of Pennsylvania, and Miss Laura Grant of the Yale-New HavenHospital.
Local boards classified nurses either as available formilitary duty or as essential to civilian nursing care. After the Statecommittees had reviewed these classifications, they sent the names of thoseconsidered available for military service to the Red Cross recruiting committeesin the areas where the nurses resided, and invited the nurses to apply to theRed Cross for military duty.
The Procurement and Assignment Service encountereddifficulties in the first months of its jurisdiction over nurses. Aquestionnaire sent to State committee chairmen and designed to show how manylocal Nursing Councils for War Service already existed, how many were to beorganized, where the State`s copy of the National Inventory of Nurses was kept,and whether the committee considered the Inventory up to date, brought forth apicture of lack of uniformity in organization and uncertainty of knowledge. TheNational Nursing Council for War Service found that efforts to notify nurses oftheir classification presented difficulties. In an effort to relieve State andlocal committees at a time when the urgency to fill military quotas wasincreasing, the Council in September 1943 agreed to inform nurses of theirclassification only if they were declared eligible for military service, leavingall other nurses to be notified later.48
Procurement, 1944-45
The procurement of Army nurses, which had proceeded at a fairly rapid rateduring the last 3 months of 1943, fell by somewhat more than half in the 3months following, after which it dropped even more sharply. The net increase inthe strength of the Nurse Corps from 31 December 1943 to 31 March 1944 was1,931; in the succeeding 9 months, the increase was only 3,710 leaving
47See footnote 1(2), p. 211.
48(1) News About Nursing: Procurement and Assignment. Am. J.Nursing 43: 948-949, October 1943. (2) Letter, L. Louise Baker, to MissKatherine E. Pierce, Chairman, State Committee for Nurses, Procurement andAssignment Service, Boston, Mass., 19 Oct. 1943.
228
the corps with a strength of 42,248 at the end of the year.The slowup probably resulted in part from doubt occasioned by certaintransactions in late 1943 and early 1944. The supposed cut in the Nurse Corpsceiling, from over 50,000 to 40,000, became widely known in December 1943.
On 21 April 1944, the service commands were notified to cease makingappointments to the Nurse Corps. The fact that a week later the War Departmentraised the authorized strength of the corps from 40,000 to 50,000 and that TheSurgeon General took immediate steps to have the service commands resumerecruiting does not seem to have dispelled a doubt on the part of civiliannurses and their organizations that the Army really needed many additionalnurses; at any rate, procurement continued to lag. This feeling of hesitationwas reinforced by a belief that, following the rapid progress of the Alliesthrough Europe in the summer of 1944, the war would end in the fall. Therefore,although casualties mounted, applications for appointments to the Nurse Corpsdecreased. A recruiting campaign conducted in September failed almostcompletely; 27,000 letters sent to nurses whom the Procurement and AssignmentService had classified as available for military service brought theSuperintendent of the Nurse Corps, Colonel Blanchfield, but 700-odd replies, ofwhich only approximately 200 were from correspondents later found suitable forArmy commissions.
The Surgeon General`s Personnel Service and the Army NurseCorps Technical Information Branch were thoroughly alarmed over the failure ofnurses to volunteer. In September, when The Surgeon General was arranging toevacuate a large number of patients from Europe, Colonel Blanchfield warned theNational Nursing Council for War Service that recruitment activities must bestepped up.
The Surgeon General became increasingly vocal over the nurse shortage and wasconcerned about restrictions laid down by the Procurement and AssignmentService. In October, he informed the various procurement groups that it was timethey all pulled together without regard to credit for their accomplishments.
The Surgeon General`s Military Personnel Division (Personnel Service)recommended procedures designed to bring more nurses onto active duty. Thedivision urged, too, that civilian institutions should be restrained fromproselytizing cadet nurses and that the Army should exert itself to persuadesenior cadets serving in Army hospitals, of which there were only 486 at thattime, to enter the Army Nurse Corps.
There was little agreement on why nurses were not volunteering in the numbersdesired and on what remedial measures should be taken. The Red Cross admittedthat its own procedures and those of the Army in handling nurses` applicationstook time but did not see how the process could be shortened in the face of theclassification requirements imposed by the Procurement and Assignment Service.The Procurement and Assignment Service, on the other hand, believed somerecruiting and assignment difficulties arose from lack of uniform appointmentprocedures. Certainly, the Army was not blameless, for
229
the service commands were not accepting nurses as soon asthey applied. Rather, each service command waited until its own basic trainingcourse was beginning. Although the longest wait thus involved was only a month,the delay permitted people to conclude that the Army still did not urgently neednurses. It is possible that if at this time The Surgeon General`s MilitaryPersonnel Division had been given a free hand it might have simplifiedappointive procedures and reduced the delays.
H.R. 2277: the nurse draft
Fanned by public relations releases, the nation`s press wasat this time adopting the nurse shortage as headline material. Beginning inNovember 1944, increasingly critical articles were appearing, some ofthem denouncing what they termed "bureaucratic delays." On the otherhand, rumors of a nurse draft persisted, some coming from members of theProcurement and Assignment Service and the National Nursing Council for WarService, groups which had discussed such a possibility much earlier. Despite thediverse ideas on why nurses were not volunteering in the desired numbers, thetwo segments of the Surgeon General`s Office that were most closely concernedwith the problem-the Nursing Division and the Military Personnel Division-agreedon one thing-nurses should not be drafted.
On 19 December 1944, however, Walter Lippmann, a nationallysyndicated columnist, after conferring with The Surgeon General wrote a columnentitled "American Women and Our Wounded Men,`` which focused the attentionof the American people on the Army`s nurse shortage. In the article whichappeared in the 19 December 1944 issue of the Washington Post, Mr.Lippmann asserted that he was reporting only the stark truth, which was wellknown to the Army and to the leaders of the medical professional, that Americansoldiers were not receiving the nursing care they must have. It was Lippmann`sarticle that precipitated the draft issue. Later the same day, the Secretary ofWar, having read the article, asked The Surgeon General informally to clarifythe nursing situation. The Surgeon General assured him that Mr. Lippmannactually portrayed a nearly hopeless situation. The Secretary of War then decided infavor of a draft of nurses. The necessary legislation was prepared on ChristmasEve by Col. Durward G. Hall, MC, and Mr. Goldthwaite Dorr, Special Assistant tothe Secretary of War, who worked through the night.49 The proposal todraft nurses was incorporated into the President`s State of the Union messagedelivered to Congress on 6 January 1945. The President told Congress thatrecent estimates had increased the total number of Army nurses needed to 60,000.
Bills were introduced and hearings held in both Houses ofCongress. The ceiling on the corps, raised from 50,000 to 55,000 about 30January 1945, was further boosted a week later to 60,000, the figure thePresident had mentioned
49(1) Memorandum, Henry L. Stimson, for the President, 30 Dec. 1944. (2)Statement of Durward G. Hall, M.D., to the editor, 27 May 1961.
230
in his message to Congress. A member of the Army Nurse Corpsfrom the Personnel Division of the Surgeon General`s Office, testifying beforethe House Military Affairs Committee, estimated that before 1 June 1945 the Armywould need 60,000 nurses to assure sick and wounded soldiers adequate nursingcare,50 an estimate that the Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps felt was toohigh.51
Late in February 1945, the House Military Affairs Committeeapproved the draft bill; as thus approved, the bill left the maximum age at 44years, but raised the minimum age to 20 years (instead of 18, as suggested bythe President); it provided that all nurses, married and single, were toregister, although married ones would not be drafted; the Procurement andAssignment Service was designated as the authority to declare which nurses wouldbe available for military service; and cadet nurses were to be inducted first.52The House passed the bill on 7 March.
Three weeks later (28 March), the Senate Military AffairsCommittee approved a draft of nurses, but while a bill to that effect awaitedfurther Senate action, events occurred which indicated that it might not beneeded after all. The response to the President`s message had been immediate. InFebruary, the monthly increase, which recently had been measured in hundreds andsometimes fewer, reached nearly 1,900; in March, it was over 4,100. Beginning inApril, the rate of increase fell off although the total strength of the corpscontinued to increase to the end of August, when it amounted to 55,950, or13,702 more than the strength at the end of December 1944.
In April while the European theater reported a shortage of2,000 nurses, it stated that the problem was only potential: There were alwaysenough nurses in staging areas who could be transferred to units needingtemporary assistance.53 At the same time, the chief nurse of the theater, Lt.Col. Ida W. Danielson, ANC, requested an officer from The Surgeon General`sMilitary Personnel Division to report, upon his return to the United States, tothe Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps that the theater required noadditional nurses; so many were there already that there was no housing at thehospitals for them.54 The Superintendent of the Nurse Corps questioned whetherthere was any real shortage of nurses either in the European or theMediterranean theater at this
50Am. J. Nursing 45: 175, March 1945.
51The fact that during the hearings the figure was raised by10,000 so impressed the Directing Board of the Procurement and AssignmentService that after the war, in commenting on weaknesses in the Army`s programfor procuring nurses and others, it pointed this out as an example of rapidlychanging statements of needs. The Directing Board expressed the opinion that"this [Army] uncertainty made it extremely difficult to undertake asustained, consistent recruitment campaign." (Memorandum, Frank H. Lahey,M.D., Chairman, Directing Board, Procurement and Assignment Service, for WatsonB. Miller, Administrator, Federal Security Agency, 26 June 1946. Mr. Miller senta copy to the Secretary of War on 5 Sept. 1946.)
52Senate Committee on Military Affairs, 79th Cong., 1st sess., Hearings, onH.R. 227, "Nurses for the Armed Forces."
53Semiannual Report, Nursing Division, Office of the Chief Surgeon,European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, January-June 1945.
54 Information from Colonel Danielson, 4 Nov. 1959.
231
time. Early in April 1945, she returned from a tour ofinspection of these theaters with assurances from the respective chief surgeonsthat their requirements for nurses would be limited to prompt replacements. Sheconcluded that even though "there may be a shortage of nurses based on T/Oallotments in Medical Department units, there was no shortage based on need atthe time of [her] visit."55
Meanwhile, procurement had been so good that on 4 May 1945the Surgeon General`s Office advised Army Service Forces headquarters thatcurrent assignments then amounted to 52,000 and it was estimated that 1,000 morewould join in the next 2 months. As requirements after the defeat of Germanywould amount only to 52,800, the Surgeon General`s Office recommended to ArmyService Forces headquarters that the War Department cease to press forlegislation to draft nurses.56 As a consequence, a letter wasaddressed on 24 May to the appropriate member of the Senate stating that the WarDepartment believed there was no longer a need for special draft legislation.Some time earlier, action in the Senate had already been stalled by a decisionon the part of the acting majority leader not to call up the draft bill whenSenators Edwin C. Johnson and Robert A. Taft signified their intention ofopposing it. Shortly after these events, recruiting for the Army Nurse Corpscame to an end.
DIETITIANS AND PHYSICAL THERAPISTS
As the expansion of medical facilities continued and the needfor dietitians and physical therapists grew more acute, it became apparent thatThe Surgeon General needed assistance in recruiting them. Although his Officewas informed as to the availabilities of these personnel, it was unable toexploit them because it lacked the means of publicizing the Army`s needs.57Needing a salesman, he turned to the Officer Procurement Service of the ArmyService Forces, which performed the task very satisfactorily. By bringinginformation to the public about work in dietetics and physical therapy, thatagency assisted the Medical Department immeasurably not only in immediate but inlong-range procurement.58 The Officer Procurement Serv-
55See footnote 45, p. 225.
56Memorandum, The Surgeon General, to Commanding General, Army ServiceForces, 4 May 1945, subject: Nurse Requirements After V-E Day.
57Unless otherwise noted, this account is based on : (1)Manuscript histories of the dietitians and physical therapists prepared by theDirectors of the respective components. (2) Letter, Col. E. E. Vogel, USA(Ret.), to Director, Historical Unit, U.S. Army Medical Service, 28 Mar. 1956.
58(1) Account of interview with Dr. John D.Currence, Director of Physiotherapy, Post-Graduate Hospital, ColumbiaUniversity, in Memorandum, Maj. Edwin E. Nash, Officer Procurement Service,N.Y.C., for Lt. Col. John B. Marsh, 1 July 1943, subject: Physical Therapy AidesAvailable. (2) Account of interview with Dr. Don W. Gudakunst, Medical Director,National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis, N.Y.C., in Letter, 1st Lt. WillardF. Ande, MC, Officer Procurement Service, N.Y.C., to Major Nash, 12 July 1943.(3) Field Transmittal 88, Officer Procurement Service, to Officer ProcurementDistricts, 7 July 1943, subject: Procedure for Procurement and Processing ofPhysical Therapy Aides and Dietitians.
232
ice succeeded in recruiting about 250 physical therapists for the MedicalDepartment.
A nationwide survey in 1942 demonstrated that the number ofdietitians and physical therapists available was inadequate to meet bothcivilian and military needs. On the recommendation of the Directors of the twogroups, therefore, The Surgeon General undertook the most extensive program oftraining in dietetics and physical therapy ever conducted by a civilian ormilitary organization in the United States. Without such action, the Army`sneeds could not have been met. In the course of the war, the Medical Departmentconducted 10 programs for physical therapists in selected Army generalhospitals, and 3 on a contract basis in civilian institutions. It alsoestablished a student-apprentice program for dietitians, the students beingtrained at four Army general and several civilian hospitals, and the apprenticesat other selected Army hospitals. In addition, the Medical Department providedshort physical therapy technician courses for enlisted members of the Women`sArmy Corps. Graduates were qualified to relieve the physical therapist of manynonprofessional duties, thus enabling her to devote most of her time to theactual care of patients. This program was undertaken in 1945 when it appearedthat the number of fully qualified physical therapists was too small to care forthe large number of patients then arriving from overseas. The program produced413 trained technicians.59
Earlier, in 1944, believing that a certain number of women,though properly qualified to be commissioned as dietitians and physicaltherapists, had entered the Women`s Army Corps, The Surgeon General madearrangements permitting such women, whether officers or enlisted personnel, tobe discharged from the corps and commissioned as dietitians or physicaltherapists.60 In 1945, an opportunity was offered to properlyqualified enlisted women to become second lieutenants in the dietitians groupupon completion of a 6 months` course given by the Medical Department.61
Despite all the measures taken, the numbers on duty neverreached the largest objective set for them (in May 1945)-2,150 in the case ofthe dietitians, 1,700 in that of the physical therapists.62 The peakactive-duty strength of the former was 1,580; of the latter, 1,300 (table 1).Procurement figures for dietitians and physical therapists, which began only inDecember 1944, show the following acquisitions for the 7-month period ending on30 June 1945: Dietitians, 205; and physical therapists, 293.
59Memorandum, Director, Physical Therapists, for Lt. Col. Fred J. Field,Office of The Surgeon General, 17 Sept. 1945.
60War Department Circular No. 90, 1944. (Under the provisions ofthis circular, nurses who were enrolled in the Women`s Army Corps could also bereleased and appointed in the Army Nurse Corps, where they could practicenursing. See also War Department Circular No. 208, 1944.)
61War DepartmentCircular No. 71, 1945.
62Letter, The Adjutant General, to Commanding General, Army Service Forces,30 May 1945, subject: Requirements for Dietitians and Physical Therapists.
233
ENLISTED PERSONNEL
Enlisted Men, Zone of Interior
The number of enlisted men in the Medical Departmentincreased from 108,674 in November 1941 to a peak of 567,268 in August 1944,whence it declined to 454,989 in September 1945 at the conclusion of the war(table 1). These figures represent men on duty, not authorized strength; in themiddle of 1942, for example, The Surgeon General presented figures to show thatthe Medical Department had 35 to 45 percent less than its authorized enlistedcomplement.63
The method of procuring enlisted men for the MedicalDepartment did not differ greatly during the war years from what it had beenpreviously. Only a comparatively small number of enlisted men were earmarked forthe Medical Department before or at the time they were inducted. Affiliatedunits were permitted to enroll technicians in the Enlisted Reserve Corps forfuture duty with those units. For a short time, persons enlisted voluntarilycould choose the branch of service (medical or other) they preferred, butvolunteers were not accepted after December 1942.
The plan devised before war broke out whereby technicians ofvalue to the Medical Department registered with the Red Cross with a view tobeing assigned to medical organizations upon entering the Army probably servedto produce but few trained men for the Medical Department. Early in 1943, theActing Surgeon General stated that the "normal" functioning ofselective service did not permit calling civilians into the Army to fill aparticular need, although at the same time he expressed confidence that the Armyclassification system was funneling the great majority of drafted medicaltechnologists into the Medical Department.64 With few exceptions, therefore,enlisted men found their way into medical units and installations after beingdrafted and with no previous claim on them by the Department.
Problem of illiterates
Dependence on the draft was in one way more satisfactory thanhaving to rely upon volunteers, the system by which the Medical Department hadto fill its officer corps; instead of conducting recruiting campaigns it couldbank with reasonable certainty on receiving each month a stipulated number ofenlisted men from reception centers. On the other hand, in recruiting officers,the Department could establish minimum educational and professionalqualifications; in accepting enlisted men from The Adjutant General, it had nodirect control over the amount or type of training and experience of those it
63Report, Albert W. Gendebien, Military Personnel Division, Office of TheSurgeon General, of Survey of Non-Technical Segments of the Surgeon General`sOffice, 24 Sept.-10 Oct. 1942.
64Letter, Acting Surgeon General, to Dr. Albert McCown, Medical Director,American Red Cross, 18 Feb. 1943.
234
received. In fact, the Department`s most serious problemseems to have been not a failure to obtain enough enlisted personnel but thedifficulty of obtaining the right kind and of keeping them after they had beenobtained. The low quality, both physical and mental, of many men assigned to theMedical Department posed a continuous problem.
The mental aptitude for Army service of enlisted men caused some concern.Medical cadres shipped to the Air Forces early in the war were filled largelywith men whose scores in the Army General Classification Test-the device formeasuring this aptitude-fell in groups IV and V (the lowest categories). AtCoffeyville, Kans., for example, of 97 medical recruits who joined an initialcadre of less than 30 men, all had scores in groups IV, V, or were illiterate.At Hondo, Tex., 75 percent of almost 250 medical recruits added to an initialcadre of 34 "were in group V or below."65 The War Department tooknotice of the problem in August 1942 when it limited the percentage ofilliterates (defined as those unable to read and write English of 4th gradelevel) to be included in each shipment of men from reception centers to Servicesof Supply replacement training centers. By this order, enlisted men assigned tothe Medical Department were to include 2? percent illiterates. Incomparison, the Chemical Warfare Service, Engineer Corps, Ordnance Department,Quartermaster Corps, and Signal Corps were each to receive 31/3percent of their enlisted manpower in illiterates. Only the Finance Departmentand the Military Police were required to take none at all.66
Limited-service personnel
Complaints about the equality of enlisted men seem to havecentered chiefly, however, on those who were designated as"limited-service"; that is, incapable of bearing the full rigors ofmilitary duty, especially in oversea areas.67 Hospitals frequentlycharged that this type of personnel was physically unable to do the heavy andlong-sustained work required in such institutions or were without previousmedical instruction and had to be trained on their jobs. Some had too lowmentality and too little education to absorb technical training. At first, theArmy did not make a practice of accepting limited-service men. Nevertheless,some were inducted, and in December 1941, the authorities ordered Field Forcesunits to transfer all their men of that type to Services of Supplyinstallations, including hospitals and other Medical Department facilities inthe Zone of Interior. Unfortunately, in some instances, the Field Forces seizedthis opportunity to get rid of their "problem" men and promoted othersbefore transferring them, thereby creating a morale problem in the installationsto which they were sent.
65See footnote 37, p. 224.
66War Department Memorandum S 615-2-42, 24 Aug. 1942, subject: Limitationson Trainee Capacity for Illiterates at Services of Supply Replacement TrainingCenters.
67In July 1943, the War Department announced thatthe term "limited service" would not be applied to enlisted men. (WarDepartment Circular No. 161.) Army authorities, however, including those of theMedical Department, continued to apply it informally to them.
235
Some months later (July 1942), the Army adopted the policy of inductinglimited-service men and sending them exclusively to these Army Service Forcesinstallations, at the same time requiring the latter to requisition such men innumbers equal to 60 percent of the assigned strength. This was raised to 80percent in April 1943. This in effect required Zone of Interior installations toreplace most of their personnel with limited-service men whereas, formerly thehospitals had absorbed their share of these men by simply adding them to theirexisting force.68
The policy appears to have had an indirect effect on the staffing of overseaunits. In October 1942, The Surgeon General stated that the Medical Departmentwas receiving too many limited-service men in service command installations topermit it to continue to man units destined for overseas with the type ofpersonnel they required. According to a report from The Adjutant General, hestated, medical units intended for theaters of operations were receiving from 50to 95 percent limited-service personnel. Moreover, in one such unit, whosecomplement was 500 enlisted men, information showed that of 436 men sent to it,16 were illiterate and 131 had an Army General Classification Test score below70; the average test grade for the 436 was 82. A score of 100 was considerednormal. In addition, many of the men lacked teeth or had arthritic joints.General Magee felt that excessive numbers of limited-service men were beingassigned to medical units, and he recommended that action be taken to correctthe situation. Headquarters, Services of Supply, responded that medicalbattalions were there receiving their full strength of general-service men andthat evacuation hospitals and hospitals designed for a communications zone werebeing given varying percentages of limited-service personnel. Services of Supplyreminded The Surgeon General that "the key to the efficient utilization oflimited-service personnel is careful assignment on the part of the Unitcommander."69
In December 1942, The Surgeon General tried to obtain acommitment from Services of Supply headquarters that at least 10 percent of thelimited-service men assigned to the Medical Department should have high mentaland educational attainments. The attempt was unsuccessful.
In the following April, The Surgeon General established a training regimentfor 2,400 limited-service men to relieve the hospitals of some of their problemsin using them. The regiment was located at the Medical Replacement TrainingCenter, Camp Barkeley. It was planned, after men in it had completed basictraining, to send about 20 percent of them to enlisted technicians` schools fortraining in the technical specialties peculiar to the Medical Department. Theregiment was not at first, however, built up to full strength as planned. During the first 12-week period after it wasestablished, in which
68Smith, Clarence McKittrick: The Medical Department:Hospitalization and Evacuation, Zone of Interior. United States Army in WorldWar II. The Technical Services. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1956.
69Memorandum, The Surgeon General, for Commanding General,Services of Supply, through Military Personnel Division, Services of Supply, 16Oct. 1942, subject: Limited Service Personnel With Medical Department, with 1stendorsement thereto, 28 Oct. 1942.
236
it had been planned to send 2,400 men to it, only about 850were dispatched. The remainder of the 2,400 who arrived in that period wereclassified as general service.70
Key technicians
The problem of keeping as many able-bodied men as possible inthe Medical Department became perhaps most troublesome when highly trainedtechnicians were involved. A War Department directive of November 1943 requiring that the use of enlisted men should be based on their physical capacitywas followed 2 months later by an order of Army Service Forces headquartersdealing with the same subject. The latter directive specified that Army ServiceForces enlisted men up to the age of 35 who had been in the Army for a year orlonger, who had not served overseas although qualified for duty there, and whowere serving in "operating" positions71in the United States were tobe reassigned to units or installations destined for overseas. The orderexcepted a few types of Medical Department enlisted men, such as "those fewrare technical specialists developed through long periods of individualtechnical training whose special skills cannot be fully utilized in any unitdestined for overseas;" this exception, it was stated, covered certain keysurgical, dental, and laboratory technicians.72
About the time this directive appeared, The Surgeon General, commenting onthe original War Department order, expressed to the Commanding General, ArmyService Forces, the fear that the document might be interpreted so as to deprivethe Medical Department of key technicians capable of oversea service and replacethem by men of limited physical capacity and inadequate technical experience. Hesuggested that no medical technician should be removed until a fully qualifiedreplacement was available and that replaced technicians should be assigned tomedical installations which could properly utilize them.73 Perhaps in response tothis suggestion, the Commanding General, Army Service Forces, some weeks later(16 February 1944) "reminded" commanders under his jurisdiction thattrained Medical Department enlisted men would be required in large numbers forassignment to units destined for oversea service and pointed out that many ofthese men were scarce in civil life as well as in the Army. He directed thatwhen a physically qualified enlisted technician was judged available for overseaservice he be reported to the commanding general of the service command forassignment to a medical unit. If there was no appropriate vacancy in a unitunder the jurisdiction of the com-
70(1) Letter, The Surgeon General, to Commanding Generals,Medical Replacement Training Centers, named general hospitals, and others, 16Apr. 1943, subject: Utilization of Limited-Service Personnel. (2) Annual Report,Medical Replacement Center, Camp Barkeley, Tex., 1942-43, pt. 1.
71The Glossary, Army Service Forces Manual M807, June 1945, definedoperating personnel as: "The workers, both military and civilian, who aidthe Commanding General, ASF, in the performance of his assigned mission;includes T/O units assigned for functional duty."
72(1) War Department Circular No. 293, 11 Nov. 1943. (2) Army Service ForcesCircular No. 26, 24 Jan. 1944.
73Memorandum, Surgeon General Kirk, for Commanding General, Army ServiceForces, 22 Jan. 1944.
237
mander of the service command, that officer must report the man to TheAdjutant General for reassignment.74
A few months later, Army Service Forces headquarters issuedanother order directing the removal of enlisted men qualified for overseaservice from its installations and units. On this occasion, however, the MedicalDepartment succeeded in having most of its key technicians exempted from theorder.75
In April 1944, the General Staff stipulated that certainqualified enlisted men who were in the United States might volunteer for duty inthe infantry; scarce category specialists of all branches were excepted,however; hence, although some Medical Department soldiers undoubtedlytransferred to the infantry under this authorization, highly trained technicianswere kept in the Medical Department.76
The foregoing orders, although they exempted from their operation most highlyqualified Medical Department technicians, resulted in the transfer from theDepartment of numerous men who, though less skilled, were nevertheless trainedin medical work. This imposed a serious burden on the Medical Department, inview of the increased flow of oversea casualties to the United States. InJanuary 1945, therefore, The Surgeon General urged the Secretary of War toreconsider "the recent action diverting to the infantry medically trainedpersonnel in the Zone of Interior, until all current personnel replacements formedical service have been adequately met."77Whether or notthis plea had any effect, it did not alter the fact that many valuable men hadalready been lost. The results were less severe than they might have been, butonly because, as an Air Forces historian put it, there were "no severe,widespread epidemics during January and February of 1945, when hospital staffswere in their leanest period."78
The steps taken to insure the Medical Department, and othertechnical services, against the loss of their highly trained technicians throughtransfer to assignments overseas in which their capabilities could not be fullyused were accompanied by the introduction of a new procedure for channeling menof this caliber who were just entering the Army into the proper branch of theservice, medical and other. Along with this procedure, there also developed anew method by which certain enlisted technicians already at work in the Army butassigned to jobs outside their specialties could be transferred to taskssuitable to their training. The procedure was outlined in WarDepartment Memorandum W615-44 entitled "List of Critically NeededSpecialists," published on 29 February 1944, the first of a series. Itdirected that men well qualified in the occupations listed should be assigned byreception centers to the
74Army Service Forces Circular No. 50, 16 Feb. 1944.
75(1) Army Service Forces Circular No. 193, 26 June 1944.(2) Annual Report, Enlisted Personnel Branch, Military Personnel Division,Office of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army, 1 July-30 Sept. 1944, fiscal year1945.
76(1) War Department Circular No. 132, 6 Apr. 1944. (2) War DepartmentCircular No. 262, 26 June 1944.
77Memorandum. Surgeon General Kirk, to Secretary of War, 10 Jan. 1945,subject: Medical Mission Reappraised.
78See footnote 37, p. 224.
238
replacement training centers of the arm or service that had acritical need for them. The list included some 90 specialties, several of themrepresenting requirements of the Medical Department. Somewhat later, the GeneralStaff directed that reception centers assign men in the listed specialtiesdirectly to units as well as to replacement training centers; certain prioritieswere to be followed in sending them.
The second list of "Critically Needed Specialists,"dated 29 May 1944, divided the various types of specialists into two categories,those for which the need was continuous and those for which it was temporary.Reception centers were to assign those in the first category to specifiedtraining centers; members of this category who were already in jobs other thantheir specialty were to be reported to The Adjutant General for reassignment.None of these persons were to be placed in the infantry simply because theyvolunteered for it. Personnel in the category of temporarily needed specialistswere to be assigned to other units in accordance with their specialty only ifthey were in reception or reassignment centers.
This list reappeared at frequent intervals and provedextremely valuable in the proper assignment of Medical Department specialists.The staff officer in the Surgeon General`s Office in charge of enlistedpersonnel wrote that the monthly report be submitted requesting that certaintypes of Medical Department technicians be included in the next issue of thelist, was perhaps the most important one compiled on enlisted personnel. Throughthe aid of this list, he asserted, the Army Service Forces was receiving scarcecategory personnel from the Army Air Forces and Army Ground Forces; previously,this had been impossible.79
Army Service Forces maintained an independent list of keymilitary specialists which was of primary concern to its own technical servicesand staff divisions.80 The list was designed to assure the properutilization of certain skills that were scarce in the Army Service Forces, butdid not meet the definition of a critically needed skill within the meaning ofthe War Department memorandum; this also helped the Medical Department to obtainthe trained technicians it needed. Moreover, in January 1945, 2 months beforeArmy Service Forces promulgated its own list of specialists, that headquarters"in view of the increasing need for both officer and enlisted personnel ofthe Medical Department" ordered all its commands to reassign medicalpersonnel to appropriate medical duties if they were not already so assigned.For that purpose, Army Service Forces directed its redistribution stations(where soldiers reported upon returning from overseas) to make a"continuing search" for "trained and experienced MedicalDepartment personnel." It also ordered all other Army Service Forcescommands not to transfer such personnel to other arms or services or to use themin any position that individuals outside the
79Weekly Diary, Enlisted Personnel Branch, Military Personnel Division,Office of The Surgeon General, 12-16 Aug. 1944.
80Army Service Forces Circular No. 100, 21 Mar. 1945.
239
Medical Department could fill. These instructions appear to have covered notmerely highly skilled technicians but all members of the Medical Department.81
After the end of hostilities in Europe, the War Department modifiedits list of critically needed specialists to include individuals who had skillsthat were particularly necessary during redeployment. Such persons were to beretained in the Army even though normally eligible for separation.82
Enlisted Men, Oversea Theaters
Convalescent patients
In meeting the need for personnel above their assigned strength, hospitals inoversea areas were able to make some use of convalescent patients. This practicealso was in accordance with traditional Army procedures and was reinforced bythe principles of the reconditioning program which aimed to restore patients tofull duty in the shortest possible time.83 At the 42d General Hospital,located in the Southwest Pacific, patients were used from the time thisinstallation began to operate in September 1943. They helped in the care ofgrounds, maintenance of neatness in and around the establishment, foodpreparation, and dispensing food in dining rooms. Occasionally, they were usedfor ward duties, provided that they displayed particular aptitude for such work.84 At the96th General Hospital in the European theater, similar use was madeof patients, who were also employed in clerical tasks.85
Limited-service personnel
The European and Mediterranean theaters were distinguished byintensive attempts to obtain from the Medical Department enlisted personnelsuitable for combat duty and to replace them through the reinforcement system bymen, regardless of the branch or service to which they originally had beenassigned, who had become incapacitated for such duty. In accordance with WarDepartment policies already mentioned, the theaters began to plan for thisinterchange early in 1944.86 By July 1944, certain hospitals were replacinggeneral-
81Army Service Forces Circular No. 10, 9 Jan. 1945.
82Davenport, Roy K., and Kampshroer, Felix: PersonnelUtilization: Selection, Classification, and Assignment of Military Personnel inthe Army of the United States During World War II. [Manuscript.]
83On the reconditioning program, see"Developments in Military Medicine During the Administration of SurgeonGeneral Norman T. Kirk," in Bull. U.S. Army M. Dept. (No. 7) 7: 628-631,July 1947.
84Letter, George H. Yeager, to Col. C. H. Goddard, Office of The Surgeon General, 29 Sept. 1952.
85Annual Report, 96th General Hospital, 1944.
86(1) Circular No. 50, Headquarters, European Theater ofOperations, U.S. Army, 11 May 1944, subject: Conservation of Manpower. (2)Circular No. 68, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 12June 1944, subject: Theater Manpower Board. (3) Annual Report, 6th GeneralHospital, 1944.
240
assignment troops with limited-assignment personnel, but the substitutions atthat time were only small proportions of the hospitals` enlisted complements.87
In the European theater, a directive of 7 August 1944 stated that in militaryinstallations of the communications zone it would be "suitable" tohave 50 percent of the basic labor strength and 50 percent of certain specifiedspecialist positions filled by limited-assignment personnel, and eachcommunications zone unit was required to submit periodic reports to theCommander, Ground Force Replacement System, detailing the number oflimited-assignment personnel assigned and the number of additional positions towhich more could be assigned.88
As the drain on general-assignment personnel in the medicalinstallations of the communications zone continued, they were often replaced byformer soldiers of the combat arms released from the theater`s hospitals.Replacements of this kind were not satisfactory for several reasons. Few of themhad any Medical Department training or experience prior to their new assignment;hence, they had to receive on-the-job instruction after they had been assignedto the hard-pressed communications zone units.89 Many of them were notphysically capable of doing the manual labor, such as moving supplies andpatients, which the men they replaced had performed.90 Furthermore, they couldnot perform duties for the Medical Department commensurate with the rank theyhad earned in a combat arm, and a great deal of reshuffling and individualreassignment was made necessary on that account.91 Finally, ahigh percentageof these replacements did not want to be "pill-rollers," objected totheir noncombatant status and the loss of combat pay, and, in general, presentedserious problems of cooperation and discipline.92
Victims of combat exhaustion were especially difficult toretrain and assimilate, and after unsuccessful attempts to use them in thehospitals of the Advance Section, Communications Zone, of the European theater,it became necessary to establish the policy that replacements of this type wouldnot be sent to medical units located in areas subject to aerial attack, V-bombs,and artillery fire.93 Indeed, as early as 1943, it was noted in theMediterranean theater that "Class B" (limited assignment) enlisted menwere not satisfactory replacements for
87(1) Annual Report, 64th General Hospital, 1944. (2) Annual Report, 15thHospital Center, 1944.
88(1) Circular No. 86, Headquarters, European Theater ofOperations, U.S. Army, 7 Aug. 1944, subject: Limited Assignment Personnel. (2)See footnote 86(1), p. 239. (3) Circular No. 109, Headquarters, EuropeanTheater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1 Nov. 1944, subject: Limited AssignmentPersonnel.
89(1) Administrative and Logistical History of the MedicalService, Communications Zone-European Theater of Operations, ch. XV. [Officialrecord.] (2) Semiannual Report, Training Branch, Operations Division, Office ofthe Chief Surgeon, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1Jan.-30 June 1945.
90(1) History, 724th Medical Sanitary Company, 1 Jan.-31 Mar. 1945.(2) Annual Report, 37th General Hospital, 1944. (3) Report, General Board, U.S.Forces, European Theater, Study No. 88.
91(1) Annual Report, 300th General Hospital, 1944. (2) See footnote 89(2).
92(1) See footnote 89(1). (2) See footnote 90(2). (3) Annual Report, 70thGeneral Hospital, 1944. (4) See footnote 87(1). (5) Report, Col. Richard T.Arnest, of Medical Department Activities in Mediterranean Theater of Operations,12 Feb. 1945.
93(1) Annual Report, Advance Section, Communications Zone, EuropeanTheater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1944. (2) Semiannual Report, 30th GeneralHospital, 1 Jan.-30 June 1945.
241
an evacuation hospital, and normally, large numbers of this type ofpersonnel were not assigned forward of the communications zone.94
How extensive was the replacement of general-assignment enlisted men by menwho had become disabled for full duty cannot be stated with much precision.There is reason to believe that resistance to the practice was more extensiveand more successful in the European theater than in the Mediterranean. It iscertain that, during the period of land combat in the European theater, not morethan one-fifth of the enlisted replacements obtained by the Medical Departmentwere in the limited-assignment category, that some of these came from the Zoneof Interior, that others came from the Medical Department itself, and that thismaximum proportion would not constitute more than 6 or 7 percent even of thecommunications zone medical enlisted strength (100,680-15 March 1945) in theperiod approaching V-E Day. It also appears that the Medical Department was notrequired to accept a significantly larger proportion of replacements unable toperform general duty than was the Army as a whole. Since it may be assumed thatthe combat arms received few replacements in this category, the MedicalDepartment apparently was compelled to take a smaller proportion of these thanwere other services. That only a minority of the enlisted replacements suppliedto the Medical Department were in the limited-assignment category does not meanthat all vacancies created in the Department above the number filled bylimited-assignment men were filled by general-assignment personnel, for manyvacancies remained unfilled.95
The resistance of the European theater to the use of limited-assignmentenlisted replacements also did not prevent the development of a large body ofpersonnel in the communications zone medical installations that was incapable ofgeneral duty. As already noted, men in this category comprised nearly 38 percentof the strength of such installations in mid-March 1945. Since the greatmajority of these did not reach the units through the theater replacementsystem, the logical inference is that they came with them from the Zone ofInterior.
This state of affairs contrasted with the situation in theMediterranean theater, where, in spite of the probability that the proportion oflimited-assignment enlisted men in the medical installations of thecommunications zone was even greater, that is, about 50 percent, than it was inthe European theater, the great majority of the men so classified were excombatmen provided locally. Units reaching the Mediterranean theater came almostentirely before the end of 1943, when the manpower situation permitted organiza-
94(1) Annual Report, 9th EvacuationHospital, 1943. (2) Essential Technical Medical Data, Mediterranean Theater ofOperations, U.S. Army, for November 1944, dated 1 Dec. 1944. (3) Annual Report,Headquarters, 3d Infantry Division, 1944.
95(1) Semiannual Report, 25th General Hospital, 1 Jan.-30June 1945. (2) Annual Report, Surgeon, Headquarters, United Kingdom Base, March1945. (3) Semiannual Report, 803d Hospital Center, 1 Jan.-30 June 1945. (4)Semiannual Report, 814th Hospital Center, January-June 1945. (5) SemiannualReport, Advanced Section, Communications Zone, European Theater of Operations,January-June 1945. (6) Annual Report, 1st General Hospital, Seine Section,Communications Zone, European Theater of Operations, 1944.
242
tions in the Zone of Interior destined for overseas to befilled very largely with personnel capable of full duty. On the other hand, manyunits sent to the European theater received their personnel when it no longerwas possible to be so selective. A survey of February 1945 revealed, however,that the substitution of the less competent limited-service men had occurred ata time when hospitals were not overburdened and that they had been successfullyabsorbed. Nevertheless, some of the units were not satisfied with thesituation.96
In order to increase the availability of their personnel forreplacement uses, Medical Department units were directed to provide specialtraining for their members. For example, in April 1943, the Surgeon, U.S. ArmyServices of Supply (Southwest Pacific Area), issued instructions requiring allenlisted personnel to act as "medical and surgical nursing assistants, forpossible future assignment in hospitals of the mobile types to replace femalenurses when necessary because of the tactical situation."97 Somemonths later, in November 1943, he issued the following statement:
It is the duty of the Commanding Officer of all hospital units in thistheater to conduct courses of instruction for the training of their enlistedpersonnel in technical duties. There are no experienced personnel available inthe United States, and hospital units, especially those on the mainland ofAustralia, must serve as pools from which efficient, well-trained personnel maybe obtained for units incurring casualties.98
Enlisted Women, Zone of Interior
Procurement of technicians
In the early part of 1944, The Surgeon General, having manyunfilled requisitions for members of the Women`s Army Corps, recommended thatArmy Service Forces headquarters initiate a program to recruit them directlyfor the Medical Department.99 The transfer of numerous trained Medical Departmentenlisted men to other branches of the Army at that time made the need for thesewomen more urgent. Hence, in the spring of 1944, the Women`s Army Corps began aprogram called Procurement of Female Technicians for Medical Installations.100
Recruitment under this procurement program was designed to beselective, bringing in only women qualified as bacteriologists, pharmacists,optometrists, psychiatric social workers, orthopedic mechanics, and numerousother
96(1) Munden, Kenneth W.: Administration of theMedical Department in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, U.S.Army. Vol. I. [Official record.] (2) Annual Report, 45th General Hospital, 1944.(3) See footnote 92(3), p. 240.
97Letter, Surgeon, U.S. Army Services of Supply, to Surgeons, Base Sections2, 3, 4, and 7, 29 Apr. 1943, subject: Training of Medical Department EnlistedMen in Nursing.
98Technical Manual No. 22, U.S. Army Services of Supply, Southwest PacificArea, 9 Nov. 1943.
99Memorandum, Brig. Gen. R. W. Bliss, Chief, OperationsService, Office of The Surgeon General, to Director, Personnel Division, ArmyServices Forces, 11 Feb. 1944, subject: Recruiting Program for WAC`s forMedical Department.
100See footnote 75(2), p. 237.
243
types of technologists. Specifications were set foreducation, training, and experience. As women were exempt from the draft,recruiting campaigns using various publicity mediums were necessary; to getthese technologists, The Surgeon General turned to the Officer ProcurementService. Women joining any branch of the Army under this program werebeneficiaries of the Station and Job Assignment Recruiting Plan, which enabledthem to choose not only their station but also their job in the Army. The Army,of course, determined, on the basis of aptitude and training, whether they werefit for the job.
Procurement of these women specialists progressed reasonablywell considering the relatively high qualifications which the Medical Departmenthad stipulated. By September 1944, about 1,800 women had joined the Women`s ArmyCorps for jobs in the Medical Department, and at that time, about 200 wereentering basic training each week. A special school to train members of theWomen`s Army Corps for Medical Department work was established at FortMcPherson, Ga.
Another campaign for enlisted women to be trained as medicaland surgical technicians was conducted simultaneously, but by the regularrecruiting stations, not by the Officer Procurement Service. This campaign aimedat recruiting women for 3 months` training as technicians. Prerequisites fordental, laboratory, and X-ray technicians included graduation from high school,while others needed only 2 years of high school credit; certain minimum scoresalso had to be attained in Army tests.101 The women recruitedordinarily had had little or no experience in matters relating to medicine. Thecampaign had progressed well enough by the fall of 1944 that the SurgeonGeneral`s Office recommended it be stopped.102
Beginning in September 1944, however, a heavy flow ofcasualties to the United States and the winter fighting in Europe, which addedto the prospective patient load in the United States, made the situationtighter. The position of the Medical Department planners was not made easier bythe knowledge that they were short of nurses, that the Army had failed to obtainmore than a few hundred cadet nurses, and that the Medical Department was beingforced to release enlisted men for training as combat soldiers. The SurgeonGeneral`s Office accordingly asked for 8,500 enlisted personnel-men or women-tobe trained as technicians to replace men who had been transferred to the ArmyGround Forces.103 The Surgeon General later recommended that all thetechnicians be women.
101Letter, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, to Commanding Generals ofService Commands and Military District of Washington, 13 June 1944, subject:Procurement of Female Technicians for Medical Installations, with enclosurethereto.
102Except where otherwise noted, the account which follows is largelytaken from Treadwell, Mattie E.: The Women`s Army Corps. United States Army inWorld War II. Special Studies. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1954.
103Letter, Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk, USA (Ret.), to Col. John B. Coates,Jr., MC, Director, Historical Unit, U.S. Army Medical Service, 12 Dec. 1955.
244
Organization of Women`s Army Corps companies
Complaints that women were being used in minor jobs, after joining the Armywith the understanding that they would be medical and surgical technicians,induced Col. Oveta Culp Hobby, Director of the Women`s Army Corps, to opposeassigning more women to hospitals unless assurance was given that recruitingpromises could be fulfilled. General Marshall, for his part, expressed theopinion that sufficient women of the high caliber desired could not be recruitedunless they were guaranteed a technical job and rating. If this guarantee werenot given, he refused to sanction any further procurement of enlisted women forArmy hospitals. Since such assurance could not be made under the current system,he proposed that the new members of the Women`s Army Corps be assigned tohospitals in table-of-organization companies. Such a unit carried its ownallotment of grades and also specified the exact job of each member. Hospitalcommanders could change neither the job nor the grade. Such identical,inflexible units might be expected to work satisfactorily in general hospitals,since all had similar functions and organizations and all used technicians.
The tables of organization, as drafted in a meeting betweenrepresentatives of The Surgeon General and the Women`s Army Corps, called for100 enlisted women per hospital company. Since all were to be skilledtechnicians or clerks, the lowest rating was technician, fifth grade. Companieswere allotted to named general hospitals in proportion to the number of beds.104Each hospital desiring such a company could requisition it and women would berecruited with assurance of assignment to that hospital and of at least a fifthgrade technician`s rating if they performed satisfactorily.
With intensive publicity to promote it, the general hospital campaign was asuccess. General Marshall solicited the assistance of State Governors: "Thecare of the increasing number of casualties arriving in the United States,together with an acute shortage of nurses and hospital personnel generally,necessitates urgent measures being taken to recruit and rapidly train women forservice in Army hospitals."105 A quota of about 6,000 by 1 May1945 was established; about halfway through the campaign, it was raised to7,000. Nevertheless, recruiters passed that number a month ahead of schedule. Infact, recruiting was so successful that in 1945 the Surgeon General`s Office wasembarrassed by a surplus of enlisted women.
A total of 120 Women`s Army Corps hospital companies served in this country,each with a table of organization calling for 101 members. So far as possible,the enlisted women working in hospitals before the companies were created inearly 1945 were absorbed by the new units. Those left out were generally inassignments not included in the tables of organization of the hos-
104Memorandum, Lt. Col. E. R. Whitehurst, Military PersonnelDivision, Office of The Surgeon General, for Director, Training Division, Officeof The Surgeon General, 18 July 1945.
105Letters, Chief of Staff, to all State Governors, 7 Jan. 1945.
245
pital companies. A serious drawback to the use of Women`sArmy Corps companies in Zone of Interior hospitals was that they were toolarge and too inflexible to meet the requirements of the smaller hospitals.
Enlisted Women, Oversea Theaters
It is doubtful whether the total number of Women`s Army Corps personnel used by the Medical Department overseas prior to V-J Day numbered much more than 400. No Women`s Army Corps hospital companies went overseas, and it is unlikely that any member of the corps arrived there as part of a Medical Department unit. A few may have arrived as members of aWomen`s Army Corps headquarters company; in that case, they were assigned to the company and merely allotted to the medical section of the headquarters.
The limited use of Wacs overseas is explained by the smallnumbers available for such service and the fact that their utilization was beingquestioned until the very close of hostilities, with the result that certain ofthe oversea authorities, medical and other, were reluctant to use them.106
The majority of the Wacs who served the Medical Departmentoverseas were employed in nonprofessional types of jobs, such as clerks,typists, and chauffeurs, located mainly in theater and base headquarters. Inthe Office of the Chief Surgeon, European theater, most of the Wacs wereconcentrated in the Medical Records Section of the Administrative Division.About the middle of 1944, virtually all enlisted male personnel in the ChiefSurgeon`s Office, U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East, were replaced by enlistedmembers of the Women`s Army Corps, who provided very satisfactory service andremained in their jobs until the theater was inactivated. At the end of 1944, atotal of 12 enlisted women were used in the Office.107
Although most of the Wacs possessing medical skills wereneeded in the Zone of Interior, a few were used in at least three theaters. Inthe Southwest Pacific, during the latter part of 1944, nurses who were needed inhospitals as a result of increased admissions occasioned by the campaign in thePhilippines were relieved from duty in dispensaries caring for Wacs and replacedby Women`s Army Corps medical technicians.108 At the 133d GeneralHospital in the same theater during the first part of 1945, on a trial basis,Wacs were used as technicians in dental and medical laboratories, but the trialwas not successful.109 During the second half of 1944, the HastingsAir Base Medical Unit, located in the India-Burma theater, used one WAC dentaltechnician and two WAC medical technicians.110
106Letter, Eli Ginzberg, to Col. C. H. Goddard, Office of TheSurgeon General, 16 Sept. 1952.
107(1) Annual Report, Surgeon, U.S. Army Forces, WesternPacific, 1945. (2) History of the Medical Section, Africa-Middle East Theater,September 1941-September 1945. [Official Record.] (3) Annual Report,Administrative Division, Office of the Chief Surgeon, European Theater ofOperations, U.S. Army, 1944.
108Annual Report, Surgeon, U.S. Army Services of Supply, Southwest Pacific Area, 1944.
109Letters, Col. I. A. Wiles, to Col. C. H. Goddard, Office of The SurgeonGeneral, 14 Aug. 1952, and 17 Sept. 1952.
110Semiannual Report, Hastings Air Base Medical Unit, June-December 1944.
246
On 1 August 1945, 1.7 percent of the Women`s Army Corps enlisted personnel inthe European theater were serving as medical or dental laboratory technicians.111 Since the number of Women`s Army Corps enlisted personnelin the theater on that date was 7,007, the number of these technicians must havebeen about 130. On 1 July 1945, a Women`s Army Corps detachment was activated atthe 116th General Hospital, Nuremberg, Germany, in the same theater. Wacs wereordinarily assigned to the units in which they worked, but were attached tounits of their own (called detachments) for housekeeping and similar purposes.Not long afterward, this detachment was transferred to the 98th General Hospitalin Munich, Germany. It is not certain, however, that even a majority of themembers of the detachment functioned as Medical Department technicians.112
111Percentage by Military Occupational Specialties of WAC Personnel inEuropean Theater of Operations, 1 Aug. 1945. (Report, General Board, U.S.Forces, European Theater, Study No. 11.)
112(1) Report, WAC Staff Director, Headquarters, U.S. Forces, EuropeanTheater, 1 Jan. 1945-1 Aug. 1945, subject: Women`s Army Corps Personnel,European Theater, 15 Nov. 1945. (2) Annual Report, 98th General Hospital, 1945.Upon the transfer, this unit consisted of 4 officers and 66 enlisted women.
