PART TWO
HOSPITALIZATION IN THE EARLY WAR YEAR
7
DECEMBER 1941-MID-1943
Introduction
Despite its year of peacetime mobilization the United Stateswas not prepared for the offensive when war came on 7 December 1941. Animmediate necessity was the deployment of troops to protect the country and itsoverseas bases. At the same time the Nation's power had to be mobilized andco-ordinated with that of its Allies. The Army's total strength increased from1,686,403 in December 1941 to 6,993,102 in June 1943. Although most troops wereof necessity in training in the United States, enough were overseas by thelatter part of 1942 to permit a transition from the defensive to the offensivewith assaults upon the Japanese in the Solomons and the invasion of NorthAfrica. By June 1943 the peak of the preparation phase was reached. The nextmonth saw the beginning of a steady decline in the strength of the Army at homeas more and more troops moved overseas. In the latter half of 1943 the invasionof Sicily and Italy occurred and the Pacific island-hopping, which was toculminate in the defeat of Japan, began.
The Medical Department, like the rest of the country, wasunprepared to support offensive operations at the outbreak of the war. This lackof preparation is most evident in the field of hospitalization. Few hospitalunits were in training and equipment in the war reserve was inadequate and inpart obsolete. Although hospitals in the United States were sufficient for theArmy that had thus far been mobilized, additional beds had to be providedrapidly as the Army's numerical strength shot upward. The first year and ahalf of the war was therefore a period of "growing pains" for theMedical Department, during which it adjusted itself to the demands of globalwarfare and with some difficulty discarded or modified peacetime practices andprocedures in favor of those required by far-flung offensives. It was a time offinding out what was wrong with prewar planning and of correcting errors; ofmeeting immediate needs in the quickest possible fashion and of preparing at thesame time for future operations. Under General Magee's leadership, theDepartment exhibited certain conservative tendencies in hospital expansion andadministration which sometimes irked those in higher positions of authority.Nevertheless many developments considered progressive in the later war years hadtheir origins during this period.
At this time also a reorganization of the War Departmentshifted The Surgeon General to a new position in the official hierarchy.Affecting his responsibility and authority for hospitalization, it requiredmajor adjustments in the relationships of his Office with other War Departmentagencies. The main features of that reorganization and its effects, along withchanges in units in the Surgeon General's Office concerned withhospitalization, need to be discussed before details of the expansion andadministration of hospitals are considered.
