Preface
This volume is one of several planned for a series on thehistory of the Medical Department of the United States Army during World War II.It deals primarily with the logistics of hospitalization and evacuation. As usedhere, therefore, the term "hospitalization" means all of theinstrumentalities-buildings, equipment, supplies, and personnel-whichdirectly served sick and wounded soldiers1 in the attempt to restore them tophysical fitness; and the term "evacuation" includes all of the meansnecessary to move patients from one place to another, whether from thebattlefield to a hospital in the rear of combat zones, or from one hospital toanother in the United States. The professional care of patients is not discussedin this volume; this subject will be treated fully in other studies beingprepared by specialists in the various fields of medicine and surgery. Nor aredetails of the internal administration and operation of hospitals and evacuationunits described here except to the extent necessary to explain the evolution ofgeneral policies and practices affecting the system of hospitalization andevacuation as a whole. Also, this volume confines itself almost entirely toevents in the zone of interior (that is, the United States). This approachexcludes any account of overseas hospitalization and evacuation operations, butnot a discussion of the plans and preparations for them in the United States.Hospitalization and evacuation in theaters of operations will be coveredelsewhere in this series. Treatment in this volume of the evacuation of patientsfrom theaters to the United States might seem illogical unless the readerunderstands that the Army considered this operation a function of the zone ofinterior.
While hospitalization and evacuation are closely related,each is a complicated operation within itself. For simplicity and clarity theyare treated in this volume as separate subjects, the first three parts dealingwith hospitalization and the fourth with evacuation. Any account ofhospitalization and evacuation involves some consideration of such elements assupplies and personnel. This volume therefore necessarily overlaps to someextent the subject matter of other volumes planned for this series. An efforthas been made to keep such duplication to a minimum, with the result that somesubjects may seem to have been slighted and others-such as the services of theRed Cross in hospitals-overlooked. Fuller information on these topics will befound in other volumes being written by the Army and by other agencies.
1A system of hospitalization and evacuation for army animalswas also maintained by the Medical Department, but was of small dimensions andis not dealt with in this volume.
Though many agencies of the War Department were involved inthe actions required to provide the Army with hospitalization and evacuationservices-the War Department General Staff, especially its G-4 Division; theoffices of The Surgeon General, the Air Surgeon, and the Ground Surgeon inWashington, and of surgeons of local commands elsewhere; the headquarters of theArmy Ground, Air, and Service Forces; and the offices of chiefs of varioustechnical services-emphasis has been placed in this volume on the work of TheSurgeon General and his Office. While the history is not written with anyconscious partiality for the viewpoint of The Surgeon General, it is writtenfrom his vantage point. There are several reasons for this approach. Mostimportant is that The Surgeon General by tradition and directive is the chiefhealth officer of the Army, and it is to him that the public looks when mattersof health and medical care are concerned. A more practical reason is that therecords of the Surgeon General's Office were more readily available than thoseof the offices of other surgeons. Finally, concentrating upon activities of theSurgeon General's Office is a very useful means of limiting the scope of thiswork and of giving it focus, without excluding consideration of actionsaffecting hospitalization and evacuation by agencies on higher, parallel, andlower levels of authority.
This volume is based almost entirely on records filed invarious collections under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Army. Withminor exceptions the author had free and unlimited access to them. Because ofThe Surgeon General's decision not to request "top secret" clearancefor historians, the writer was not permitted to use the few files retaining thatclassification. This limitation is believed to have been of little consequence,because most of the once top-secret documents either had been given lowerclassifications or had been declassified altogether by the time they wereneeded. The author was also denied access to files of The Inspector Generalcontaining confidential complaints made to his representative during inspectionsof individual installations, but reports of more general inspections andinvestigations of hospitalization and evacuation by the chief medical officer onthe staff of The Inspector General were made available. Compared with therecords actually used, those to which access was denied are probablyinsignificant in quality as well as quantity. Publicity already given to the"tons of documents" through which one must search in the preparationof a volume of this kind makes it unnecessary to comment further on thatsubject.
Because of the nature of the source material for this volume,the form of its footnotes may appear unconventional to some readers. Thefollowing general observations will help in understanding them. Normally, adocument is first identified by its type, file number (in some instances),sender, addressee, date, and subject. Its location is then given by indicatingthe collection of files and the specific folder in that collection in which itis found. The security classification of documents is not given.
Numerous technical terms have been used in this work, despitean earnest effort to avoid employing words and phrases in a manner understood bymembers of the military establishment but not by general readers. As a rule,technical terms and general terms given a special meaning by the Army are ex-
plained when they are first introduced in the text.Abbreviations have been used freely, especially in the footnotes. In mostinstances they are those authorized by the Army. Reference to a list ofabbreviations at the end of the volume will help the reader interpret many ofthem.
The problem of how to designate Army officers whose rankschanged from time to time has been settled by giving the rank an officer held atthe time of the action discussed. An effort also has been made to mention atsome point in the work the highest rank an officer held during (but not after)the war.
A word of caution is in order about the statistical data inthis volume. They were compiled from documents used in wartime operations, andfurther investigation by statisticians may eventually result in figures that aresomewhat different. Nevertheless, it is believed that any variations will beinconsequential and will not diminish the historical significance of the dataused here.
It is impossible to acknowledge in detail all of the helpwhich the author received in the preparation of this work. Many acknowledgementswill be found in footnotes throughout the volume. As for others, the author isespecially indebted to Miss Zelma E. McIlvain and Mr. Hubert E. Potter for theirassistance. Miss McIlvain did the major portion of research for Part Four andprepared preliminary drafts for much of Chapters XXII, XXIII and XXIV. Mr. Potter assisted in research for parts of ChaptersXXII, XXIII, XXIV and XXV, and prepared preliminary drafts for certain portionsof them. In addition, he assisted the writer immeasurably in obtainingimportant, hard-to-find documents.
The author is also indebted to the entire staff of theHistorical Unit. Mrs. Josephine P. Kyle, Chief of its Archives and ResearchBranch, and her staff were indefatigable in searching for and locating not onlylarge blocks of files but also individual documents requested by the writer.Typists of the Administrative Branch spent many weary hours making extracts fromdocuments and typing drafts and final copies of chapters. Editorial clerks ofthis Branch prepared the tables in this volume and carefully checked andrechecked the manuscript before it was finally submitted for publication. Mycolleagues in the Historians Branch, and especially its chief, Dr. Donald O.Wagner, who supervised the preparation of this study, reviewed the manuscriptand made many helpful suggestions for its improvement. The Armed ForcesInstitute of Pathology prepared the organization charts, under the supervisionof Miss Sylvia Gottwerth, formerly of the Historical Unit. Finally, Col. JosephH. McNinch, MC, Col. Roger G. Prentiss, Jr., MC, and Col. Calvin H. Goddard, MC-successivechiefs of the Historical Unit-gave the author and his assistants unflinchingsupport, especially by their scholarly attitude toward the preparation of thisvolume.
A word of appreciation is also due to many persons outsidethe present Surgeon General's Office. Many officers who participated in eventsdiscussed in this volume-now retired or serving in other assignments-gavethe author valuable help. Those interviewed usually spoke freely and frankly oftheir experiences. Others made excellent critical comments on drafts of chapterssubmitted to them for review. The information which they thus furnished was
especially helpful in filling in the background of importantdocuments and events. The names of many appear in footnotes throughout thevolume, but two deserve special mention here-the wartime Surgeons General,Maj. Gen. James C. Magee and Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk. The author is alsograteful for criticisms and editorial assistance from Col. Leo J. Meyer, DeputyChief Historian, Office of the Chief of Military History, and from members ofthe Editorial Branch of the same Office.
Washington, D. C. CLARENCE McK. SMITH
10 March 1953
