CHAPTER X
Functional Organization in Asiatic-Pacific Theaters
THE THREE PACIFIC AREAS
At the onset of World War II, the Army Veterinary Service in the Pacific was divided between two oversea military departments: The Hawaiian Department and the Philippine Department. The latter, beginning in mid-1941, was subordinated in a number of reorganizations and gradually disappeared from the Army establishment in the new concept of the SWPA (Southwest Pacific Area); this was hastened by the Japanese aerial attacks and subsequent invasion of the Philippines in December 1941. Much the same occurred with the Hawaiian Department long after Japanese carrier planes had attacked Pearl Harbor, when, on 14 August 1943, that department was superseded by the newly created USAFICPA (U.S. Army Forces in Central Pacific Area). These two departmental or area commands were joined by a third command, USAFISPA (U.S. Army Forces in South Pacific Area), which was established on 7 July 1942. After that time, for more than a year, there were these three major areas or theaterlike commands in the Pacific, each having or developing its own veterinary service organization. Then, on 1 August 1944, USAFICPA and USAFISPA were consolidated into the new USAFPOA (U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas), which was established on that date. The USAFPOA with USAFFE (U.S. Army Forces in the Far East ), as the Army Forces in the SWPA came to be called, comprised the two Army theaters in the Pacific until the spring-summer of 1945.
Up to this time, supreme command over Allied and joint Army-Navy operations in the Central and South Pacific Areas was vested in Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, POA, while Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, SWPA, controlled all military activities in the SWPA. In April 1945, however, this twofold division of military planning and tactical responsibilities by territorial description of the Pacific theater was replaced by the redivision of military operations and activities into an Army component and a Navy component, and the Commander in Chief, SWPA, was given the additional designation of Commander in Chief, USAFPAC (U.S. Army Forces, Pacific). In the following months, USAFPAC consolidated or absorbed both USAFPOA and USAFFE, the latter two being reorganized and continued respectively as the administrative subcommands: USAFMIDPAC (U.S. Army Forces, Middle Pacific) and USAFWESPAC (U.S. Army Forces, West Pacific). Each area subcom?
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mand included its own veterinary service organization complete with a headquarters-assigned staff veterinarian, but it was not until October 1945 that a Veterinary Corps officer was assigned to Headquarters, USAFPAC, to coordinate the two. At this time, the Army Veterinary Service in the Pacific theater approximated 190 officers, as contrasted with its personnel strengths at the onset of World War II when the Hawaiian Department had 7 and the Philippine Department had 12 officers. For purposes of simplifying the current discussion of veterinary functional organization and activities in the Pacific theater, reference hereinafter is made usually to the three major area commands by their geographic descriptive names, because as will be observed, the USAFPOA was not an all-inclusive Army command for the Pacific, and there was no U.S. Army Forces, Southwest Pacific area or theater.
U.S. ARMY FORCES IN CENTRAL PACIFIC AREA
The U.S. Army Forces in Central Pacific Area, with headquarters at Fort Shafter, Oahu, T.H., was established on 14 August 1943; prior to that date, it was the Hawaiian Department. On 1 August 1944, USAFICPA was reduced to the status of a subordinate echelon, the Central Pacific Base Command, and its operational planning staff and air and ground combat units were transferred to control of the newly created Headquarters, USAFPOA. This lasted until 1 July 1945 when the latter was absorbed by USAFPAC, with General MacArthur as commander in chief, and instead, USAMIDPAC was created as a major area subcommand. At the beginning of the war period, veterinary activities in this CPA (Central Pacific Area) were administered at the staff level by the Veterinary Corps officer-designated department veterinarian1-acting under the jurisdiction of and as assistant to the surgeon who was assigned to Headquarters, Hawaiian Department (1). Early in 1942, and continuing until the fall of 1943 and then again from 1 August 1944 to the end of the war period, the senior veterinarian in the theater was given primary assignment to a lower administrative echelon of the command while acting as nominal theater veterinarian, although on 6 June 1945, a company grade veterinary officer was assigned to Headquarters, USAFPOA, to act as "on-ground" assistant to the senior veterinarian. While this was not a credit in the general concept of military organization which had reduced the senior veterinarian in the theater to a subordinate command headquarters during the two periods mentioned (once to the services of supply organization and later to a major base command headquarters), there was at no time a question by senior air, ground, or other base command veterinarians (and surgeons of most echelons) as to the status of the aforementioned officer to centrally administer the Army
1Theater veterinarians or senior veterinary officers acting in that capacity included: Col. J. D. Derrick, VC (to 16 July 1942), Col. F. L. Holycross, VC (16 July-23 December 1942 ), Maj. (later Col.) W. O. Kester, VC (>23 December 1942-12 August 1945), and Col. H. K. Moore, VC (beginning 12 August 1945).
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Veterinary Service on a theaterwide basis; in other words, personal communications and personalities accomplished more to coordinate the theater's veterinary service organization than did the established channels of military command which had divided it.
Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army Veterinary Service in the Hawaiian Department included the department veterinarian who was also commanding officer of the Veterinary General Hospital, Fort Shafter (later removed to Fort Armstrong), and the station veterinarian, Schofield Barracks, who was also commanding officer of the Veterinary Station Hospital, located there. Both hospitals cared for the 350 horses and mules in the department and conducted meat and dairy hygiene services at station levels. Another veterinary detachment, called South Sector Veterinary Detachment, inspected the commercial food establishments and the few products which were procured locally in Honolulu. Altogether, the department's veterinary personnel strength in peacetime approximated 4 officers and 22 enlisted personnel, all stationed in Oahu. During 1941, these personnel numbers were about doubled to total, as of 7 December, 7 officers and 53 enlisted personnel, and in August 1941, a Veterinary Corps officer had been assigned full-time duty on the island of Hawaii. Subsequently, all islands of the Hawaiian group gained veterinary personnel: Maui on 11 January 1942, with Molokai and Lanai being included in the jurisdiction of the Maui District veterinarian; and Kauai on 12 February 1942.
On or about 7 December 1941, both the proclamation of martial law by the civilian Governor of Hawaii and the military reorganization resulted in the department headquarters medical staff becoming involved in the Office of Military Governor for the Territory of Hawaii and its subordination in the staff of the new Rear Echelon for Supply (later renamed Hawaiian Services of Supply); the Forward (or Tactical) Echelon was comprised of the original defense troops. In connection with civilian affairs, the department veterinarian provided technical advice on the storage and handling of civilian food supplies and the continuation of the local dairy and meat industries and cooperated with the Territorial Boards of Health and of Agriculture and Forestry in the maintenance of sanitary standards in the local food establishments and animal quarantines. In addition, a program for safeguarding the production of fresh milk against deliberate bacterial contamination, if at all attempted, was instituted under direction of the department surgeon. Eventually, veterinary antibiological warfare procedures were conducted also in soft beverage plants, ice cream manufactories, and other commercial food industries, on all of the Hawaiian Islands. During 1942, the provisional general and station veterinary hospital organizations on Oahu Island were replaced by the South and the North Sector Veterinary Detachments, and the former district veterinarians on Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai Islands were reduced (on 12 March 1942) to the status of service command veterinarians and generally were made subordinate to the
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respective island district headquarters which now planned for the local defense of the respective islands and administered the tactical forces (including one or more infantry divisions or a part thereof) that were deployed to them. In the fall of 1942, or after the Battle of Midway (3 to 6 June 1942) which removed the immediate threat of further Japanese aerial attacks or any amphibious invasion of the Hawaiian Islands, the island service commands were reecheloned from jurisdiction under the respective district headquarters commands to direct control by Hawaiian Services of Supply (successor to the department's original Rear Echelon for Supply), or Hawaiian Service Forces, as this command was named after 10 April 1943.
On these islands, the service command veterinarians inspected all foods (including fruits and vegetables) which were received and supplied to Army air, ground, and service troops and to the Marine Corps divisions that were "staged" on the islands, surveyed and developed sanitary standards in local dairies and ice cream plants, conducted at-slaughter inspections of beef cattle such as were surplus to local civilian needs but which could be used to furnish beef to the Army, operated the Army's antibiological warfare program in local food establishments, and provided professional animal services to Army dogs, signal pigeons, and to a very small number of horses or mules (the latter being used only on Hawaii and Kauai); in addition, they cooperated with the respective island's Office of Military Governor and with the local civilian veterinarians and public health authorities. On 1 November 1942, one veterinary officer was assigned to the Army task force on Christmas Island. During 1942, veterinary personnel were also included in the infantry divisions which had been reorganized or activated in the Hawaiian Department or which arrived from the Zone of Interior and in the Seventh Air Force for duty at Hickam Field, Oahu. As of the end of December 1942, the Army Veterinary Service totaled 19 officers and 84 enlisted personnel (table 21).
On 10 August 1943, a reorganization of the Hawaiian Department brought about the abolishment of the Hawaiian Department Service Forces Command and the consequent redesignation of the outlying Hawaiian Islands service command veterinarians as district veterinarians. Many services of supply activities on Oahu were assigned to the newly established Army Port and Service Command (built up around the 24th Major Port unit), but until May 1944 no veterinary personnel were assigned there to conduct veterinary services in the port of Honolulu. Also, even if there had been any doubt of the status of the department veterinarian after early 1942, he was now returned with primary duty assignment to the department surgeon's office. Somewhat later in 1942, the area or South and North Sector Veterinary Detachments on Oahu were discontinued, and the Veterinary General Hospital at Fort Armstrong and the Veterinary Station Hospital at Schofield Barracks were again organized. Also, a veterinary section was opened in the 279th Signal Corps Pigeon Company which operated a pigeon breed-
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TABLE 21.-Distribution of veterinary personnel, Hawaiian Department, December 1942
Duty assignment | Officer personnel | Enlisted personnel |
Oahu Sector Veterinary Detachments: | ||
| South (including department veterinarian) | 4 | 34 |
| North | 3 | 22 |
Service commands: | ||
| Hawaii Islands | 3 | 11 |
| Maui, Molokai, and Lanai Islands | 2 | 6 |
| Kauai and Niihau Islands | 2 | 5 |
Army Task Force, Christmas Island | 1 | --- |
24th. 27th. and 40th Infantry Divisions | 3 | 3 |
Seventh Air Force | 1 | 3 |
Total | 19 | 84 |
ing and training base on Oahu and maintained detachments throughout the Hawaiian Islands.
On 14 August 1943, USAFICPA was created, with headquarters at Fort Shafter, and the Hawaiian Department was continued but only in an inactive status. This reorganization and territorial expansion of USAFICPA did not greatly change the existing theater veterinary organization and, as of 31 December 1943, it comprised 26 veterinary officers and 153 enlisted personnel.
By the end of another year (that is, 31 December 1944), these veterinary personnel numbers were increased to 70 and 288, respectively, and the veterinary functional organization was vastly more complex and covered a very large area of the Pacific. In January and February 1944, the Marshall Islands (including Kwajalein and Eniwetok) were seized, a veterinary officer landing on 1 February 1944 on Kwajalein with the surgeon's office of an Army defense battalion (later reorganized as Army Garrison Force, Kwajalein). This garrison force veterinarian also acted as the veterinarian for the Gilberts and the Marshall Army Area commands which were organized later. Operation FORAGER to capture the Marianas was next on the schedule of joint Army-Navy campaigns, but as this campaign was launched, Headquarters, USAFICPA, revitalized its staff organization, with primary emphasis on the retention only of a small group of personnel for operational planning while the administrative staff personnel, who were more concerned with military activities in the immediate Hawaiian Islands area, were to be subordinated to a new base subcommand. Thus, on 1 July 1944, the Central Pacific Base Command was established as a major echelon under USAFICPA. In the next month (or on 1 August 1944), the latter became USAFICPA, and nearly all administrative personnel in the original headquarters not previously reassigned were then transferred to Headquarters, Central Pacific Base Command, with headquarters at Fort Ruger (except the headquarters medical section which was located at Fort Shafter).
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These reorganizations effected the reduction of the nominal theater veterinarian to primary assignment with Headquarters, Central Pacific Base Command.
This became a critical situation because the new USAFPOA also had assumed jurisdiction of USAFISPA, now reorganized as South Pacific Base Command (with headquarters at Noum?a, New Caledonia) and on the same level of theater organization as the Central Pacific Base Command. Each base subcommand had its own veterinary service organization headed by a base command veterinarian, but there was no formal coordination of the two at the theater headquarters level. In addition to the two base subcommands, there was the veterinary service with AAF (Army Air Forces), POA, (which replaced the Seventh Air Force as the senior air command) and that with the Tenth U.S. Army which in the fall of 1944 began to stage in the Hawaiian Islands for Operation ICEBERG (or the invasion of the Ryukyu Islands). Eventually, in mid-1945, a junior Veterinary Corps officer was assigned to the Medical Section, Headquarters, USAFPOA, to act as assistant to the Central Pacific Base Command's veterinarian who had been acting as senior veterinary adviser in that headquarters since the summer of 1945. Another feature of the recent reorganization was that the campaigns in the Marianas group, now coming to a close, ended with veterinary service organization being established on Guam, Saipan, Tinian and elsewhere in that part of the Pacific areas. As of January 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFPOA included: The veterinary officers with medical sections of the Tenth U.S. Army; the AAF; 2 base commands; and 15 district, island command, or Army garrison forces commands; 2 provisional veterinary hospital organizations and 6 separate veterinary detachments or units; the veterinary sections organic to 3 Medical Department laboratories, 2 Quartermaster Corps refrigeration companies, 1 Transportation Corps port (which was the nucleus of a port and service command), and 1 Signal Corps pigeon company; and the veterinary inspection personnel with the U.S. Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board (in New Zealand). Altogether, 70 officers and 288 enlisted personnel were being utilized. The major echelons of veterinary service organization in the theater now included:
Attending Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFPOA
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Central Pacific Base Command
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, South Pacific Base Command
Veterinary Section, 18th Medical General Laboratory
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Kwajalein
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Forces, for Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Angaur, and APO 86 (later Iwo Jima) Islands
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Tenth U.S. Army
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, AAF, POA
During the spring of 1945, veterinary personnel set up station on Iwo Jima when an Army garrison force moved there and, effective on 25 April
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1945, the Army service forces there, together with those on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian of the Marianas group, and on Angaur in the Caroline Islands group were subordinated under jurisdiction of the newly formed Western Pacific Base Command-the third and last of the base subcommands formed by USAFPOA. This base command, with headquarters on Saipan, was originally provided attending veterinary services by the local Army garrison force veterinarian, but eventually a staff veterinary officer was assigned to base command headquarters.
With the unification of all Army forces in the Pacific areas under USAFPAC, effective on 1 June 1945, USAFPOA was reorganized as an administrative territorial subcommand under the new name of USAFMID PAC. The latter continued the Central, South, and Western Base Commands, each with a headquarters veterinarian, for the remainder of the active war period, but, on 1 August 1945, it lost jurisdiction over the Tenth U.S. Army and other forces which had just completed the final phases of the Ryukyus campaign. Also, just before this time, the original Headquarters, South Pacific Base Command, was reorganized and redesignated by USAFPAC as Army Service Command-O and projected for deployment in the planned invasion of Japan; concurrently, the New Caledonia Island Command headquarters staff moved in the position vacancy as South Pacific Base Command headquarters. There was little change in the Middle Pacific's base command structure immediately after V-J Day, although in November 1945 the Central Pacific Base Command was discontinued and its personnel and activities were transferred to the direct control by USAFMIDPAC. As of the end of 1945, the area's veterinary service organization comprised 21 veterinary officers (and 1 Medical Administrative Corps officer) and approximately 150 enlisted personnel who were on duty as follows:
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFMIDPAC
Veterinary Section, Headquarters, Oahu Medical Service:
113th Medical Service Company (Veterinary)
Veterinary Station Hospital
Veterinary Section, 18th Medical General Laboratory
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Port and Service Command
Under Oahu Quartermaster Service:
Veterinary Section, 51st Quartermaster Base Depot
Veterinary Section, Quartermaster Supply Point No. 1
North Sector 63d, 64th, and 65th Veterinary Animal Service Detachments
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Hawaii
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Maui
Veterinary Section 1, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Kauai
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Kwajalein
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Christmas Island
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, South Pacific Base Command
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Western Pacific Base Command
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, AAF, Middle Pacific
Summarizing veterinary accomplishments in the Central Pacific Area, the Army Veterinary Service provided veterinary care for an average ani-
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mal (horses and mules) strength of 479. During the period, July 1941 to December 1945, there were 1,625 admissions, and 174 animals died or were destroyed. More than 865 million pounds of foods of animal origin were inspected during 1944 and 1945.
Central, South, and Western Base Commands
After mid-1944, the Army Veterinary Service in the CPA evolved largely about three base subcommands which were established to centralize the administration and control of groups of island bases. Thus, there were the Central Pacific Base Command which comprised the Hawaiian Islands, the South Pacific Base Command which included the original defense forces on the various islands in the South Pacific and most of the former battleground in the Solomons, and the Western Pacific Base Command which included the Marianas and other island groups on the southern approaches to the Ryukyus and Japan. Each base command organization had its own staff veterinarian assigned to the headquarters medical section.
Central Pacific Base Command.-Army service forces activities (training, supply, and related logistic operations) in the CPA, particularly in the Hawaiian Islands, were administered, after 1 July 1944, by the Central Pacific Base Command. Its headquarters veterinarian, located in the surgeon's office at Fort Shafter, supervised the command's veterinary operations and technically assisted in preparing the units (such as were temporarily assigned for administrative purposes) that were to be redeployed into the Western Pacific and the Ryukyus campaigns. During August 1944, these activities and personnel of the various components or branches of the Army service forces on Oahu were placed under command control of their respective chiefs of special staff sections in the base command headquarters; thus, the Medical Service, Central Pacific Base Command, was created, effective on 10 August 1944, with the headquarters surgeon as its commanding officer (and likewise, the command's quartermaster became commanding officer of Quartermaster Service which controlled quartermaster units and installations). At about this time, the command's veterinary service organization included:
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Central Pacific Base Command
Under Medical Service, Central Pacific Base Command:
Veterinary General Hospital (Provisional)
113th Medical Service Company (Veterinary)
Veterinary Station Hospital (Provisional)
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Port and Service Command
Under Combat Training Command, Central Pacific Base Command:
63d, 64th, and 65th Veterinary Animal Service Detachments
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Hawaii District
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Maui-Molokai
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Kauai District
Veterinary Section, Army Task Force, Christmas Island
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This list does not include the veterinary sections for several Army garrison forces commands, medical laboratories (including the 14th Medical Laboratory and the 18th Medical General Laboratory), and two veterinary food inspection detachments that were attached for administrative purposes or were being trained and otherwise processed for redeployment in a campaign. Of the units listed, the 113th Medical Service Company (Veterinary) was activated on 11 September 1944 on Oahu and eventually (on 15 March 1945) replaced its parent Veterinary General Hospital (Provisional), and the 63d, 64th, and 65th Veterinary Animal Service Detachments which, after their arrival from the Zone of Interior in early December 1944, were attached to the 4339th, 4340th, and 30th Quartermaster Pack Troops, respectively. The latter were being prepared for use in an amphibious assault operation that was canceled later. As of 31 December 1944, the Army Veterinary Service with the Central Pacific Base Command was provided space authorizations for 27 officers and 192 enlisted personnel (fig. 24).
On 15 March 1945, the Central Pacific Base Command's Veterinary General Hospital (Provisional) was disbanded, and its missions and personnel were divided between the 113th Medical Service Company (Veterinary)
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and two new depot veterinary detachments which were improvised for the Quartermaster Service on Oahu, one for the 51st Quartermaster Base Depot, at Kapalama Basin, and the other for the Quartermaster Supply Point No. 1, North Sector, at Schofield Barracks. During March 1945, the 3095th Quartermaster Refrigeration Company (Fixed), with its own veterinary detachment, arrived and was integrated into the operations of the 51st Quartermaster Base Depot. Then, in May 1945, the Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Kwajalein, was transferred from theater control to the jurisdiction of Central Pacific Base Command. Somewhat later, the 306th Veterinary Hospital Detachment arrived on Oahu from the Zone of Interior and was attached to the Veterinary Station Hospital (for training and administrative purposes), and on 6 August 1945, Headquarters, 38th Veterinary Animal Service Detachment, was activated and organized locally to administer the Combat Training Command's three veterinary animal service detachments with the three quartermaster pack troops (but it was temporarily attached to the Veterinary Station Hospital for training and administration purposes). On 5 September 1945, the quartermaster pack troops along with their veterinary detachments were reassigned from the Combat Training Commands to Central Pacific Base Command's Quartermaster Service; on 15 September 1945, the troops were inactivated and their animals, now excess to military needs, were placed under caretaking basis of the 298th Quartermaster Service Company. Concurrently, the 63d, 64th, and 65th Veterinary Animal Service Detachments grouped their personnel and services for these animals.
Shortly after the end of active hostilities, on 1 November 1945, Headquarters, Central Pacific Base Command, lost its identity, with the merger into Headquarters, USAFMIDPAC. The Oahu Medical Service, successor to the original Medical Service Command, then came under direct supervision of the theater surgeon and included the 113th Medical Service Company (Veterinary), the Veterinary Station Hospital (Provisional); 306th Veterinary Hospital Detachment (until its inactivation on 30 November 1945); Headquarters, 38th Veterinary Animal Service Detachment (until its inactivation on 6 December 1945); and the 18th Medical General Laboratory (which was transferred from theater jurisdiction during October 1945). The new Oahu Quartermaster Service, USAFMIDPAC, effective on 1 November 1945, continued the two provisional depot veterinary detachments on subsistence inspection and the three veterinary animal service detachments.
South Pacific Base Command.-This was the continuation of what remained of the former USAFISPA after 1 August 1944. When the Army forces and activities in this original theaterlike Pacific command were reorganized at the organizational level of a base subcommand element of the new USAFPOA, their principal activities were to provide some logistic support to the campaigns in the western areas of the Pacific and to "roll up"
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the island bases by the removal of excess supplies. Actually, on account of shortages in shipping space and the great distances to the new areas of combat in the Philippines, Marianas, and Ryukyus, these excess supplies were not completely transshipped out of the South Pacific Area and much of them were disposed of locally. This was particularly true in regard to the subsistence stockpiles-large quantities of which were too old and too deteriorated or damaged for transshipment. On the other hand, most of the Army horses and mules formerly on New Caledonia and Guadalcanal were transshipped to USAFICBI (U.S. Army Forces, China-Burma-India), and more attention was then redirected by the Army Veterinary Service to the inspection of the meat and dairy food industries in New Zealand that were supplying food to the armed services.
On 20 August 1944, Headquarters, Services of Supply, which was administering the service forces organizations, called service commands, on the several island bases, was discontinued, and the various service commands were then consolidated with the tactical headquarters or island commands at these bases to form a single island command. This occurred on New Caledonia, Espiritu Santo, Fiji, and Guadalcanal, each having its own island command veterinarian. At about this time, the Army activities on Efate and the Russell Islands were reorganized as subbases to Espiritu Santo and Guadalcanal Island Commands, respectively; also, New Zealand Service Command was redesignated (on 20 August 1944) as U.S. Army Forces, New Zealand; Fiji Service Command became (during October 1944) U.S. Army Forces, Fiji; and Espiritu Santo Service Command became (on 20 November 1944) U.S. Army Forces, Espiritu Santo. Then, during October and November 1944, veterinary services in Fiji, on Efate, and in the Russell Islands were terminated. As of 31 December 1944, the Army Veterinary Service in the SPA (South Pacific Area) had been reduced to a strength of approximately 26 officers and 57 enlisted personnel; these were stationed as follows:
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, South Pacific Base Command
Veterinary Headquarters Company, South Pacific Base Command
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, New Caledonia Island Command:
Veterinary Detachment, 292d Quartermaster Refrigeration Company
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, U.S. Army Forces, Espiritu Santo
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, Guadalcanal Island Command:
Veterinary Detachment, 278th Quartermaster Refrigeration Company
Veterinary Section, 6th Medical Laboratory
Veterinary Section, Surgeon's Office, U.S. Army Forces, New Zealand
Veterinary Detachment, Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board, New Zealand
During the next year, the rollup of the South Pacific island bases was continued, and as they became available, the Veterinary Corps officers were transferred from the bases to duty in New Zealand with the joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board or to the Central Pacific Base Command for redeployment into the Western Pacific campaigns. In May-June 1945, Head-
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FIGURE 25.-Veterinary dispensary and office of Army Garrison Force veterinarian, Tinian, early 1945.
quarters, South Pacific Base Command, was reorganized and renamed Army Service Command-O and then moved from New Caledonia to Luzon, pending the activation of plans for its use as a logistic support organization during the invasion of Japan. Concurrently, New Caledonia Island Command, with its staff veterinarian, moved into control of and, in fact, became the new headquarters of South Pacific Base Command.
Western Pacific Base Command.-This command, the last of the three base subcommands to be established in the CPA, was created, effective on 25 April 1945, to administer the Army garrison force commands which had followed the joint Army-Navy landings that were made in the Marianas and Palau groups and on Iwo Jima. Originally, these garrison forces, each with veterinary officers as assistants to the respective garrison force surgeons, were organized as provisional headquarters groups in the Hawaiian Islands and were shipped in time to arrive at destination 7 to 10 to 50 days after the initial assault landings were made. The Army garrison force veterinarians set up stations on Saipan on 25 June 1944, on Tinian on 11 August 1944 (fig. 25), on Guam on 10 August 1944, on Angaur during October 1944, and on Iwo Jima in early March 1945. Usually, one or more veterinary food inspection detachments accompanied the move of these garri-
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son force organizations from the Hawaiian Islands, or arrived at a later date directly from the Zone of Interior; others were activated and organized on the islands. These included the 113th (Provisional) and the 742d (formerly JJ) Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments from the Hawaiian Islands; the 147th and 148th which arrived during March and April 1945 from the Zone of Interior; and the 745th, 746th, and 747th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments which were activated and organized effective on 25 June 1945 within Western Pacific Base Command. In addition, on Saipan, there was the 12th Medical Laboratory complete with a veterinary section, which arrived from the Zone of Interior during May 1945; during the next month, a veterinary officer with the 821st Hospital Concentration Center arrived from the Zone of Interior to augment the existing veterinary service organization on Tinian. As of mid-1945, the Western Pacific Base Command included:
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Western Pacific Base Command
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Saipan:
742d and 747th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Veterinary Section, 12th Medical Laboratory
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Tinian:
148th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
Veterinarian, 821st Hospital Concentration Center
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Guam:
174th, 745th, and 746th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Angaur
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Iwo Jima:
113th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment (Provisional)
These Army garrison forces were comparable to the service commands which were formed earlier in the war in the outlying Hawaiian Islands or to the service command organizations on the South Pacific island bases. Throughout the Western Pacific Base Command, the garrison forces veterinarians provided such professional services as were required by all of the armed services on the islands, including Marine Corps ration dumps, military dogs, and civil affairs and military government activities which were Navy-administered. More often than not, the garrison forces veterinarians acted at the staff level of the respective local island command headquarters, and at least one Navy-administered island command recognized the Veterinary Corps officer officially on orders as island command veterinarian.
Tenth U.S. Army and Other Ground Forces
The beginning of the war found no ground forces units with organically assigned veterinary personnel in the CPA. There were two divisions, the 24th Infantry Division and the 25th Infantry Division, which were organized in the fall of 1941, but these had no assigned veterinary officers until the next year or prior to their departure from the Hawaiian Department.
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The 25th Infantry Division departed during July 1942 for participation in the Guadalcanal Campaign, then under operational control of USAFISPA, and the 24th Infantry Division was "lifted out" a year later for deployment in the SWPA. The following divisions, each with their own division veterinarians, came into the Hawaiian Islands: The 27th Infantry Division in the spring of 1942, followed later that year by the 40th Infantry Division, and then, during 1943, the 7th Infantry Division, which had participated in the Aleutian campaign, and the 33d Infantry Division. Soon after mid-July 1943, when new War Department T/O's (tables of organization) for the standard new type (triangular) infantry division unit discontinued the veterinary personnel space authorizations, the 7th, 27th, 33d, and 44th Infantry Divisions dropped their division veterinarians. During April 1944, Headquarters, XXIV Corps, was activated and organized, but it, too, had no assigned veterinarian because T/O's for the standard army corps headquarters, as revised in March 1943, did not authorize a corps veterinarian. Later, the XXIV Corps participated in the Leyte campaign and was returned to the CPA in the spring of 1945 when it was assigned to Tenth U.S. Army to participate in the Ryukyus operation. The largest ground forces unit in the CPA, however, did have its own veterinary personnel; namely, Headquarters, Tenth U.S. Army. This arrived on Oahu from the Zone of Interior during September 1944, and subsequently, in the spring of 1945, directed the landings and campaign on Okinawa, Ie Shima, and other Japanese islands in the Ryukyus chain.
Preparatory to departure for Operation ICEBERG, Tenth U.S. Army's veterinary organization was built up, in the Central Pacific Base Command, to include the veterinary sections of the 14th Medical Laboratory (which in July 1944 had been activated and organized locally from the former Hawaiian Department, or Central Pacific Area, Medical Laboratory); the 53d Medium Port (activated and organized during the fall of 1944); the 279th Signal Pigeon Combat Platoon; and several Army garrison forces headquarters. The latter included Army Garrison Force, Okinawa; Army Garrison Force, Ie Shima; Army Garrison Force, APO 458, which after V-J Day was diverted from Okinawa to Korea; and Army Garrison Force, APO 457, which did not leave the Hawaiian Islands, it being discontinued on 15 July 1945. There was also a joint Army-Navy island command headquarters staff that was planned to regulate all military operations (including the Army Garrison Force, Okinawa) in the areas behind the Tenth U.S. Army. However, soon after the landings were made, Headquarters, Island Command, Okinawa, seemed to have absorbed Headquarters, Army Garrison Force, Okinawa, so that by early May 1945, service forces veterinary activities were being supervised by an island command veterinarian, who had been elevated in the level of military organization from his former position as garrison force veterinarian. This administrative change enhanced the coordination of the rear area veterinary activities with that of the Tenth
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U.S. Army and with the separate military government organization in regard to civilian affairs on Okinawa. Also, veterinary services were provided to the Marine Corps combat forces, particularly in the inspection of their food supply; it may be added that a few captured horses were processed for the Marine Corps to mount a provisional pack train for hauling ammunition. During May 1945, the Army Veterinary Service on Okinawa gained the 142d, 143d, 144th, 145th, and 149th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments, and that on Ie Shima gained the 146th Veterinary Food Detachment these detachments arriving by direct movement from the Zone of Interior. Effective on 1 August 1945, operational control over Tenth U.S. Army, Island Command, and other units and personnel in the Ryukyus was transferred from USAFMIDPAC to the jurisdiction of USAFPAC; concurrently, the Okinawa Base Command was created to administer the local service forces.
Seventh and Twentieth Air Forces
The Seventh Air Force, or the Hawaiian Air Force as it was referred to before February 1942, originally was provided attending veterinary services at its Hickam Field and Wheeler Field installations. On 19 June 1942, a Veterinary Corps officer was assigned full-time duty at Hickam Field, with additional duty as the theater's air forces veterinarian. During this time, a senior headquarters organization was superimposed over the Seventh Air Force which changed its name from AAF, Hawaiian Department, to Headquarters, AAF, CPA, in August 1943, and a year later, to Headquarters, AAF, POA. By the end of 1943, the foregoing included a veterinarian in the headquarters medical section. Sometime later, veterinary detachments as part of the air service command were established at Hickam, Wheeler, and Bellows Fields on Oahu.
The other air forces unit in the CPA having its own veterinary service organization was the Twentieth Air Force, particularly its XXI Bomber Command. This command operated the long-range bomber (B-29) program against the Japanese mainland and was controlled by the Commanding General, AAF, in Washington, D.C. The XXI Bomber Command started to move from the Zone of Interior into the Marianas during the fall of 1944 and, in December 1944, was joined on Guam by the 5th Veterinary Detachment, Aviation (made up of a basic detachment and two subsections). The latter provided food surveillance inspection at all B-29 airbases which were established, including those of the Twentieth Air Force's XX Bomber Command which came into the Marianas during the early months of 1945 from the bases in India and China from which it had been operating since the opening months of 1944. Another air forces organization was the Pacific Wing, Air Transport Command, which operated from its headquarters established in February 1943 at Hickam Field and covered the aerial route through the CPA from the United States to New Caledonia
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in the SPA. During 1945, a veterinary officer was added to the wing surgeon's office.
U.S. ARMY FORCES IN SOUTH PACIFIC AREA
The USAFISPA, with headquarters at Noum?a, was created on 7 July 1942 to supervise and coordinate the several Army task forces that had begun to move into the South Pacific islands since the beginning of that year. By mid-1942, Army troop strength in this area, which was the assigned command responsibility of the Navy, approximated 60,000 air, ground, and service units. It included the Americal Division on New Caledonia, the 37th Division in the Fiji Islands, and a scattering of smaller defense forces on New Zealand, on Togatabu in the Tonga Island group, Bora Bora in the Society Islands, on Upolu and Wallis Islands in Samoa, and, later that year, on Tongareva and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. Veterinary personnel had come into the area with the American First Task Force-later (in May 1942) reorganized as the Americal Division-which had landed on New Caledonia on 12 March 1942, and with the 37th Division which arrived during April 1942. On New Caledonia, also, there were the 97th Field Artillery Pack Battalion and Troop A of 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron, both with their own veterinary detachments, which had arrived on 1 April and 7 July 1942, respectively. The veterinary service organization on New Caledonia continued to expand throughout the remainder of 1942. The 112th Cavalry Regiment arrived on 11 August, and the 283d Quartermaster Refrigeration Platoon, Fixed, and the 43d Infantry Division arrived during November; before the end of the year, as the Americal Division was departing for the campaign on Guadalcanal, the 43d Infantry Division arrived from the Zone of Interior. On Guadalcanal, the Americal Division was joined, during December 1942, by the 25th Infantry Division, originally from the Hawaiian Department. These four combat divisions then had their own assigned division veterinarians. Including the veterinarian with the 1st Port of Embarkation that set up station on New Zealand in December, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFISPA, as of the end of 1942, comprised 13 officers.
This number of veterinary officers also included the theater veterinarian, who, soon after his arrival from the Zone of Interior, in late September 1942, was assigned to the Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFISPA.2 The assignment did not last for any great length of time because, on 9 December 1942, he was transferred to the theater's service of supply organization that had been developing during the past 2 months. After that date, the position of the theater's chief veterinary officer fluctuated between
2Theater veterinarians, or senior veterinary officers acting in that capacity, included: Maj. J. H. Boutin, VC (28 September 1942-27 March 1943), Col. H. E. Watson, VC (6 October1943?26 May 1944), and Col. E. E. Hodgson, VC (late July 1944-1 August 1944). Capt. R. O. Moore, VC, served as interim theater veterinarian at the level of Headquarters, Services of Supply (May 1944-July 1944).
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Headquarters, USAFISPA, and Headquarters, Services of Supply, SPA, and for a period of 7 months there was none. During March 1943, the aforementioned veterinary officer was released front his Services of Supply staff position for reassignment elsewhere, and no successor staff veterinarian was named immediately. Then, on 6 October 1943, a Veterinary Corps officer newly arrived from the Zone of Interior was assigned as assistant to the Surgeon, USAFISPA, and this office of theater veterinarian was continued until May 1944 when (for physical disability) the incumbent was evacuated to the United States. Somewhat later, the theater's veterinary service organization was administered by a company grade officer, assigned to Services of Supply headquarters, who was replaced only during the last few days of July 1944 by a senior veterinary officer, the third to be so assigned, who had arrived from the Zone of Interior for duty as staff veterinarian in Headquarters, USAFISPA.
During this period, beginning in the fall of 1942, Army and Marine Corps divisions had moved northward, island by island, through the Solomons and by March 1944 had landed on Emirau in the Bismarck Archipelago; this last operation ended the tactical mission of the SPA. As of the end of 1943, the Army Veterinary Service in the theater command included 26 officers and 81 enlisted personnel, but new additions of service forces units during the next few months increased this strength to 40 Veterinary Corps officers. The additions included the arrivals, during February 1944, of the 278th Quartermaster Refrigeration Company, Fixed, and 6th Medical Laboratory on Guadalcanal, and, during March 1944, of the 292d Quartermaster Refrigeration Company, Fixed, on New Caledonia-the latter taking the place of the original 283d Refrigeration Platoon which had departed from the theater during August 1943 (fig. 26). As of June 1944, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFISPA was distributed as follows:
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Services of Supply, SPA
Veterinary Detachment, South Pacific General Depot
Veterinary Detachment, 292d Quartermaster Refrigeration Company, Fixed
Veterinary Detachment, 112th Cavalry Regiment (Dismounted)
Veterinary Detachment, Troop B, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron (successor to Troop A, 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron)
Medical Section, Guadalcanal Service Command:
Veterinary Section, 6th Medical Laboratory
Veterinary Detachment, 278th Quartermaster Refrigeration Company, Fixed
Medical Section, New Zealand Service Command
Medical Section, Fiji Service Command
Medical Section, Espiritu Santo Service Command
Medical Section, Efate Service Command
Medical Section, Russell Islands Service Command
Medical Section, Bougainville Service Command
Medical Section, Treasury Islands Service Command
Medical Section, New Georgia Service Command
Medical Section, Emirau Service Command
Medical Section, Green Islands Service Command
Veterinary Detachment, Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board, New Zealand
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By June 1944, with the termination of the tactical mission of SPA, USAFISPA was becoming to be disassembled. During June 1944, the more northerly located bases of the Solomon Islands group and in the Bismarck Archipelago were transferred to the jurisdiction of SWPA (and eventually reorganized under the administrative control of U.S. Army Forces, Northern Solomons), as were most of the air and ground forces-some, however, not moving until much later in the year. Effective on 1 August 1944, USAFISPA was inactivated and such as remained was reorganized as South Pacific Base Command, as this area was being added to the CPA Area in the formation of the newly created USAFPOA.
Services of Supply, South Pacific Area
The services of supply organization of USAFISPA originated with the formation in mid-October 1942 of a service command at Auckland, New Zealand. In September 1942, this service command headquarters was redesignated and moved to Noum?a, and, before the end of the year, the nominal chief veterinarian for the theater was assigned to it. The services of
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supply headquarters coordinated and supervised service forces personnel and activities on the various island bases which were administered by local service command headquarters-one for each major island base. The service command acted as the logistic support force, such as for the receiving, storing, and distributing of subsistence, to all Army air and ground troops and Navy and Marine Corps units which were located on a given island, the latter being centrally grouped under an island command. This organization in the SPA of an island command and a service command at each base was comparable to the district (or Army tactical) headquarters and the service commands that were set up in the Hawaiian Islands in early 1942. (Of course, island commands could be Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Forces administered.)
Unless a Veterinary Corps officer belonged to the Army tactical unit which administered a particular island command headquarters, then there was no island command veterinarian. Thus, until June 1943 on Guadalcanal, the veterinarian of the 25th Infantry Division was detailed additional duty with the Surgeon's Office, XIV Corps, and then in turn, as island command veterinarian. Elsewhere, veterinary officers on assignment to most island bases became service command veterinarians; actually, few service command veterinarians were ever assigned when the service forces organizations on the islands were created because there was no base plan or so-called manning tables for organizing the service command headquarters staffs uniformly on the bases throughout the SPA.
As a result, most service command veterinary operations, particularly those relating to food inspection on the various island bases, were late in starting, being set up in New Zealand during December 1942, on New Caledonia during November 1942, in the summer-fall of 1943 in the Fiji Islands, on 10 May 1943 on Espiritu Santo, during February 1944 on Efate, on 18 January 1944 in the Russell Islands, and during June 1944 on Guadalcanal. On New Caledonia, a general depot organization was developed under service command control, and, though a large subsistence stockpile was developed, the theater's largest ration storage and distribution centers were located in New Zealand and operated by the Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board located there. The Guadalcanal Service Command became a major subsistence supply base in logistic support of the subsequent fighting in the SPA. As the fighting advanced up through the Solomons and into the Bismarck Archipelago, additional service commands were formed, and service command veterinarians came on duty on New Georgia in November 1943, in the Treasury Islands during April 1944, on Bougainville during late December 1943, in the Green Islands on 23 May 1944, and in the Emirau Islands on 28 May 1944. Though the dates for veterinary services on many bases seem to be relatively late, the foregoing relates only to service commands of the Services of Supply. Actually, division or task force veterinarians sometimes had arrived earlier with the landing or assault troops and
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then departed before the service command-assigned veterinarians arrived-the unfortunate situation being that there was interruption in the continuity of veterinary activities at many bases.
Veterinary animal service activities in the SPA originally developed about a remount depot and two mounted combat units, but, before these had been closed or dismounted and the horses and mules transshipped out of the theater to USAFCBI, the inspections of food had become the major activity. In regard to animals, the 97th Field Artillery Pack Battalion, on arrival on New Caledonia, procured an estimated 180 animals locally and began to receive the first two of nine shipments of 2,032 horses shipped from USAFIA (U.S. Army Forces in Australia). (Actually, 10 shipments totaling 2,515 horses were made from Australia, but one animal transport was sunk en route by an enemy submarine.) Later, with the arrival of Troop A, 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron, which received and processed mule shipments from the Zone of Interior and Panama Canal Department, the battalion exchanged most of its horses for the mules and then departed with 947 animals during January-February 1943 for Guadalcanal, but only few of the animals were actually used before the campaign there was ended. In March and May 1944, the battalion's animals, such as remained, were transshipped out of the theater to USAFICBI. In the interim, on New Caledonia, the depot issued large numbers of horses to the 112th Cavalry Regiment, which had arrived there during August 1942 and was deployed to patrol duty along the coastline. However, in May 1943, the regiment was dismounted and transferred to the SWPA, but its veterinary detachment was retained at the remount depot to assist in the care of the turned-in regimental animals. The depot unit, Troop A, 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron, which in January 1942 was returned on paper to the Zone of Interior but was replaced by the newly activated and locally organized Troop B, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron, began to ship its holdings of the excess animals to the China-Burma-India theater in September 1943 and, soon after the last. animal transport was embarked, was disbanded (on 15 October 1944). During September 1944 the 112th Cavalry Regiment's veterinary detachment departed to join its parent unit in the SWPA. The veterinary service with USAFISPA provided veterinary care for an average animal (horses and mules) strength of 1,785. During the period from May 1942 to July 1944, there were 4,313 admissions, and 466 animals died or were destroyed.
Subsistence supply to USAFISPA originated from the Zone of Interior, from the SWPA, and from sources in New Zealand where a Navy?administered joint procurement agency, the Joint Purchasing Board, was established. At the beginning, these foods were received, stored, and issued under the technical supervision of divisional veterinarians and veterinary personnel belonging to the island commands at the various bases. During the winter months of 1942-43, these veterinary surveillance inspections of
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the Army's subsistence supplies on New Caledonia and Guadalcanal were formally organized with the arrivals of the veterinary detachments of two quartermaster refrigeration units, but, elsewhere throughout the South Pacific bases, except on New Zealand, this kind of surveillance was only temporary or sporadic. Usually, after the tactical division veterinarian departed from a given base, several months elapsed before another service forces veterinarian arrived on that island to resume a veterinary food inspection program. This program, pursuant to the definition of responsibilities of the services of supply organization on the island bases, pertained not only to the food supplied to the Army and airfields but also, after the spring of 1943, to the subsistence supply of naval shore installations and Marine Corps units on the islands. Taking into account the interrupted veterinary food inspection services, the heat and humid climatic conditions of the area, and the rapid, haphazard buildup of large stockpiles that were left behind when the tactical forces departed for another island invasion, it was obvious that considerable quantities of food became unsuitable for use and ultimately were recommended for condemnation.
Frequently, when the services of supply organization assigned veterinarians to the service commands, the latter on arrival found the subsistence supplies to be in open areas, uncovered except possibly for a tarpaulin thrown over the stacks and without flooring and interstack dunnage; the high piles had buried the lowermost cases into the coral sand. As was true at the New Guinea bases, the ration dumps were built hurriedly, and there were no permanent or proper semipermanent structures of any sort for storage. Deterioration and spoilage, being a nonreversible process in nonperishable subsistence, had already advanced to the degree that little of the subsistence, now surplus to the rapidly "cutbacked'' bases, could be reclaimed by salvage procedures for reshipment to other bases. Of course, sometimes there were not enough shipping vessels available to theater control for transporting these supplies from one island base into the next island campaign. As a result, beginning in 1944, the veterinary food inspection activities in the SPA were diverted from that of surveillance to prevent or minimize food losses and deterioration to that of surveillance to prevent the distribution of unsound foods to troops. For example, during the first 7 months of 1944, the quantities of meat and dairy products condemned following veterinary inspection totaled more than 10 million pounds.
Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board, New Zealand
In New Zealand, the principal rear supply base for feeding the South Pacific forces, the Army Veterinary Service encountered many problems not experienced elsewhere in the theater. During the winter months of 1942-43, veterinary officers assigned to divisional, port, and general hospital units in New Zealand advised on certain conditions that should have governed the procurement operations of the Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board, including
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the development of adequate and proper Army veterinary food procurement inspection services. However, nothing came of these recommendations, because senior administrators adopted policies of leniency for accepting supplies at regular prices, with little or no inspection, and generally supported the contentions by New Zealand officials and food industries that anything from the country's export trade was acceptable on the history of past, peacetime reputation for quality products.
Of course, in New Zealand, there was a national agricultural inspection agency that was recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; therefore, the inception of Army veterinary food inspection services to cooperate with that agency, although these services were primarily to safeguard the quality of the Armed Forces subsistence supply, seemed to present a political problem (which did not arise) that the Navy command desired to avoid, at least in New Zealand. On the other hand, the Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board accepted, as perhaps necessary, that the foods after their arrival at Army bases and before issue to the messhalls would be inspected. The early studies on Veterinary Corps inspection of subsistence procurement in New Zealand centered about the quality of the food rather than about its wholesomeness.
There was no concept, for example, by the Navy-administered agency that bobby veal livers (from immature calves or calves in the uterus of cows which were slaughtered) comprised a part of the reputable New Zealand export pack or that the procurement of fresh fluid milk and canned evaporated milk in New Zealand would have to be terminated because of Bacillus coli contamination.3 Also, by the fall of 1944, it had become evident, even to the joint board, that 10 percent spoilage in the canned evaporated milk procured in New Zealand was too great without an investigation of its procurement program, and this factor, together with the B. coli contamination and the existence in the industry of a great many insanitary practices and equipment that could not or would not be corrected, finally led to the termination of procurement of this commodity. In regard to poultry, an undeveloped industry, the Army Veterinary Service alone set up the standards of sanitary quality control. It was remarkable, also, that the Navy-administered joint procurement board took no immediate and firm steps to prohibit the admixture of boric acid to the curing agents used in the New Zealand production of bacon and ham. In any event, during the summer-fall of 1943, for the first time, one Veterinary Corps officer was assigned full-time duty with the joint procurement agency; there were then 15 bacon plants, 38 meat plants, and 20 dairies (involved in the manufacture of cheese) under contractual obligation, and large quantities of subsistence were being held in commercial warehouses and cold storage plants for reshipment to, or in reserve for, the island bases.
3In the instance of both products, the contamination was reported from the island bases and not by the board or New Zealand agencies who maintained little or no laboratory control.
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During February 1944, 10 officers were added to the Inspection Division, Joint Purchasing Board, and were assigned to the six area (or field) offices at Auckland, Wellington, New Plymouth, Palmerston, Napier, and South Island. In two areas, the local inspection divisions, consisting of a meat and dairy products branch and a vegetable branch, were headed by veterinary officers. As of 1 June 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with U.S. Joint Purchasing Board, SPA, totaled 11 officers and 55 enlisted personnel. Between July 1942 and December 1945, more than 500 million pounds of foods of animal origin were inspected at the time of procurement or delivery in New Zealand; in the period from 1 July 1942 through 30 November 1944, for which such data are available, the inspection of 366,035,144 pounds of this amount (valued at $52 million) included-
Pounds | |
Fresh, frozen meat | 195,175,097 |
Canned meat | 61,931,657 |
Bacon and ham | 39,245,261 |
Butter | 37,910,627 |
Cheese | 12,674,182 |
Canned evaporated milk | 19,098,320 |
Thirteenth Air Force
The Thirteenth Air Force, activated in January 1943, with headquarters stationed initially on Espiritu Santo, seemed to have had no organically assigned veterinary personnel during its stay in the SPA. In fact, the position vacancy for that air force headquarters veterinarian, such as was prescribed by T/O's, was occupied by a flight surgeon (2). However, as will be mentioned later, in the fall of 1944 when the unit moved into the SWPA, the 4th Veterinary Detachment, Aviation, was activated and organized specifically for duty with the Thirteenth Air Force.
U.S. ARMY FORCES IN THE FAR EAST
Philippine Islands Campaign
The Army Veterinary Service with the USAFISWPA included that of the original Philippine Department which was lost in the defense of the Philippines, 7 December 1941 to 10 May 1942, against Japanese aggressors, and that which was established in Australia in April 1942. At the onset of the war period, the Philippine Department included the department veterinarian4 who supervised veterinary food inspection activities and professional animal services at six installations (3, 4, 5). There were veterinary hospitals in operation at Manila, Fort William McKinley, and Fort Stotsenberg, and veterinary officers were assigned to duty with four mounted units of the Philippine Scouts organization: 26th Cavalry Regiment, Battery
4Department veterinarians included Col. Mott Ramsey, VC, from February 1941 to 3 May 1942, when he was evacuated from Corregidor for return to the United States as a hospital patient, and Lt. Col. J. W. Worthington, VC, who acted as department veterinarian through the last weeks of the fight on Bataan.
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A of 23d Field Artillery Battalion, and 65th and 66th Separate Quartermaster Troops (Pack). In addition, there was a veterinary company unit with headquarters at Fort William McKinley, but this did not become operational because most of its enlisted personnel were transferred to duty with the foregoing units. As of mid-1941, Army horse and mule strength in the Philippine Department approximated 1,650 animals. During July 1941, the department's troops and such Philippine Army units, as were being inducted into military service of the United States, had been regrouped to better the local defenses and were designated as USAFFE. Therewith, the Philippine Department was reduced to the status of a service forces organization. The headquarters special staff sections, however, were generally left intact, so the department veterinarian was continued as the principal veterinary officer in the area. There were 12 veterinary officers in the Philippines as of December 1941.
After the Japanese landed in the Philippines (on 9 December 1941), the life of this veterinary service organization was brief but dramatic. Before Christmas Day, the U.S. forces started their withdrawal to Bataan peninsula, and, on 2 January 1942, the Japanese occupied Manila. By the end of that month, animal losses totaled 501, including those dying or destroyed on account of disease and injury, wounded and killed in action, or destroyed to prevent their capture. For January 1942, the monthly mean strength was 894 horses and mules, these being distributed between Fort Mills (46), the cavalry regiment (300), the field artillery battery (125), and the two pack troops (268 and 155, respectively). During the next few months, veterinary officers with these mounted units acted to establish troop medical aid stations, treated sick and wounded animals, scattered the animals when the Japanese threatened to capture them, and eventually set up corrals on Bataan from which animals were sent for slaughter to provide meat to the forces. One veterinary officer was stationed on Corregidor, the island fortress for Manila; another was stationed at the City of Cebu; while another was redetailed into Cavalry to take command of a mechanized troop of the 26th Cavalry Regiment after it was dismounted. Probably, the most important activity by the Army Veterinary Service on Bataan concerned the foraging for carabao and the development of a fresh meat supply for the forces (3).
The inspection of food supplies was modified by the acute shortage of normal army rations. To augment this supply the slaughter of army horses and mules, of native carabao, the full development of Bataan's fishing resources, and the importation of beef from nearby islands offered the most promising possibilities. With this problem in mind, upon my arrival in Bataan, I made a hasty reconnaissance of the peninsula in order to estimate the total number of carabao available that might be slaughtered for food purposes. Approximately 2,200 were found south of our Abucay-Moron line. As it was estimated that our consumption on full ration would require at least 1,000 carcasses per month, I made recommendations to the Quartermaster that fifteen to twenty thousand carabao be immediately herded into the lower Battan area, from the Abucay-Lubao region, and held there as an emergency reserve. Since carabao seem to thrive upon any
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kind of vegetation, the problem of their food supply was of only secondary importance. The Quartermaster thought it was a most excellent idea, but took no necessary steps towards its accomplishment. Thus the last opportunity for securing a full year's reserve supply of fresh meat soon vanished.
Urgent necessity, however, required that greatest possible advantage be made of the limited available supply. I, therefore, submitted a program, in detail, to the General of the Bataan Defense Forces, recommending appropriate steps designed to insure the delivery of fresh meat to troops in the field. This program was approved without change, and delivery was accomplished with very little trouble, interruption, or irregularity from 3 January 1942 tot 8 April 1942.
This program was based upon the utilization of Veterinary Personnel of the Philippine Army, together with civilian laborers, since all Regular Army personnel of the Veterinary Service, under Colonel Ramsey, was otherwise assigned. Our organization included 16 veterinarians (officers) and 45 enlisted men (Philippine Army) and approximately 200 civilians. The full program consisted in the procurement, transportation, and slaughter of carabao, the veterinary inspection of the dressed carcasses, and the transportation of the fresh meat to the Quartermaster Dumps and to troop kitchens in the field. All of these functions were performed under my direct supervision, by officers and enlisted men of the Philippine Army Veterinary Service, since no help from Regular Army Veterinary Personnel was available except toward the end of the campaign when certain officers and enlisted then became surplus in their own organizations.
Purchase of the carabao was a big undertaking in itself, since properly authenticated vouchers, by owners and 2 witnesses, were required in each individual case. For this purpose I secured the appointment of Captain Faustino F. Turla, Veterinary Corps (P.A.) as agent officer. Captain Turla is an exceptionally able, intelligent, and conscientious officer, with legal training in addition to his veterinary qualifications. Captain Turla performed all of his duties in a very highly efficient and commendable manner. I frequently received very pleasing compliments from the Luzon Force Finance Officer regarding the excellence of Captain Turla's records and accounts.
Our policy was to operate, on all occasions, as far forward as possible, in order to secure every available carabao. Native civilian employees, working under my supervision, beyond our lines, helped materially in augmenting the supply, by slow pressure and by a gradual working of animals across the lines. Approximately 1,800 additional carabao were secured by this method.
The initial price paid for a mature carabao, determined upon in conference with the Governor of Bataan, and Mayors of Pilar, Balanga and Orion, was sixteen pesos (P 60.00). Approximately 1,000 carabao were purchased at this average price. Later, by order of the Quartermaster, the price was fixed at sixty pesos (P 16.00) for full?grown animals. Even higher prices were paid as the supply finally dwindled toward the vanishing point.
In a few instances carabao were lost after purchase, due to enemy bombing of temporary enclosures, and to breaks in the Quartermaster corral fences. Branding of animals at time of purchase was resorted to in order to prevent their possible repurchase since identification was otherwise impossible. Sabotage in at least one instance seems to have been responsible for the release of carabao after purchase. However, the average price of all carabao purchased, including losses, would appear to be well within reason. While accurate figures are unobtainable at the present time, the cost per pound of the dressed carcass and edible offal is estimated as approximately that for fresh beef otherwise purchased by the U.S. Army for the same period.
For sanitary reasons our veterinary field abattoirs consisted of a bridge or platforms, across swiftly flowing mountain streams, upon which the carabao were slaughtered. The pollution of the stream was prevented by the hauling away of all inedible offal and refuse, and its burial in deep trenches. At the same time, an ample supply
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of clean, fresh water was always available for cleaning and scrubbing of the killing floor, so that a maximum degree of sanitation was possible at all times. Overhanging trees and tropical vegetation provided excellent camouflage. Bombing caused us no inconvenience at any time. Veterinary inspection of carcasses proceeded normally as the dressing operations progressed. Approximately one per cent (1%) of all animals slaughtered were rejected for sanitary reasons, about 90% of all carabao livers were rejected because of excessive infestation with liver flukes. Approximately 65,000 pounds of meat was lost after slaughter, due to the bombing of the cold storage plant on Corregidor and for other unavoidable causes incident to hostilities.
Dressed carcasses, loaded immediately on waiting trucks, were transferred to Quartermaster Dumps or field kitchens, wherever trucks could travel in Bataan. Four heavy trucks were in constant use for this purpose. Deliveries were made daily to Quartermaster Dumps and three times weekly to hospitals and field kitchens. Approximately 120 separate units received daily delivery service. Because of the absence of any kind of refrigeration, immediate delivery was imperative. A maximum of six to eight hours from slaughter to delivery could not safely be exceeded. Most of the deliveries were made in less than four hours from the time of slaughter. Some unavoidable losses occurred at Q.M. dumps, due to a failure of organization in calling for supplies according to prearrangement of schedules.
Thirty to fifty animals daily were required for routine deliveries, but 50 to 60 additional carabao were slaughtered daily and delivered to Corregidor for cold storage whenever refrigeration space was available. Approximately 100 carcasses were also stored in the refrigeration plant of the submarine tender "Canopies," lying in Marivales Harbor. Cold storage facilities on Corregidor were inadequate for the emergency. Bombing put the plant out of commission at one time before the fall of Bataan, causing the loss of approximately 300 quarters of beef. With adequate, bomb-proof capacity on Corregidor we could have procured and slaughtered enough carabao for fresh meat to have carried us through a much longer emergency.
The quality and edibility of the better grades of carabao beef correspond closely with grades 3 and 4 ("Good" to "Good Medium") which are the grades usually purchased by the U.S. Army. Much carabao meat was sold on the Manila markets before the war. Tests have amply demonstrated that practically no laymen and but few "experts" are able to detect any difference between the properly cooked meats of similar grades of cattle and carabao. It would appear that the breeding of carabao in the tropics for beef purposes, should be encouraged, not only because of edibility, but more especially, because they are easy keepers, thriving in emergency, on most any kind of tropical vegetation; and also, because they are much more resistant to tropical diseases than are American or other foreign breeds of imported cattle.
A total of approximately 4,000 animals were slaughtered in Bataan for food purposes. Of these, approximately 320 were horses, 87 mules, 150 cattle, 100 hogs, and the rest carabao. It is estimated that 1,200 carabao were slaughtered by front line troops located beyond the reach of our delivery trucks. This method of slaughter was very uneconomical; no sanitary inspections were possible, and no records were kept; but due to extreme shortage of food and the difficulties of transportation it was more practicable to lead the animals in for local slaughter than to attempt packing fresh meat from the Q.M. Dumps. No reasonable objection could therefore be offered to this method, since all the Veterinary personnel had been withdrawn from these units for service with me, back at our Field Abattoir.
Approximately 2,800 animals were slaughtered at our Field Abattoirs. Two million pounds of fresh meat were delivered to troops in the field, and three quarters (?) of a million pounds of edible offal was delivered to refugee camps in Bataan. These amounts materially augmented the total food supplies in Bataan, and, according to Brigadier
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General Allan C. McBride, Commanding General, Bataan Service Command, and others closely associated with our work, enabled our forces to hold out for from 4 to 6 weeks longer than would otherwise have been possible. Had it not been for the loyal support given me by the Veterinary officers and enlisted men of the Philippine Army, these results would not have been possible.
This entire program was undertaken and carried out because there was no other organization technically qualified, equipped, or ready to volunteer for the emergency. Strictly speaking, it was Quartermaster activity in its entirety, except the sanitary inspection of the meat supply. The Veterinary Service very gladly performed these additional duties for the benefit of all concerned.
The importance of meat from other islands was not practicable, because of Japanese control of all adjacent waters, but the potentialities of fishing resources of Bataan were recognized from the inception of the Bataan campaign. The Quartermaster attempted to coordinate all fishing activities but without any tangible success. Later, the commander of the Bataan Force Service Command requested that I undertake these operations, in addition to my other duties. Accordingly, early in March 1942, I was designated "Coordinator of the Bataan Fisheries" and given complete control of all phases of these activities.
Inasmuch as the Bataan waters were one of the chief sources of Manila's fish supply before the war, it was only a matter of time and intensive organization before former standards could be readied and rapidly surpassed. The chief difficulty was in the fact that the use of all the 16 immense fish corrals, or traps, located along the Bataan shore of Manilla Bay, had been discontinued. They were all badly in the need of extensive repairs. The nets, in most cases, had been stored in remote hide-outs and when located, were also found to be worn and in need of extensive repairs. Lack of cooperation and coordination, failure to pay owners for fish caught, confiscation of fish after being caught, and a general antagonistic attitude toward the native fishermen, during the early phase of the Bataan campaign, seemed to be the general excuses for the discontinued fishing activities of the natives. When it is realized that these 16 traps furnished the Manila markets with from 10 to 50 thousand pounds of fish daily, before the war, their importance to our beleaguered troops in Bataan cannot be overestimated. Accordingly, my first object was to get all of these traps back into operation in the minimum possible time. After locating the troubles, the remedies were largely routine. When the owners were fully assured that no further interference would be tolerated, they were readily induced to cooperate in restoring their property to normal use.
Again Captain Turla's services were invaluable in gaining the confidence and enthusiastic cooperation of the native fisherman. All 16 traps were being rapidly repaired and full production of every one was contemplated, at the very latest date, by May 1, 1942. Two traps were fully completed and nets were set and in use on April 7th. Others would have followed in rapid succession.
For guard protection, supervision and operation I had placed one officer, four enlisted men, and a varying number of civilians in close proximity to each trap. With necessary transportation on hand, they were fully prepared to insure scheduled deliveries. It was planned and confidently expected that delivery of fresh fish to Q.M. Dumps and to field kitchens would fully replace, and gradually exceed the total amount of fresh carabao meat which had been regularly delivered, without interruption, throughout the Bataan campaign. Including approximately 400 mules and 200 carabao still available, the fresh meat supply was sufficient for at least three weeks longer, by which time the anticipated quantities of fish were expected to be available to fully replace that supply, volume for volume.
Other appropriate methods of fishing were also in the process of rabid expansion. Deep sea fishing by means of basket traps is the usual method employed in the Philip-
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pines in waters too deep for the large corral traps above referred to. We had already placed large orders with native basket makers and many were already on hand. This method of fishing was being rapidly organized and expanded, with the help and cooperation of native fishermen. The possibilities of this type of fishing, given reasonable time, seemed unlimited and it was confidently expected that the total supply of fish would soon exceed any possible demand from Bataan and Corregidor combined.
Still another group was already organized and was receiving daily instruction in the use of high explosives as an additional means of augmenting our supply of fish. Enlisted ordnance personnel was loaned to me for this purpose. Satisfactory progress was being made. Highly interesting developments were anticipated. It was hoped that this method would prove useful in this emergency.
Other methods of fishing were receiving due consideration but time had not yet permitted the further organization of enthusiastic anglers. My own experiences in deep sea fishing suggested several other promising methods, but since time and volume were of primary importance, our initial efforts were necessarily confined to those methods which promised the greatest immediate results, and with which the native fishermen were already familiar.
The fall of Bataan brought all of our efforts to a sudden and untimely end * * *.
On 9 April 1942, the American-Filipino forces on Bataan surrendered, and less than a month later the Corregidor fortress fell into the hands of the Japanese. Subsequently, during their imprisoment as prisoners of war, the veterinary officers acted to the benefit of their fellow men as medical assistants in hospitals, camp sanitary officers, and operators of small camp animal farms. Five veterinary officers, of the twelve originally in the Philippine Department, were killed in action or died during their internment.
Development of Veterinary Service in Southwest Pacific Area
On 9 April 1942, the only major Allied area not yet captured by the Japanese advances into the southwest POA was Australia, but, even so. Darwin, in northern Australia, had undergone its first aerial bombing in February 1942. During March 1942, General MacArthur reached Australia from the Philippines to take command of U.S. and the Allied Australian and Dutch military forces which now were grouped under the newly created General Headquarters, SWPA. Then, on 18 April 1942, the earlier USAFFE (in the Philippines) was set aside on an inactive status, only to be restored again on 23 February 1943 and continued until mid-1945 as the U.S. military theater command in the otherwise Allied, joint Army-Navy theater called SWPA. Before this time, or since December 1941, a new Army theater organization was developing in Australia. For example, an Army troop convoy en route to the Philippines was constituted as Task Force, South Pacific, and diverted to new destination at Brisbane, Australia. On arrival there (in late December 1941), this task force became U.S. Forces in Australia, or USAFIA, as it was called after 5 January 1942. Another task force (Task Force 6814Z), with five veterinary officers and six enlisted personnel, came into Australia on 27 February 1942, but four of these veterinary officers were reordered to Task Force 6814, which landed on New
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Caledonia, 12 March 1942; subsequently, three of the latter were returned to Australia, and the senior ranking officer of the group was designated on 4 April 1942 as veterinarian and assistant to the surgeon of USAFIA, with headquarters then at Melbourne, having moved from its original location in Brisbane. In the same month (April 1942), a veterinary officer arrived with the 135th Medical Regiment; during the next 2 months, others came into Australia from the Zone of Interior, including those with the 2d Port Headquarters, 41st and 32d Infantry Divisions, and 3d Medical Laboratory. During this period, Army forces were scattered among seven base section commands on the Australian Continent and the U.S. Advance Base on Guinea.
After April 1942, the central administrative office for the Army Veterinary Service in the SWPA fluctuated between the Army theater headquarters and Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA; of course, the latter headquarters assignment was the best possible location for the nominal chief or theater veterinarian during the period, July 1942 to February 1943, because then, as will be noted, there was really no U.S. Army theater command. The headquarters locations for the theater's central veterinary office5 were, briefly, as follows: Headquarters, USAFIA, April to July 1942; Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, July 1942 to February 1943; Headquarters, USAFIA, February to September 1943; and again, the supply services headquarters, from September 1943 until its reorganization (as USAFWESPAC) in June 1945 (6, 7).
Effective on 20 July 1942, the American theater command in Australia was redesignated USASOS, SWPA, and, concurrently, the nominal chief of the theater's veterinary service organization, along with the medical and nearly all other special staff sections, were transferred to the new supply services headquarters at Melbourne, this headquarters moving about 2 months later to Sydney. There was then no American theater command to coordinate the U.S. Army air, ground, and service forces; all of this was being done at the level of the Allied headquarters which at no time added a veterinary officer to its staff. On 26 February 1943, USAFFE was again activated, with headquarters at Brisbane, to administer all American air, ground, and service troops in the SWPA; at the same time, a senior Veterinary Corps officer who had just recently arrived in the theater was assigned to Headquarters, USAFFE, to act as veterinary consultant in the chief surgeon's office. This did not change the status of the existing services of supply headquarters veterinarian except to subordinate him under the supervision of the new theater veterinarian and to better coordinate theaterwide the developing veterinary service organizations in the Sixth U.S. Army and in the Fifth Air Force, the latter having been activated in September
5Theater veterinarians or those acting in that capacity included Lt. Col. Charles M. Cowherd, VC (4 April 1942 to 15 February 1943), Col. Louis G. Weisman, VC (16 February 1943 to 22 January 1945), and Col. Stanley C. Smock, VC (22 January through 7 June 1945).
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1942. As of early January 1943, the veterinary service organization in the SWPA included 25 officers and 9 enlisted personnel, at station as follows:
Chief Surgeon's Office, USASOS, SWPA
Medical Section, Base Section 1 (including 1 officer at Birdum)
Medical Section, Base Section 2 (including officers at Augusta, Charters Towers, Cairns, Portland Roads, and at a developing remount depot installation):
3d Medical Laboratory
Troop A, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron
Medical Section, Base Section 3 (including 1 officer at Rockhampton):
Surgeon's Office, 32d Infantry Division
Surgeon's Office, 41st Infantry Division
Medical Section, Base Section 4
Medical Section, Base Section 7:
Remount Purchasing Board
Medical Section, U.S. Advance Base (New Guinea) (including l officer at Falls River)
Medical Section, Fifth Air Force
3d Medical Supply Depot
Actually, this number was far below existing requirements and anticipated needs, particularly in view of planning for procuring animals and mounting several ground combat and service units; of course, the recent occurrences of botulism poisoning in an engineer unit (that was attributed to Australian canned food) and of an epidemic milkborne typhoid fever among a large city population in Australia only confirmed the reality of shortages in numbers of veterinary personnel. During 1943, planning for the veterinary service organization in the theater was rapidly advanced. By the end of the year, the Army Veterinary Service had 100 officers, 37 enlisted personnel, and 29 civilian employees. Unfortunately, the situation regarding the status of the theater veterinarian that had been gained in February 1943 lasted only 7 months. Thus, during September 1943, Headquarters, USAFFE, freed itself of most special staff divisions, including the chief surgeon's office and chief veterinarian, who were then returned to primary assignment with Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, which had recently moved from Sydney to Brisbane. From that time to mid-1945, there was no change in the status of the nominal chief veterinarian for the Army Veterinary Service in the SWPA. After the fall of 1944, this headquarters moved from Brisbane to Hollandia, New Guinea, and then, during the early months of 1945, to the Philippine Islands, first at Tacloban and, after April 1945, at Manila. On 7 June 1945, Headquarters, Services of Supply, SWPA, was discontinued, and, concurrently, Headquarters, USAFWESPAC, was established.
During 1943 and the first half of 1944, USAFFE was made up of the Services of Supply organization, with its two base section subcommands which controlled the several bases on the Australian Continent, and, in New Guinea, of the Sixth U.S. Army and the Fifth Air Force. Each of these three had its own veterinary service organization, but there was no technical coordination of them at the level either of the Army theater headquarters or of Allied Headquarters, SWPA, which was retaining operational control separately over the Amy air, ground, and service forces. In the fall of 1944, Headquarters, Far East Air Forces, was created to co-
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ordinate the Fifth Air Force with the Thirteenth Air Force which now was being transferred from the SPA, and Headquarters, Eighth U.S. Army, together with additional troops received from the Zone of Interior. Also, certain air, ground, and service forces units, formerly with USAFICPA and USAFISPA, were added, as was part of the latter's island bases in the North Solomons. By the end of 1944, the Army Veterinary Service in the SWPA included 115 to 118 officers, approximately 300 enlisted personnel, and 12 or more civilian employees. Obviously, this theater veterinary strength was relatively large in comparison to troop strength, but, as in other Asiatic-Pacific theaters, the demands for them could not be measured in terms of troop strength alone because-
* * * less personnel is needed for 50,000 troops when stationed in one area than for 30,000 troops who are dispersed in many locations.
The availability of cooperating agencies such as local boards of health, meat inspectors, field dairy supervisors, sanitary inspectors, and city laboratories should be taken into consideration whenever veterinary officers are to be allocated to a theater.
The country where operations are likely to take place with reference to climatic conditions, availability of storage or refrigeration facilities, should be considered; also, whether [food] supplies are to be procured from the United States or in a country like Australia where closer scrutiny by veterinary inspecting personnel at the sources of production was required.
As of mid-January 1945, the veterinary service organization in the SWPA was distributed as follows:
Chief Surgeon's Officer, USASOS, SWPA
Surgeon's Office, Sixth U.S. Army
Surgeon's Office, Eighth U.S. Army
Medical Section, Headquarters, Far East Air Forces
Air Surgeon's Office, Fifth Air Force
Medical Section, Headquarters, Base Section (Australia)
Medical Section, Headquarters, Intermediate Section (New Guinea)
Service Command, U.S. Army Forces, Northern Solomons
Medical Section, Headquarters, XI Corps
Service Command, XIV Corps
Veterinary Branch, Procurement Division, including two branch procurement offices
Medical Sections of Base Headquarters 2, A, B, E, F, G, H, K, M; U.S. Forces, APO 320 (of Eighth U.S. Army); and Army Garrison Forces, APO 248 (of Sixth U.S. Army)
Medical Sections of Divisions: 1st Cavalry, 6th Infantry, 11th Airborne, 24th Infantry, and 32d Infantry
Veterinary Sections of Cavalry Regiments:
7th and 112th
16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital
Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments:
95th through 112th, inclusive. (Of these, the 100th was attached to the 31st Infantry Division, and the 105th was attached to the Fifth Air Force.)
Veterinary Detachments, Aviation: 3d and 4th
Headquarters, Hospital Centers: 27th and 28th
19th Medical General Laboratory
Medical Laboratories: 3d, 5th, 8th, 26th, and 27th
3d Medical Composite Detachment, Headquarters Concentration Center
Veterinary Detachment, 627th Quartermaster Refrigeration Company
Veterinary Detachment, 281st Signal Pigeon Company
Medical Section, Headquarters, 2d Port (Transportation Corps)
Medical Supply Service, Base K
1st Training Center
59th Service Group, Fifth Air Force
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With the emergence of Headquarters, USAFPAC, to consolidate all U.S. air, ground, and service units in the Pacific under a single command, the existing command structure in the SWPA was greatly changed. On 7 June 1945, Headquarters, USASOS, was discontinued, and its place was taken by Headquarters, USAFWESPAC, with location at Manila, and, on 1 July 1945, Headquarters, USAFPOA, came under jurisdiction of the consolidated command as the newly organized Headquarters, USAFMIDPAC, located at Fort Shafter. The latter, on 1 August 1945, lost operational control over the Ryukyus campaign to the senior command headquarters so that the Tenth U.S. Army and XXIV Corps became separate echelons alongside the Sixth and Eighth U.S. Armies in the new Pacific theater. Summarizing, by September 1945, Headquarters, USAFPAC, included the following major commands, each with its own veterinary service organization (but uncoordinated theaterwise):
USAFMIDPAC
USAFWESPAC
Sixth U.S. Army
Eighth U.S. Army
Tenth U.S. Army
XXIV Corps
Far East Air Forces
In a summary of veterinary activities in the SWPA, it may be observed that the Army horse and mule strength reached a peak of 4,945 in July 1943. The average strength during 1943 and 1944 was 2,794. During the period there were 4,325 admissions and 404 animals died or were destroyed. During 1943 and 1944, also, more than 3⅓ billion pounds of subsistence (including non-animal-origin foods) were inspected; approximately 23 million pounds were recommended for rejection from procurement or issue to the U.S. forces.
U.S. Army Services of Supply, Southwest Pacific Area
The Services of Supply organization, successor in July 1942 to USAFIA, provided logistic support to the American air and ground forces deployed in the otherwise joint Army-Navy and Allied theater referred to as SWPA. At various times during its existence, it comprised the only semblance of a U.S. Army oversea theater command in the SWPA, but, generally, there was little direct technical supervision by it over the air and ground forces from a theater level. Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, contained most of the special staff sections typical of a theater headquarters organization, including the nominal chief veterinarian (except for the period from February to September 1943). On 7 June 1945, this service forces organization was replaced by the newly created USAFWESPAC, which continued to administer the bases that had been set up, since the first year of the war, in Australia, on New Guinea, and in the Philippine Islands. Each of these
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three areas had its own group of military bases and its own veterinary service organization.
Initially, there were seven numbered bases (originally designated base sections) in Australia and the U.S. Advance Base in New Guinea. As the Allied combat forces island hopped westward, the original seven bases were cut back, and Headquarters, USASOS, removed them from its direct supervision by establishing, on 4 May 1944, the Base Section, later renamed Australia Base Section, for maintaining administrative control over the bases in Australia. In the meantime, as the fighting for the Solomon Islands in the SPA and for New Guinea in the SWPA progressed, the U.S. Advance Base set up subbases throughout New Guinea and on the islands nearby-Base A at Milne Bay, Base B at Oro Bay, Base C on Goodenough Island, Base D at Port Moresby, Base E at Lae, Base F at Finschhafen, Base G at Hollandia, and Base H on Biak. The first of these (Base D) was established in the fall of 1942; the last was set up on Biak during August 1944. Gradually, these bases were grouped under the central administrative control of the newly created Intermediate Section, renamed later the New Guinea Base Section, which operated on the same organization level of US ASOS as did Australia Base Section. With the return to the Philippines, additional service forces bases were established there, and these bases were soon grouped under the central administrative control of the USASOS's newly formed Luzon Base Section, later renamed Philippine Base Section.
In regard to veterinary affairs, these three base section subcommands of USASOS, SWPA, were comparable to the functional organization of Central, South, and Western Pacific Base Commands in the CPA (as of the spring of 1945). The Australia, New Guinea, and Philippine Base Sections each included assigned staff veterinarians, in the respective headquarters medical sections, who administered the veterinary activities among the various bases. The base veterinary service organizations on New Guinea and in the Philippines generally followed a standard plan which was developed in May 1944 but not until after the Army Veterinary Service had experienced major difficulties, compounded by shortages in numbers of trained food inspection personnel, with the veterinary service organizations of the original numbered bases in Australia. This new base plan provided for each to have one headquarters staff veterinarian, one port veterinarian, a (subsistence) depot veterinarian, one commissary veterinarian (and one enlisted man for each of the four officers), and one or more veterinary food inspection detachments at the rate of one detachment per every 25,000 troops up to 100,000 strength, another per every 50,000 troops over 100,000 but not more than 200,000 strength, and an additional detachment per every 100,000 troops over 200,000 strength. There were no changes in this plan so that its provisions seemed to have been adequate in satisfying the veteri-
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nary requirements, particularly for food inspection services on the Pacific island bases, during the last year of the war.
However, the plan's reference to veterinary food inspection detachments was vague because at the time there were in the theater 16 separate veterinary animal service-type detachments, then acting as food inspection organizations (except for a few being utilized in medical depot operations). These had been brought into the SWPA in connection with the theater's 1942-43 plan for deploying large numbers of pack-animal transported ground service and combat units. Nine of them (Veterinary Sections H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, and Q), each with one officer and seven enlisted personnel, were organized as the pertinent sections of a standard quartermaster remount troop, and the other seven (Veterinary Sections D, E, F, G, R, S, and Z), each with two officers and nine enlisted personnel, were patterned after the organization of the veterinary section of the field artillery 75-mm. howitzer battalion (horse). Despite this, after conversion training of the personnel from animal service to veterinary food inspection service within the theater, these detachments, beginning in the spring of 1943, were assigned food inspection duties at installations in Australia and New Guinea and on subsistence procurement inspections. Then, on 1 October 1944, the 16 detachments were inactivated, and their personnel were reassigned in the organization of 18 newly activated veterinary food inspection detachments (table 22).
TABLE 22.-Newly activated veterinary food inspection detachments, SWPA, 1 October 1944
Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment | Former Veterinary Section | Place of activation | |
Base | Location | ||
95th | D | B | Oro Bay. |
96th | E | G | Hollandia. |
97th | F | A | Milne Bay. |
98th | G | A | Do. |
99th | H | G | Hollandia. |
100th | I | 3 | Brisbane. |
101st | K | H | Biak. |
102d | L | F | Finschhafen. |
103d | M | H | Biak. |
104th | N | B | Oro Bay. |
105th | O | --- | Fifth U.S. Air Force |
106th | P | F | Finschhafen. |
107th | Q | 3 | Brisbane. |
108th | R | 2 | Townsville. |
109th | S | F | Finschhafen. |
110th | Z | E | Lae. |
111th | --- | 3 | Brisbane. |
112th | --- | 7 | Sydney. |
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Two of these detachments, the 105th and the 101st, were designated for organization and use by the Fifth Air Force, while the others were retained as service forces units and only temporarily attached to the field armies or army corps in connection with their movement into the Philippine Islands. It may be observed, however, that another such detachment in the theater was "OO" Veterinary Detachment (Food Inspection), later reorganized and renamed 743d Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment, which set up station on Leyte on 21 October 1944; this unit originally had come into the CPA from the Zone of Interior, during June 1944, and then was attached to XXIV Corps which participated in the original assault landings in the Philippine Islands. Following V-E Day, a number of detachments were named for redeployment from the European and Mediterranean theaters, but only two-the 77th and the 166th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments-actually came into the Philippine bases before the Japanese surrendered.
At the Services of Supply level of SWPA, the Army Veterinary Service, from May to June 1942, provided professional services and technical assistance in the procurement of 2,515 horses for shipment to USAFISPA; in the procurement, processing, and distribution of approximately 3,500 horses in Australia; and in the care of 1,521 mules which were received on New Guinea from the United States. The procurement program for the 3,500 horses was undertaken in Australia during the fall of 1942 after the War Department had granted authorization for the development of several field artillery pack battalions and quartermaster pack troops. It was then believed that animals alone would have to be deployed to move regimental combat teams against the Japanese where there were steaming jungles, impassable swamps, and kunai grasses many feet tall that made motor transport impossible. Animals were not deployed, and a great quantity of the military supplies were moved, from the landing beaches to the combat teams, by natives employed by the Army in New Guinea and in the early Philippine operations. In the interim or by February 1943, however, animal requirements were set at 10,800 mules and 7,500 horses. Of course, the horses were to be obtained from Australian sources, and the mules, unavailable in that country, were to be obtained from the Zone of Interior. During the next month or two, this schedule was abruptly changed when Australian Government representatives (particularly, the Director-General of Health) refused the entry of the first incoming shipment of Army mules, and the Army redirected their disembarkation on New Guinea. This was far removed from U.S. military training and staging areas then in Australia. The Australian action against the mule importations was caused by the belief that these U.S. Army animals would introduce glanders and equine encephalomyelitis disease from the North American Continent into virgin Australia and was comparable to the action that was taken later against the importation of foods of U.S. origin to supply American troops. Conversely, much more could have been expected of the controls exerted by
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the same Australian officials on the war materiel which was exported from Australia for the Army.
At about this time, there was also a major change in the theater's estimate on the urgency of pack-animal transported service and ground combat units, so that in April 1943, the horse procurement program in Australia was terminated (except to supply a few replacement animals to the units already mounted). The last shipments of mules, on requisition from the United States, arrived during July 1943. During this period, Troop A of 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron, complete with its own veterinary section, was activated within the theater (in November 1942) to set up a remount depot at Townsville, Australia, and then in July 1943 to inaugurate its Forward Echelon Remount Depot at Port Moresby, in New Guinea. The remount installation at Townsville issued horses of Australian origin to the 61st, 62d, 63d, and 68th Quartermaster Pack Troops and the 167th Field Artillery Pack Battalion-all being elements of I Corps, Sixth U.S. Army. Before the end of 1943, the units were dismounted, and their animals were turned in to the remount depot which maintained them on a caretaking, or ranchlike, basis. Veterinary service with these animals in Australia came to a halt when the Australian Army, on request, took over the control of the animals and remount materiel in the spring of 1941. Later, in August 1944 and continuing through February 1945, approximately 2,300 of the horses were transshipped to the China-Burma-India theater, but the animals did not revert to veterinary supervision until after they were loaded on the animal transports.
The advance depot facility of Troop A, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron, was established at Port Moresby during July 1943, but, by this time, approximately 1,500 mules had been brought into that area and distributed between the 98th Field Artillery Pack Battalion (arriving in February 1943) and the 16th Quartermaster Squadron (of the 1st Cavalry Division, arriving in July 1943). Along with the general dismounting of ground forces units in Australia, these two units on New Guinea turned in their animals to Forward Echelon Remount Depot during the winter of 1943-44; before the end of November 1944, the depot processed these mules (1,340 in number) for transshipment to the China-Burma-India theater and then ceased operations. The 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital, originally arriving in New Guinea in February 1943 and assigned to the Sixth U.S. Army, provided the required veterinary animal services to the depot and, shortly after the depot closed, departed for the Philippine Islands to augment the veterinary food inspection services there.
In the SWPA, the Army Veterinary Service had considerably more to do with the food supply than it had to do with the military horses and mules. This was particularly true in Australia where the local food industries furnished the U.S. armed services in that area with the major share of their subsistence requirements; also, considerable quantities of meat and dairy
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products were transshipped to the Army and Navy in the SPA. Throughout the greater part of 1942, the troops in Australia were rationed by the Australian Army, though certain items, needed to supplement the Australian ration, were obtained by local Army procurement. Also, small stockpiles of subsistence were built up from excess ships stores and from distress cargoes on ships that had been diverted to Australia from their scheduled sailing routes on account of Japanese naval activity. At first, there were an insufficient number of veterinary personnel available to inspect this food supply, and some doubt existed at theater headquarters level as to the status of Army veterinary officers even to conduct inspections on the Australian Army-supplied foods (fig. 27). In other words, in the beginning this situation here was comparable to that developing and continuing for the greater part of the early war period in New Zealand by the Joint Army-Navy Purchasing Board. However, by mid-1942, veterinary officers in many base sections of Australia, pursuant to local command authority and supported in their actions by respective surgeons, were convinced of the need for, and were, inspecting the meat and dairy supply to troops in their areas. Subsequently, in November 1942, the Quartermaster Corps was authorized to start the procurement of 200,000 rations of nonperishable subsistence for
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the Army and in February 1943 established a depot organization to procure, store, and distribute these rations, thus replacing the existing Australian Army supply procedure. Concurrently, the lethargic attitude taken by Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, toward veterinary procurement inspection in Australia was dropped, and adequate veterinary meat and dairy hygiene service was soon developed. There is no question that the recent outbreak of botulism (with 9 fatal cases) in a U.S. engineer regiment, attributed to uninspected canned beets of Australian origin, and an outbreak of 500 cases of milkborne typhoid fever (with 28 deaths) in the civilian population of an Australian town, mentioned previously, both emphasized the need for the Army to safeguard its town troop health and to recognize this on a theaterwide command level. In fact, what might have been a Spanish-American War type of Army embalmed meat scandal in the SWPA was averted by the theater's requisitioning for and authorizing the travel by airplane of several Veterinary Corps officers from the Zone of Interior.
During the period of Australian Army supply, the various local base section veterinarians conducted sanitary surveys of the Australian meat and dairy industries and of the national and local regulatory or governmental controls over them. There was no fluid milk market such as existed in the United States, and considerable efforts were expended and time elapsed before the Army Veterinary Service, in cooperation with local Australian officials, could develop such a market for most of the military bases. Probably the first modern fresh-milk shed to be developed in Australia was that set up and operated under veterinary supervision at Townsville. There, as in other Australian areas, problems existed, such as the improvement of dairy farms to operate at standards of sanitation higher than those characteristic of farms producing for butter and cheese industries, the development of tuberculin-tested and tuberculosis-free dairy herds, the inauguration of adequate milk transport routes from the milk-producing areas, and the requirement for proper milk pasteurization equipment (fig. 28). In various areas, the veterinary demands for such fluid milk markets were criticized. In one area, Army veterinary officers cooperated, on request, in a state program to tuberculin test 15,000 cattle which were included in the milkshed of a large city that also entered in the supply of milk to troops. In another area, the Army Veterinary Service was faced with Australian claims that the Army should pay indemnity costs for the conduct of a tuberculosis test-and?eradication program.
In regard to the fresh meat supplied by the Australian Army, the Army Veterinary Service alone initiated safeguards to protect the health of U.S. military personnel and the economic interests of the United States. At the beginning, sanitary inspections of establishments and ante mortem and post mortem inspections were conducted in a somewhat apologetic manner to civilian suppliers under Australian Army contract, informally, and with little or no objections against such Veterinary Corps inspections being
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raised by the concerned Australian Army supply or liaison officers (7). During June 1942, a base section veterinary officer forwarded recommendations through medical and command channels of communication to Headquarters, USAFIA, for restricting the Australian Army sources of fresh meat to commercial establishments which were operating under supervision of the Australian Department of Commerce and for augmenting the theater's Army veterinary food inspection service with more personnel to be requisitioned from the Zone of Interior. The headquarters adjutant general soon advised that this was being accomplished, adding that a memorandum had been promulgated on the supply only of meat to the Army from such inspected plants. The Australian Army supply officers, however, were not subjected to such U.S. military regulation, although the memorandum did have some application in regard to local purchases of meat that were being made by various U.S. Army commands or units.
During August 1942, the same veterinary officer initiated another recommendation (which was endorsed to the successor Headquarters, USASOS,
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SWPA) for action to amend the Australian contracts (or tenders) to include a requirement for the inspection and identification by the Veterinary Corps of all foods of animal origin that were being procured for U.S. troops. The basis for this recommendation was that the two abattoirs supplying fresh meat locally were "* * * decidedly not meeting sanitary inspections of our Army, and not unlike the slaughter houses seen years ago in isolated rural communities in the U.S." and were operating under the part-time supervision of a local state, nonprofessionally qualified Australian inspector. The local base commander had authorized that informal arrangements be made between the base veterinarian and the Australian contractor for the conduct of Veterinary Corps ante mortem and post mortem inspections, but Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, seemed deliberately to have failed to recognize this problem as one existing at all military bases and thus took no positive action with regard to the recommendation that was made. As late as 20 October 1942, headquarters assistant chief of staff, G-4 (Supply), acknowledged this and admitted that from what he "* * * saw being butchered in the Darwin area, it [the meat] was all pretty poor; but believe that most of it was better than horse meat"-further adding that Army veterinary food inspection activities were a problem of local command responsibility, that these inspections would complicate the procedure of Australian Army subsistence supply, and that "* * * we are bound to have many annoyances and conflict" which must be excused in the existing supply procedure. Military logistics now had reached a new low point wherewith U.S. Army medical considerations for protecting troop health and effecting easily attained economies were completely subordinated to supply affairs and niceties of inter-Allied cooperation.
Eventually, the responsibilities for procuring the Army's and Navy's subsistence were transferred from the Australian Army and were largely centralized in a theater quartermaster organization, complete with its own veterinary service. This was the Quartermaster Subsistence Depot, later evolving into the Procurement Division, USASOS, SWPA, with headquarters at Sydney, Australia. It first undertook the procurement, storage, and distribution of nonperishable (or canned) subsistence in the early months of 1943 and then gradually assumed the buying of perishable foods for the Army and Navy. Meat and dairy products which could not be obtained within the theater were requisitioned from the Zone of Interior. In the canned meat procurement operations, the Army Veterinary Service reported on many changes that were necessarily made in the Australian meat industry which in 1942 had only a few canning plants and produced little over 3 million pounds of canned products for the Army. In 1943 and 1944, veterinary inspections of Army procurements totaled 49,500,000 pounds and 79,632,843 pounds, respectively, of canned meats of Australian manufacture. In mid-1942, Army veterinary officers successfully advised also on the development of frozen boneless beef production in Australia as a means of
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FIGURE 29.-Trier inspection of cured and smoked ham, Melbourne, Australia.
conserving Australian refrigeration space, Allied shipping space, manpower in military messhalls, and meat scraps and fats that could be used elsewhere.
Probably, the most vexatious inspection problem concerned cured and smoked products such as bacon and ham, because the U.S. procurement specifications purposefully were suspended by the quartermaster agency to stimulate the production of these items (fig. 29). Under this situation, the Army Veterinary Service could only stimulate the cooperative interests in contractors to produce cured and smoked products which could be distributed to the island bases without deterioration and spoilage occurring during their transshipment from Australia. Actually, there were spoilages and losses of large quantities of Australian-produced bacon and ham, but the effect of the veterinary inspection (and educational) program began to show in better products within a year or more. However, the efforts on the 1944 output were almost nullified when the skipper fly (Piophilia casei) infested many commercial plants. The butter and cheese production in Australia, as would be expected, presented no major problems in connection with veterinary procurement inspections. There was no regulatory control by the Australians over their production of poultry except that which was set up and maintained
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by the Army Veterinary Service after the fall of 1942. It may be noted that the theater's quartermaster supply of the first holiday turkey to Army troops (on Thanksgiving Day, 1942) was little if any better than was experienced several thousand miles away in the China-Burma-India theater at the same time; in Australia, the veterinary inspections were limited to that conducted after its arrival at the military bases, strictly to determine if the turkey was fit to eat.
The quantities of subsistence lost on account of deterioration and spoilage were great. There were a large number of factors contributing to these losses, most of them outside of the jurisdiction of veterinary food surveillance inspection within the theater. Under the existing conditions where subsistence deteriorated insidiously, was rehandled many times, most frequently exposed for varying periods of time to tropical humidity and heat without protective covering, and was stockpiled on island bases and as reserves which soon became excess as the combat troops moved westward, there was little which could be accomplished to lessen the losses. The adverse conditions affecting subsistence supply in the SWPA were matched only by those influencing subsistence deterioration and spoilage in the SPA and in the China-Burma-India theater. By the end of the war, the principal veterinary effort on most island bases was directed at the immediate removal of spoiled foods from the issues being made to military units, and recommendations were made against the transshipment of deteriorated subsistence which would spoil before arrival at another island base.
Australian base sections.-On the Australian Continent, Army Service Forces personnel and activities generally were divided between seven regional administrative areas, called base sections or bases (map 3). Between April and May 1942, the headquarters medical officers in Base Sections 2, 3, 5, and 7 each were assigned staff veterinarians. Base Section 6, comprising western Australia, became largely a U.S. Navy base of operations, and it was not until February 1944 that, on request, a Veterinary Corps officer was assigned there (fig. 30). In fact, Base Section 6 together with Base Section 5 had so few Army personnel that both were discontinued by the end of 1942, and, instead, U.S. representatives were named to the Adelaide and the Perth areas. A new, or the second, Base Section 5 with headquarters at Cairns was established in September 1943 when operations in Base Section 2, incident to the movement of materiel from northeastern Australia into the New Guinea Campaign, became so large as to require the division of the geographical area immediately surrounding Cairns from Base Section 2; however, in the early months of 1944, this base section became Base Area Command Two, subordinate to Base Section 2, and then closed out on 31 May 1944.
By the winter of 1942-43, there were serious shortages in numbers of veterinary personnel available for assignment to the various base subsections, but, during the succeeding months, as personnel became available, a second
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problem evolved. The personnel space authorizations for base overhead organizations were found to be numerically inadequate. Actually, most bases were complex organizations, including, as they did, a service command, a port command, and an area command. Although only two veterinary officers (and
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no enlisted personnel) were prescribed in the tables for each base section, in April 1943, Base Sections 2, 3, and 4 actually had seven, seven, and three veterinary officers assigned, respectively. With respect to this situation, on 6 April 1943, Headquarters, USAFFE (G-1, Personnel), was advised by the theater surgeon that the Services of Supply base section organization should be revised upward to provide 2 officer and 10 enlisted spaces for Base Section 1, 7 officer and 20 enlisted spaces for Base Sections 2 and 3 and Advance (New Guinea) Base, and 3 officer and 10 enlisted spaces for Base Sections 4 and 7. During the fall of 1943, the veterinary food inspection activities in each of the several base section subcommands were augmented by the attachment of one or more veterinary detachments which had become excess to the requirements for service with animals in remount depots and mounted units.
As the combat area moved through New Guinea, the services of supply activities in Australia generally became of lesser importance. In mid-1944, Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, renamed and reorganized the original base sections as Bases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7, subordinating these to the jurisdiction of the newly established Headquarters, Base Section. Concurrently, Base Section 4 or the Melbourne area was subordinated as a subbase to Base 7, and, on 17 July
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1944, Base 1 or the Darwin area was transferred to the jurisdiction of the theater air forces. On 12 December 1944, Base 3 or the Brisbane area was absorbed into Headquarters, Australia Base Section, which continued to administer the service forces still remaining in Australia, but it was not until June 1945 that Bases 2 (at Townsville) and 7 (at Sydney) were closed.
New Guinea bases.-The services of supply organization on New Guinea started with the establishment in the fall of 1942 of U.S. Advance Base at Port Moresby. Before the end of that year, subbases were set up at Oro Bay and Milne Bay, and, during the spring of 1943, another was established on Goodenough Island which was occupied by the Sixth U.S. Army. Eventually, these several subbases, under jurisdiction of Headquarters, Advance Base, became Base A (at Milne Bay), Base B (at Oro Bay), Base C (on Goodenough Island), and Base D (at Port Moresby). As of 6 January 1943, one veterinary officer was assigned to the main advance base at Port Moresby and another at Fall River; in February, the 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital arrived in the area to support two mounted units and a remount depot facility that came into operation there. During the greater part of the year, the Milne Bay area was the major base for receiving, storing, and distributing subsistence to the combat forces on New Guinea; after the Buna?Gona campaign, Base B became equally active.
As the Allied forces pushed westward along the northern New Guinea coastline, the original Advance Base or Section staff was reorganized as Headquarters, Intermediate Section, USASOS (with location at Milne Bay and then moving several times after that) to coordinate services of supply activities at Bases A, B, and D. Concurrently, a new Advance Section (with headquarters at Lae and, after January 1944, at Finschhafen) was created to coordinate these activities at two newly formed bases: Base E (at Lae) and Base F (at Finschhafen). The new Advance Section was only temporary and, in March 1944, it was disbanded; the Lae and Finschhafen bases were then added to the jurisdiction of Headquarters, Intermediate Section. Actually, by March 1944, Base F had replaced the more easterly located bases as the major subsistence storage and distribution area in New Guinea. During this time, each New Guinea base was assigned its own veterinary personnel, and veterinary animal service organizations (later reorganized as food inspection detachments) were received from the bases in Australia and deployed at ration dumps. The first group of thirteen such detachments in New Guinea came into Base F during February, March, and April 1944, while others were sent into Base A. This veterinary food inspection organization at the base level was technically supervised by a Veterinary Corps staff officer assigned to the Medical Section, Headquarters, Intermediate Section.
Eventually, other bases were established at Hollandia in June 1944 and on Biak in August 1944, Base G and Base H, respectively. These, along with Bases A, B, C, D, E, and F, soon were subordinated under Headquarters, Intermediate Section. Units in New Guinea, other than the veterinary food
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inspection detachments and those supporting mounted units and remount depot installations that had assigned veterinary personnel, at one time, included: At Milne Bay, 2d Medical Concentration Center (renamed in December 1944 as 31st Hospital Center) and 5th Medical Laboratory; at Oro Bay, 3d Medical Laboratory; at Finschhafen, 26th Medical Laboratory and 627th Quartermaster Refrigeration Company; at Hollandia, 3d Medical Composite Detachment (of Headquarters Concentration Center), 3d Medical Laboratory, 19th Medical General Laboratory, 27th Hospital Center, and 112th Cavalry Regiment (Dismounted); and on Biak Island, 8th Medical Laboratory and 28th Medical Center. Before the end of 1944, many of these veterinary personnel and units had already departed from, or were preparing to leave, the New Guinea bases for the Philippine Islands (table 23).
Effective on 15 February 1945, Headquarters, Intermediate Section, became Headquarters, New Guinea Base Section, with location at Oro Bay, which continued to administer the seven bases in the area until its disbandment on 20 August 1945. Headquarters, New Guinea Base Section, lost its staff veterinarian (by transfer to the Philippines) in March 1945, and after that date, veterinary activities at the various bases were rapidly reduced. With the discontinuance of Headquarters, New Guinea Base Section, the
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bases were subordinated directly under Headquarters, USAFWESPAC, which more or less closed them by the spring of 1946.
U.S. Army Forces, Northern Solomons.-Another command, comprising island bases in the vicinity of New Guinea that was never under jurisdiction of the theater's service forces organization, was U.S. Army Forces, Northern Solomons, with headquarters on Bougainville. This was created (under the operational responsibility of XIV Corps), on 7 November 1944, to consolidate the administration over the troops and the following areas formerly assigned to USAFISPA and transferred on 15 June 1944 to jurisdiction of SWPA: Bougainville, Emirau, Green Islands, New Georgia, and Treasury Islands. Each included a service command veterinarian, but shortly after 31 December 1944 when the service commands were renamed U.S. Army Forces commands, these veterinary personnel gradually departed as the island bases were rolled up (before June-July 1945). In January 1945, the Bougainville Service Command veterinarian was assigned as headquarters veterinarian, U.S. Army Forces, Northern Solomons, and, on 20 August 1945, that command was discontinued.
Philippine Island bases.-In the Philippine Islands which were retaken from the Japanese after the fall of 1944, the Army Veterinary Service with USASOS, SWPA, followed much the same pattern of base development used earlier in Australia and New Guinea. The original Philippine bases were developed by an Army Service Command organization which originally was attached to the Sixth U.S. Army (between July 1944 and February 1945). That organization, while staging at Hollandia, developed Headquarters, Base K, which set up station on Leyte, at Tacloban in October 1944, and Headquarters, Base M, which set up station on Luzon, first at San Fabian in January 1945 and then at San Fernando. Later, the Army Service Command created Headquarters, Base R, for operation on Luzon at Batangas (which was 60 miles south of Manila), and Headquarters, Base S, which was set up as a service forces organization on Cebu (map 4). In February 1945, the Army Service Command was released from Sixth U.S. Army to control of USASOS, and, as the newly named Luzon Base Section, it assumed operational control over Bases K, M, and X-the latter being located in Manila; in April 1945, Bases R and S were added and the Luzon Base Section was renamed Philippine Base Section. Throughout this organization, the base section headquarters or staff veterinarian coordinated the veterinary personnel and activities in the various subbases.
During June 1945, Headquarters, Philippine Base Section, was transferred as a major subcommand to USAFWESPAC, which had replaced the theater's service organization. Following V-J Day, on 6 October 1945, it was discontinued, and the Philippine bases (that is, K, M, X, R, and S) came under immediate jurisdiction of the recently formed Headquarters, USAFWESPAC. As of mid-1945, the Philippine Base Section Headquarters and its five bases each included one or two veterinary officers and a total
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MAP 4.-Army bases in the Philippine Islands, 1945
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of 15 veterinary food inspection detachments. At this time also, the Sixth and Eighth U.S. Armies in the Philippine Islands had set up three divisional area commands to overcome the minor Japanese resistance in bypassed islands or wherever small groups of Japanese had fled to hide in caves. One such area was Morotai, taken over by the Eighth U.S. Army's 93d Division and included in Southern Islands Area Command; the 100th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment arrived on Morotai during March 1945 and remained there until 26 December 1945. In August 1945, the Southern Islands Area Command was released from army control to Headquarters, USAFWESPAC.
Procurement Division.-An activity separate from that conducted at base level was that of the Veterinary Branch, Procurement Division, USASOS, SWPA, which operated in Australia (8, 9). This procurement agency was established in mid-February 1943 originally as the Quartermaster Subsistence Depot, at Sydney, for the purpose of conducting food procurement in Australia for the Armed Forces. For a brief period of time, in the fall of 1943, the original depot organization was expanded into a general depot and later subordinated to Australian Base Section 7's service command, but, during January 1944, another reorganization saw the development finally of the Procurement Division. Later that year, when Headquarters, USASOS, moved into New Guinea and thence into the Philippines, this Procurement Division was transferred to administrative control of the Australia Base Section. When the original depot was established, Headquarters, USAFFE, obtained War Department authorization as regards the personnel who would be included, but only one veterinary officer was authorized on the basis of the theater's request. As soon as the subsistence depot organization was shown to be deficient in numbers of veterinary personnel, the aforementioned headquarters hurriedly made amends to provide for a depot veterinary service-this on suggestion of the chief surgeon's office which had questioned the manifest lack of coordination between theater headquarters planning staff (G-3) and Medical Department staff officers. Later, an overhead personnel allotment for 8 veterinary officers and 28 enlisted personnel was authorized, but even this number was inadequate as compared with the situation in mid?1944 when there were 18 officers and 52 enlisted personnel assigned or attached for duty.
These personnel were divided between the division's headquarters and the two of three subsistence subdepots or branch procurement offices, as they were called later, that were set up at Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. In 1944, a veterinary officer was assigned to the Navy-administered Perth area to organize procurement inspections (utilizing Navy enlisted men) of subsistence originating in commercial establishments. Except in the Perth area, where procurement inspections were extended to all subsistence (including fruits and vegetables), the Army Veterinary Service with the Procurement Division was concerned with the inspection only of meat and dairy products.
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At the beginning, this agency limited its procurement to nonperishable (or canned) products, but later these operations were extended to the buying of perishables, and, in fact, a quartermaster market center system was created that paralleled perishable subsistence buying and distribution in the Zone of Interior. As of the end of 1944, veterinary food procurement inspections were being conducted in 154 commercial food establishments (including 10 plants under contract to supply foods of nonanimal origin); these were scattered throughout Australia in 44 cities and towns (figs. 31 and 32). All such establishments were surveyed and repeatedly inspected for their sanitary condition by Veterinary Corps officers. During 1944, veterinary inspections of products at time of delivery to, or acceptance by, the Army totaled 261,186,946 pounds of meat and dairy products and 61,053,237 pounds of non-animal-origin foods. Of these quantities, 3,470,686 pounds and 1,047,730 pounds, respectively, were recommended as unacceptable for procurement because of insanitary condition or unsoundness or because of improper grade or quality.
During 1945, as the combat area moved westward into the Philippines, the extent of subsistence procurement operations in Australia declined. How-
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ever, even during the 3-month period from April through June, the veterinary inspection workload at time of purchase totaled 38,796,692 pounds of meat and dairy products and 3,875,324 pounds of non-animal-origin foods, of which amount a total of 63,058 pounds were recommended for rejection. Of course, by this time, the identity of the Procurement Division was lost in the general organization of Headquarters, Australia Base Section (actually after February 1945), and such veterinary personnel as remained in Australia were being utilized not only to conduct subsistence procurement inspections, though this was their major activity, but also in a variety of other service forces activities. As of 30 June 1945, the Australia Base Section's service included 18 officers, 76 enlisted personnel, and 5 civilian employees.
Okinawa Base Command.-During the early period of the campaign in the Ryukyu Islands, services of supply activities there were transferred from jurisdiction of the Tenth U.S. Army and its combat forces to a joint Army-Navy administered Island Command headquarters. Also, two army garrison forces or logistic support commands accompanied the landing forces on Okinawa and Ie Shima Islands, each with its own staff veterinary officers and one or more veterinary food inspection detachments. About a month after the campaign was underway, the original Army Garrison Force, APO 331, that came into Okinawa was merged in the Island Command organization so that the garrison force veterinarian soon was elevated in his staff
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status to the supervision of veterinary affairs on an island-wide basis. This included, in cooperation with the Tenth U.S. Army's veterinarian, maintenance of direct liaison with Marine Corps units in regard to the inspection of their food supply and with military government officers in connection with civil affairs. Effective on 1 August 1945, when jurisdiction over the Ryukyu area was transferred from USAFMIDPAC to USAFWESPAC, the Island Command was renamed Okinawa Base Command. At this date, the Army Veterinary Service in the Ryukyus included those few with Tenth U.S. Army units and the following:
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Okinawa Base Command:
142d, 143d, 144th, 145th, and 149th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
69th and 70th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments (arriving during August 1945 from the Mediterranean theater)
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, Ie Shima:
147th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Army Garrison Force, APO 458
Veterinary Section, 14th Medical Laboratory
Veterinary Section, 53d Medium Port
On 25-26 August 1945, the 142d, 143d, 144th, and 69th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments were assigned to jurisdiction of Army Service Command-24 (under XXIV Corps) and departed during October for Korea; the 149th left on 21 October 1945 for Japan.
Sixth and Eighth U.S. Armies and Other Ground Forces
The veterinary service organization with ground forces units in the SWPA was never large and generally was outside the technical supervision of the nominal theater veterinarian. At the beginning of the war period, most of the infantry divisions coming into the area had their own division veterinarians, including the 41st and 32d Infantry Divisions which arrived in Australia during May 1942. After 1943, when the War Department had revised tables for the organization of infantry divisions and deleted the veterinary personnel space authorizations, only a few continued to retain their division veterinarians, and the following observation was made (7):
The need for veterinary officers with Infantry Divisions of the Sixth Army as well as for other similar units was realized as operations proceeded in the tropical New Guinea jungles, and was the subject of informal conversation between the liaison officer of the Sixth Army at Headquarters, United States Army Services of Supply and the Veterinary Consultant. Much food could have been saved had such veterinary personnel been available. The following quoted notes made by the Veterinary Consultant on 8 May [1944] during an inspection at Finschhafen, N.G., are considered pertinent: "-----------?Visited Dregget Ration Dump. Veterinary officers reported that when the 41st Division pulled out, they left 75 tons of loose rations. Some were poorly taken care of. Out of the 75 tons, 15 tons had to be condemned. The 32d Division and 1st Cavalry Division also left about 150 tons and the loss after inspection was 15 tons or 10%. All these supplies were badly weathered and apparently deteriorated while in possession of the 6th Army * * *."
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Later in 1944 the Commanding General, Sixth Army, finally requested the inclusion of a Major, VC, and 2 enlisted men on the T/O for each Infantry Division of the Sixth Army. This request was disapproved by the War Department. The War Department indicated that such veterinary personnel as are needed for divisions in the Southwest Pacific Area can be secured from those allotted to the theater as a whole. Accordingly, a number of veterinary officers were assigned to duty with Infantry Divisions and Task Forces. This procedure had its drawbacks, inasmuch as these officers were taken from and charged to the meager overall allotment of grades to United States Army Services of Supply; also no recognition in the form of promotions could ever be expected by these officers while in that status.
In the spring of 1943, the 1st Cavalry Division complete with the organic veterinary detachments for Headquarters Troop, 1st and 2d Cavalry Brigades, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 12th Cavalry Regiments, and 82d and 99th Field Artillery Battalions, and with its veterinary troop, arrived from the Zone of Interior but without its animals. Only 20 horses were provided to the division (August through November 1943) while in Australia, and, during July 1943, the division's 16th Cavalry Quartermaster Squadron, accompanying a shipment of approximately 300 mules, disembarked on New Guinea. The latter unit, in November 1943, turned in its animals to the Advance Echelon Remount Depot installation at Port Moresby as the whole division was being reorganized preparatory to deployment as dismounted cavalry. In this reorganization, Veterinary Troop, 1st Medical Squadron, was redesignated 2d Collecting Troop, 1st Mountain Medical Squadron, and, generally, the divisional veterinary enlisted personnel were absorbed by other medical units of the division while the veterinary officers, though utilized for some period of time on a miscellany of duties within the division, were gradually transferred. The 1st Cavalry Division, though the largest, was not the only ground forces unit authorized to be mounted or to have animals for a short period of time. As was commented upon earlier, the 98th Field Artillery Pack Battalion arrived on New Guinea in February 1943 with 600 mules from the United States (and received another 600 mules in June of that year); in Australia, the 61st, 62d, 63d, and 68th Quartermaster Pack Troops and the 167th Field Artillery Pack Battalion were activated and organized locally and provided with horses purchased outright or obtained through lend-lease in Australia. These units, attached to I Corps, were included in the composition of the Sixth U.S. Army, whose mean animal strength, exclusive of 1st Cavalry Division, increased from 1,525.4 for the month of May 1943 to 2,427.8 animals for July 1943. Then, in the late months of that year, the pack horse units in Australia were dismounted or inactivated, and their animals were returned to the Services of Supply remount depot installation at Townsville. Before the end of March 1944, the 98th Field Artillery Pack Battalion on New Guinea was reorganized without its animals, which were turned in to the Port Moresby remount depot installation. Thus, with one minor exception, there was no ground forces unit with horses or mules in the SWPA after the spring of 1944.
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The exceptional circumstance pertains to the 33d Infantry Division during the fight for Baguio in the spring of 1945. Because of the shortages here in numbers of natives available for employment as laborers and the mountainous terrain which made vehicular traffic useless, the division improvised an animal pack train from 60 or more animals, which were captured from the Japanese, to move ammunition, water, food, and other supplies to its frontline troops. A veterinary officer on duty with the XI Corps was detailed to care for these animals. During June and July 1945, this pack train was virtually disbanded when one-half of the animals died or were destroyed because of surra infection.
Throughout this period, Headquarters, Sixth U.S. Army, which had come into the SWPA in the spring of 1943, had a staff veterinarian assigned to the headquarters medical section. With the actions during the winter of 1943-44 that had led to the dismounting of pack troops and artillery battalions and preparations for deploying the cavalry division without animals, the army veterinarian centered his attention on the administration of food inspection services at field supply points.
During July 1944, Headquarters, Eighth U.S. Army, arrived from the Zone of Interior, but its senior staff veterinary officer was returned to the United States 5 months later, and the army surgeon made no effort to obtain a replacement officer. However, the junior veterinary officer with that headquarters was continued in his assignment in the capacity as acting army veterinarian. Generally, Eighth U.S. Army's requirements for veterinary services were provided by the Sixth U.S. Army and Services of Supply, but, lacking central supervision, these veterinary activities were conducted in only a passable manner.
A third field army veterinary service organization came into the SWPA in mid-1945 when the Tenth U.S. Army, just then terminating the Ryukyus campaign, was received by transfer from the CPA.
Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces
The veterinary service organization with the air forces in the SWPA probably began in 1943 when a Veterinary Corps officer stationed in the Darwin area came under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Air Force. The headquarters staff and air service command for Fifth Air Force was organized in the fall of 1942; initially, both medical sections operated together at Brisbane. Later in that year, Advance Echelon, Fifth Air Force, became operational in New Guinea (at Port Moresby), and, by March 1943, it had a staff veterinarian as did the main headquarters in Australia. During the opening months of 1944, the Fifth Air Force's veterinary service was augmented by the assignment of Veterinary Section K, later reorganized as 101st Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment, for duty at airbases in the New Guinea area (such as at Dobodura, Finschhafen, Gusap, Saidor, Nadzab,
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Wakde, and Biak ). Later, the detachment moved into the Philippines, finally setting up station at Clark Field on Luzon in April 1945. During August 1944, a second such unit, Veterinary Section O, or 105th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment as it was called after November, was set up under air forces control at Darwin.
In June 1944, the SWPA gained the Thirteenth Air Force by transfer from the SPA, and, concurrently, the two headquarters staffs of Fifth Air Force were reorganized-its advance echelon becoming the new Headquarters, Fifth Air Force, and the main staff group becoming the new Headquarters, USAFFE. Subsequently, two air forces type of veterinary food inspection detachments were activated in the theaters, the 3d Veterinary Detachment, Aviation (originally with three sections, and after August 1944 with five subsections), being organized on 11 May 1944, at Nadzab, New Guinea, for duty with the Fifth Air Force; and the 4th Veterinary Detachment, Aviation (including the basic detachment and two subsections, designated Sections I and II), being organized on Morotai Island on 15 October 1944, for duty with the Thirteenth Air Force. Both detachments operated by dispersion of the component elements to the numerous, widely scattered bases of their respective air forces and moved frequently to new locations. For example, the basic detachment or headquarters element of 3d Veterinary Detachment, Aviation, moved on 11 August 1944, to Biak Island; on 15 February 1945, to Luzon (Clark Field); on 10 July 1945, to Ie Shima Island; and then in early September 1945 to airbases in Japan, first at Atsugi and then on 17 October 1945, at Tachikawa. The 4th Veterinary Detachment, Aviation, also operating in split sections, moved its basic detachment into the Philippine Islands during August and September 1945 (replacing the 3d Veterinary Detachment at Clark Field); its Section I opened at Palawan in the spring of 1945, and Section II moved to station at Samar, both sections being disbanded at these places on 23 October and 30 September 1945, respectively. There was some coordination of the veterinary services of these two air forces at the level of Headquarters, Far East Air Forces, because in November 1944 at least one veterinary officer was released from Base D, USASOS, for assignment to that headquarters. In late 1945, the theater's air forces were augmented by the addition of the Seventh Air Force by transfer from the CPA, but the Seventh Air Force, with headquarters then located on Saipan, had no organically assigned veterinary personnel or detachments.
U.S. ARMY FORCES, PACIFIC
The establishment, on 3 April 1945, of USAFPAC marked the beginning consolidation of Army commands in the Pacific theater (less that of the Alaskan Department). Originally, it absorbed USAFFE, and on 7 June 1945, the latter's USASOS organization was replaced by the new USAFWESPAC, with headquarters at Manila. The USAFPOA was added on
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1 July 1945, under the new name of USAFMIDPAC, with headquarters continuing at Fort Shafter. The Western and Middle Pacific commands each had staff veterinary officers in their respective headquarters medical sections. Headquarters, USAFPAC, however, did not have a staff veterinarian until after V-J Day when the veterinarian, Western Pacific command, was moved upward into the position of senior headquarters veterinarian. At the time of the Japanese surrender, the major commands of USAFPAC having staff or headquarters veterinarians included:
USAFMIDPAC
USAFWESPAC
Sixth and Eighth U.S. Armies or Occupation for Japan
Tenth U.S. Army (on Okinawa )
XXIV Corps or Occupation Force for Korea
Far East Air Forces (renamed Pacific Air Command, U.S. Army, in December 1945)
Also, there were those veterinary officers on duty or arriving for assignment and duty with General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, which established military government in Japan and Korea. In October 1945, Headquarters, USAFPAC, added veterinary personnel to its medical section, and, during February 1946, that section moved from Manila to new location in Tokyo, Japan.6 As of the end of 1945, the Army Veterinary Service in the Pacific theater included 127 officers, but before the end of another year this number was only 43.
U.S. Army Forces, Middle Pacific
In the immediate postwar period, the Army command of Middle Pacific (or successor, after 1 June 1945, to USAFPOA) was rapidly reduced. On 1 November 1945, its Central Pacific Base Command was disbanded and the latter's headquarters medical section was merged with the surgeon's office of Headquarters, USAFMIDPAC, to form Headquarters, Oahu Medical Service. The Veterinary Section, Headquarters, Oahu Medical Service, comprised the Middle Pacific's central office for administering the veterinary service organization in the Hawaiian Islands and in the South and the Western Pacific Base Commands. As observed previously, the two base subcommands were also reduced. As of the end of 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFMIDPAC included 21 Veterinary and 1 Medical Administrative Corps officers and approximately 100 enlisted personnel.
U.S. Army Forces, Western Pacific
During the immediate postwar period, the USAFWESPAC, the second and the larger of the two territorial subcommands of USAFPAC, administered the veterinary service organization which remained on the
6On 1 January 1947, USAFPAC became the Far East Command.
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bases scattered from Australia through New Guinea and in the Philippines and Ryukyus. By the end of 1945, the Australia Base Section was only a skeletal organization. The New Guinea Base Section headquarters had been disbanded (in August) so that its Bases F (at Finschhafen), G (at Hollandia), and H (on Biak) were subordinated directly under the supervision of Headquarters, USAFWESPAC, as were the Philippines Bases K (at Tacloban), M (at San Fernando), and X (at Manila) whose immediate headquarters organization, the former Philippine Base Section, had been discontinued (in October 1945); also, there was the Okinawa Base Command. As of 31 December 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFWESPAC comprised 39 officers and 83 enlisted personnel. The officers were assigned as follows:
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFWESPAC:
19th Medical General Laboratory
Procurement Division and Branch Procurement Offices 1 and 2, Australia Base Section
Surgeon's Office, Base G (Hollandia, New Guinea)
Surgeon's Office, Base K (on Leyte Island)
Port, Base K
743d Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
99th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment (Subbase S on Cebu Island)
671st Medium Port (Subbase S on Cebu Island)
Surgeon's Office, Base M (San Fernando, Luzon Island):
77th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
Surgeon's Office, Base X (Manila, Luzon Island):
100th, 110th, and 166th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
3088th and 3094th Quartermaster Refrigeration Companies
Surgeon's Office, 2d Major Port
Surgeon's Office, Subbase R (Batangas, Luzon Island)
93d Infantry Division Area Command (on Morotai Island)
Surgeon's Office, Okinawa Base Command
145th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
279th Signal Pigeon Combat Platoon
146th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment, Army Garrison Force, Ie Shima
Military Occupation Forces
With the surrender of Japan, USAFPAC moved its Sixth and Eighth U.S. Armies from the Philippine Islands into the Japanese home islands and its XXIV Corps (now separated from Tenth U.S. Army control) from the Ryukyus into Korea. The Sixth U.S. Army with its Army Service Command-O became the military occupation force for southern Honshu and Kyushu, and the Eighth U.S. Army with Army Service Command-C occupied northern Honshu and Hokkaido-the first with headquarters at Kyoto, and the second with headquarters at Yokohama. The two army service commands comprised the basic veterinary service organization in regard to the occupying military forces. Other veterinary officers were assigned to military government teams and to General Headquarters, Supreme Commander
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for the Allied Powers, who were concerned with Japanese civilian affairs. During the early months of 1946, as the Eighth U.S. Army assumed the occupational role for all of Japan, Army Service Command-C absorbed Army Service Command-O and administered the various military bases that were developed, such as at Kobe, Kure, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Yokohama.
Headquarters, XXIV Corps, and Army Service Command-24, each with a staff veterinarian, moved into the southern part of Korea (below the 38th North parallel of latitude) in September 1945. During the first few months, the corps veterinarian surveyed the local food and animal industries and cooperated in the conduct of military government operations over Korean civil affairs. However, before the end of the year, the latter activities were assumed by the newly formed U.S. Army Military Government in Korea, to which veterinary personnel were assigned. Headquarters, XXIV Corps, later referred to as Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in Korea, set up station at Seoul, while Army Service Command-24, renamed Korea Base Command (in April 1946), set up its headquarters at Ascom City (in the vicinity of Inchon). Other areas of troop concentration were at Taejon and Pusan. The service or base command's veterinary organization was augmented by the 69th, 142d, 143d, and 144th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments.
Pacific Air Command, U.S. Army
In the immediate postwar period, the FEAF (Far East Air Forces) continued to expand, and, in December 1945, it was named Pacific Air Command, U.S. Army. Its headquarters moved from the Philippines into Tokyo during May 1946. As of December 1945, the Pacific theater's air forces command included the Fifth Air Force (with headquarters at Nagoya, Japan), the Seventh Air Force (with headquarters at Hickam Field), and the Thirteenth Air Force (with headquarters at Fort McKinley); also, there were two Army Strategic Air Forces, the Eighth in the Ryukyus and the Twentieth in the Marianas.
U.S. ARMY FORCES, CHINA-BURMA-INDIA
The Army Veterinary Service with USAFCBI had its origin when a Veterinary Corps officer and two enlisted personnel arrived on a troop transport from the Zone of Interior at Karachi, India, during May 1942 (10). In the fall of 1941, a military mission under Brig. Gen. John Magruder had come into this area to study American lend-lease supply to Allied China; this was followed (in March 1942) by the U.S. Military Mission to China headed by Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell. Both missions centered their activities in the Nationalist China capital, Chungking. There was also a military observer group with the British Army at New Delhi, India, and another group of personnel was once assigned to the former U.S.
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Military Mission to Iran and Iraq under Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Wheeler but which had been diverted to Karachi. Each of these groups included one or two Medical Corps officers to care for the medical needs of mission personnel, who for the most part eventually became members of important operational elements of the China-Burma-India theater that was now coming into existence; none had assigned veterinary personnel. During this early period, however, pursuant to a request initiated in China, forwarded through the offices of two quasi-official Chinese agencies (namely; the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China, Inc., and China Defense Supplies, Inc.), and endorsed by the White House, the Surgeon General's Office planned for and obtained the assignment of a Veterinary Corps officer and two veterinary enlisted personnel for duty with the Northwest Epizootic Prevention Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Lanchow, Kansu Province, China (11). They were assigned to the Stilwell China Mission for administrative purposes, arriving there at Chungking on 3 April 1942, and departing later that month for Lanchow.
Thus, these special veterinary mission personnel were the first of the Army Veterinary Service to arrive in the developing China-Burma-India theater, but, until August 1942, when theater headquarters ordered their return from Lanchow and their reassignment to the U.S. military training center at Rāmgarh, India, they are not really a part, of the beginning theater veterinary service organization. In regard to this veterinary mission, it may be observed that it readily accomplished its primary objective to investigate the reported animal disease threat to approximately 20,000 camels and 400 horses along the Red Caravan Trail through northwestern China into Russia, but its energies were soon redirected by local Chinese officials to develop a long-term project, to bring into China some American veterinarians to set up laboratories for producing veterinary biologicals needed to control indigenous animal diseases, such as rinderpest, anthrax, glanders, and rabies, and to expedite, of course, the importation of American laboratory material. The project was of questionable military value and only a start on biologicals production was made before August 1942.
With the formation of USAFCBI, the Stilwell Mission, which had accompanied the retreat of remnants of the Chinese forces out of Burma in the spring-early summer of 1942, set up two headquarters at widely separated locations, a forward echelon theater headquarters in Chungking and a rear echelon theater headquarters at New Delhi. The latter included the medical staff for the theater except the theater surgeon himself, who in the fall of 1942 moved to the advance echelon headquarters at Chungking. No theater veterinarian was designated at this time, but, in the interim, the Wheeler Iran-Iraq mission began to form the theater services of supply organization, complete with a headquarters medical section, located first at Karachi and then soon moving to New Delhi. During July, September, and
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November 1942, new arrivals of personnel from the Zone of Interior increased the veterinary service organization in the China-Burma-India theater to a total of 10 officers and 10 enlisted personnel. By the end of 1942, these were on duty at various services of supply installations including Base Section 1 (or the Karachi area which was then the major portal of entry for U.S. forces coming into the theater), Rāmgarh training center which was organized for the training and equipping of the new Allied-sponsored Chinese Army in India, and the Tenth Air Force. These personnel were busily engaged in surveying the food industries and developing appropriate standards for local procurement, in conducting surveillance inspections on nonperishable subsistence which was arriving from outside the theater or was being furnished by the British, and in starting the reorganization of the Chinese Army's veterinary service organization.
Actually, there was little or no technical coordination of these activities in India except informally by a veterinary officer who, during March 1943, was ordered, on request of the theater surgeon at Headquarters, Forward Echelon, USAFCBI, to transfer for duty in China in connection with the training of the Chinese military forces there (as contrasted with the Chinese military forces in training in India). Four veterinary officers had already been ordered into China to the new U.S. Field Artillery and Infantry Training Centers at K'un-ming. On 8 April 1943, the officer was designated as theater veterinarian, but, as he was preoccupied with his original duty assignment and too far distant from the major medical planning staffs of theater rear echelon headquarters and Headquarters, Service of Supply, at New Delhi, there was yet no truly operational central office for administering the theater veterinary service organization. This situation continued until July 1943 when a more senior veterinary officer, newly arrived from the Zone of Interior, was assigned to Headquarters, Rear Echelon, and then (on 23 July 1943) was designated as theater veterinarian.7 The latter's position was strengthened in the spring of 1944 when the forward echelon of theater headquarters was moved and merged with the headquarters staff at New Delhi.
In the early months of 1944, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFCBI had approximately 90 officers and twice that number of enlisted personnel; numerically, it was almost equally divided between the India-Burma and the China sectors (map 5), and only a third were on duty at U.S. services of supply and air force installations, while two-thirds of them were being utilized for instructing, on liaison duty with, or providing supporting veterinary animal services to, the Chinese armies in India and in China. By mid-June 1944, the veterinary officer strength was increased to 141. These officers were assigned to duty as follows:
7Theater veterinarians included Maj. W. E. Jennings, VC (8 April to 22 July 1943) and Lt. Col. R. W. Mohri, VC (23 July 1943 to October 1944).
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Veterinary Officers | |
Theater Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFCBI | 1 |
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Services of Supply, at New Delhi | 1 |
Base Section 1, at Karachi | 1 |
Base Section 2, at Calcutta | 8 |
Base Section 3, at Ledo | 3 |
Advance Section 1, at K'un-ming | 3 |
Advance Section 2, at Chabua | 4 |
Station complement, Rāmgarh Training Center | 4 |
War Dog Detachment | 1 |
Services of Supply Remount Service | 6 |
Services of Supply General Depot 1 | 1 |
Services of Supply General Depot 2 | 1 |
1st Veterinary Company (Separate) | 6 |
9th Medical Laboratory | 1 |
Theater troops: | |
Company E (Veterinary), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion | 10 |
5307th Composite Regiment (Provisional) | 5 |
Rāmgarh Training Center (instructional staff) | 2 |
X-Force Operations Staff | 9 |
Y-Force Operations Staff | 42 |
Z-Force Operations Staff | 27 |
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, AAF, India-Burma Sector | 1 |
China-Burma-India Air Service Command | 2 |
Fourteenth Air Force | 1 |
India-China Wing, Air Transport Command | 1 |
On 22 August 1944, largely as a result of recommendations made by the Voorhees Mission that had been sent by The Surgeon General to study the theater's medical department, the medical sections of theater headquarters and services of supply headquarters in New Delhi were physically merged because there were generally insufficient numbers of personnel available to properly staff both of them. The former theater headquarters veterinarian (as were most of that medical staff) was then reassigned to the Medical Section, Headquarters, Services of Supply, and concurrently designated as deputy theater veterinarian to administer veterinary affairs in China-Burma-India on a theaterwide basis. During October 1944, the China-Burma-India theater was separated into USAFIBT (U.S. Army Forces, India-Burma theater) and USAFCT (U.S. Army Forces, China theater), and the former theater veterinarian was continued with the staff of the new India-Burma theater.
In later paragraphs describing the veterinary functional organization with USAFCBI, it was not always possible to abruptly terminate the story of certain activities as of October 1944, because generally what occurred, during the winter of 1944-45, in India-Burma and in China was at least begun or planned for in the original theater. Furthermore, when the first truck convoy moved over the new Stilwell Road, in January 1945, the fight for Burma was all but ended, and the new India-Burma theater became the
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rear service area to logistically support the new China theater. In an analysis of the extent of veterinary activities in the China-Burma-India theater, the Army Veterinary Service inspected an unknown quantity of subsistence and treated 1,800 cases of sick and wounded Army horses and mules. Also, in the period from May 1943 through 31 October 1944, its veterinary hospitals admitted 3,563 animal cases belonging to the Chinese military forces for treatment, and the professional treatment of another 9,513 cases was supervised by Veterinary Corps officers on liaison duty with those forces in the field.
Services of Supply, U.S. Army Forces, China-Burma-India
The China-Burma-India theater's services of supply organization, established in June 1942, provided for the coordination and supervision of: Veterinary food inspection activities for the U.S. air, ground, and service forces; the veterinary services which were conducted in connection with the receipt, processing, and distribution of horses and mules to the Chinese Army in India and to U.S. combat teams; and the operation of a rear echelon animal evacuation and veterinary hospitalization system in rear of the Allied combat forces fighting for Burma. Its headquarters medical staff, then at New Delhi, eventually obtained (in October 1942) a staff veterinarian who technically supervised veterinary activities and personnel among the various advance and base section subcommands-each also having a headquarters medical section. The subcommands included: Base Section 1 (with headquarters at Karachi), comprising the western half of India; Base Section 2 (with headquarters at Calcutta), located in southeastern India; Base Section 3, later named Advance Section 3 (with headquarters at Ledo) which administered the service forces immediately in back of the combat areas in Burma; Advance Section 2, later referred to as Intermediate Section 2 (with headquarters at Chabua), comprising the northeast India province of Assam; and Advance Section 1, once named Advance Base Section 3 (with headquarters at K'un-ming), including the China sector of the theater. During the earlier period, the veterinary service was concerned with the inspection of foods in the Karachi area, but this was gradually extended to the Rām?garh training center and thence throughout the theater. Service forces veterinary personnel were also involved, during this early period, in remount operations and in the care of animals for the Chinese combat units.
Food inspection.-Actually, the veterinary food inspection services advanced slowly in the theater because senior commanders would not grant higher or prior consideration for such personnel in contrast to veterinary animal service personnel. This was of serious importance in view of the scattering of troops over a very large geographic area and because of the nature of supplying or feeding the troops. It may be noted that until late 1944 veterinary food inspection personnel were only provisionally assigned or attached to services of supply installations, and neither were their num-
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bers nor grades increased, for example, over a year's time ending September 1944, even though the theater's ration strength had increased threefold to approximately 200,000 troops. At this time, veterinary food inspection services were being conducted by only 19 veterinary officers and approximately 75 enlisted personnel. These were located at Agra, Bombay, Calcutta, Chabua, Chakulia, Dinjan, Gaya, Hyderabad, Sind, Jorhat, Karachi, Kharagpur, Kurmitola Lalmanirhat, Ledo, New Delhi, Andal, Rāmgarh, Dum Duma, and Tezpur in India, at Shingbwiyang in Burma, and in China at Cheng-tu, Chungking, K'un-ming, and Kuei-lin. The service forces veterinary service performed nearly all food inspection services in the theater except at those few places where air forces personnel were available, and after September 1942 included the inspection also of fresh fruits, vegetables, and other non-animal-origin foods which were brought into the theater or procured locally.
The Army's subsistence supply in the China-Burma-India theater was obtained in various ways: by incoming shipments of regular supplies from the Zone of Interior and from local sources such as by direct Army purchase, through the Royal Indian Army Service Corps under the general provisions of United States-British lend-lease agreement, and through the Chinese War Area Service Corps. Each system of subsistence supply presented a variety of serious problems to the Army Veterinary Service, but the system of supply involving Indian resources proved especially difficult where better grade and sanitary duality foods were expected than in war?torn China where the U.S. forces were forced to live off the country as guests of the Chinese Nationalist Government.
In regard to the subsistence supply from local sources in India, it may be noted that originally the Army in the Karachi area surveyed the local food industries and developed specifications for the direct purchase by the Army of fresh meats (beef, mutton, and chicken), fish, butter, eggs, fruits and vegetables. Eventually, the Royal Indian Army Service Corps was superimposed over U.S. military purchasing operations, and the former then bought the foods used by the Army. The Indian Army's contract demands for sanitary and other quality factors were below the minimal American standards, and, although there was no perceptible need for any U.S. veterinary grading of this locally procured subsistence (because all of it was substandard), the Army Veterinary Service did-with some objection on the part of British and Indian authorities-conduct inspections for sanitary quality. Thus, in abattoirs, which were sometimes nothing more than roofed-over cement platforms, without refrigerated holding rooms, and where operations were haphazardly conducted if not altogether obscured by flies and buzzards, Veterinary Corps officers conducted ante mortem and post mortem inspections and constantly supervised the slaughter of food animals; there was no other inspection. At times, whole herds of animals
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were rejected from slaughter on account of emaciation. Diseases such as rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease, and anthrax were among the causes for rejecting many animals; also, local laws and religious customs acted to limit the animal supply and to hamper slaughterhouse operations so that "our troops were not bothered by having to eat beef of high quality."
In regard to local purchases of butter, the Army Veterinary Service made "* * * no attempt to score native butter, it was either not bad enough to prevent acceptance or it was too bad. Mottled, undersalted and full of dirt, it was manufactured mostly from buffalo milk." The 1943 Thanksgiving Day's turkey supply into New Delhi was a "sickening mess" of turkey, chickens, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, and other birds in varying degrees of having been dressed, drawn, and cold slaughtered. However, this occurred only once, because thereafter the Army did not depend on local Indian supply to provide Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day dinners in the China?Burma-India theater. A more constant problem was that pertaining to fresh eggs as the delivered shipments were subject to inspections or candling of each egg for edibility; outside shell contamination was generally overlooked in the inspections because all eggs were dirty, but, frequently, 90 or more percent were rejected from deliveries when candling inspections revealed inside rots, mold, blood rings, and advanced embryo development. Fruits and vegetables, of low or inferior grade quality, were supplied under contract, when available and if deemed to be an economical purchase by the Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Considerable quantities of these items were lost during shipments in steel, airtight cars of the Indian railroad system that under the heat of the tropical sun became like cooking ovens, and, of course, there were further losses in the messhalls incident to their preparation. In connection with perishable subsistence supply, it may be added that refrigerated warehouse space and refrigerated railroad cars were not available until the fall of 1944, and, up to that time, only limited quantities of boneless beef, chicken, fish, and ice cream could be processed under veterinary supervision in the Karachi and Calcutta areas, from which points small amounts were moved by airplane in the northeastern areas of India where large numbers of troops were located. In August 1944, the U.S. forces received a shipment of perishable subsistence (fresh frozen mutton) for the first time from extratheater sources, and several carloads were successfully moved over the Indian railway system from Calcutta to Chabua.
Fortunately, little if any of the local food supply in the India-Burma sector of the theater reached the U.S. forces in the China sector where another foreign agency, the Chinese War Area Service Command provided housing and fed them, except for a few items, which that agency could not obtain locally, to "round-out" their diet. Gradually, as veterinary personnel became available, veterinary sanitary inspection controls were set up over the foods of animal origin provided by the Chinese to U.S. installations, but the Army Veterinary Service had little if anything to do with the handling
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and preparation of these foods in the Chinese-operated messhalls or hostels. However, in the early period of activities in China (or Advance Section 1), veterinary officers originally acted as area sanitary inspectors over the water supply and in the Chinese War Area Service Command-operated messhalls and managed the operations of an abattoir in K'un-ming which supplied beef, pork, and chicken to the military personnel there and at Yang-chieh and Y?n-nan-i (12). In the 6-month period, 1 October 1943 through March 1944, the veterinary inspections at the K'un-ming abattoir were extended to 4,280 cattle, 5,779 hogs, and 74,337 chickens, yielding 1,194,715 pounds of beef, 549,349 pounds of pork, and 136,139 pounds of chicken; rejections at ante mortem and post mortem inspections, being made largely on account of physical condition, tuberculosis, and Cysticercus bovis infestation, aggregated 327 cattle (or beef carcasses), 205 hogs, and 752 chickens. In the field with the Chinese military forces, U.S. liaison personnel were rationed with the Chinese army or division to which attached, and, though some efforts were made to interest the Chinese Army Veterinary Service in the inspection of food supplies, the field forces food supply was generally uninspected.
Nonperishable subsistence, originating chiefly with the regular supply from the Zone of Interior, did not seem to exist in the China-Burma-India theater because large quantities of canned and dry subsistence perished on account of deteriorating, spoilage, and damage. Following its arrival at the Karachi or Calcutta ports, the nonperishable subsistence was handled and rehandled many times, usually by native laborers who were indifferent to the need for carefully loading and stacking; it was then transshipped in the Indian steel railroad cars whose internal temperatures came to be that of 160? F., was en route for periods as long as 5 weeks, and was finally stored, frequently in the open or in the native bashas which lasted for about 6 months, after which time the roof began to leak and the building started to sag and then finally collapsed (10).
The summer monsoon begins in Assam in the latter part of April and continues until the following November. During this period the rainfall amounts to several hundred inches. In between rains, the tropical sun beats down relentlessly to make the atmosphere similar to a Swedish bath. Metals rust with a swiftness that is almost unbelievable. Pin holes appear magically in cans permitting the entrance of bacteria and molds. Dried subsistence becomes soggy in the tropical atmosphere and rapidly deteriorates from bacterial and chemical decomposition. Insects engage in mass attacks on the dried products, especially flour which is usually alive with weevils. Sugar is surrounded by swarms of bees that sometimes have the audacity to hive in the same warehouses. Add to these factors the damage incurred by countless rodents that are so prevalent in the tropics and the difficulties of preserving subsistence may be understood.
Though much of the subsistence losses occurred from factors of intratheater origin and some such losses could have been minimized by greater attention to higher priority on storage warehouse construction as materiel became available, there is no doubt that losses originated with inherent
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weaknesses in the subsistence as it was shipped from the Zone of Interior. Such losses were caused by the packing in commercial containers or lightweight cardboard cartons and the packaging in overly large, poorly lacquered, and light-gage tin cans, or in cloth and paper bags that were not waterproof and were readily bent or torn. During 1943, canned milk products alone accounted for 80 percent of the reported losses of nonperishable meat and dairy products in the China-Burma-India theater, or 430,326 pounds, indicating that the product had an inherent weakness not shown in other products. Actually, for that year, veterinary-reported rejections for nonperishable meat and dairy products totaled 572,781 pounds, but regarding these "* * * it should be remembered the list does not include the hundreds of thousands of pounds of canned fruits, fruit juices, jellies, jams, vegetables, condiments, flour, rice, beans, and breakfast cereals that were also condemned during this period, nor the unrecorded losses at stations where veterinary inspection was not maintained" (10). The condition of subsistence stores and recommendations for minimizing losses were routinely reported by veterinary officers, and attempts at reclamation were made, but, even so, this did not prevent incidents where subsistence was airdropped to troops fighting in Burma by being simply shoved out of the doors of low?flying airplanes, and sacks of reclaimed food (because box materiel was unavailable) were transported for use in the combat areas.
Animal service.-Another major veterinary activity with Services of Supply, USAFCBI, concerned the animals which were received in the theater and used by U.S. combat teams and the Chinese Army in India in the Burma campaigns. In the fall of 1942, the Chinese forces in training at the U.S. center at Rāmgarh began to receive animals from British sources in India, and then, as these forces were moved into the Ledo area, preparatory to their reentry into the fight for Burma, a sizable remount depot was developed there. In the spring of 1943, the 1st Veterinary Company (Separate), newly arrived from the Zone of Interior and as a service forces-assigned unit, set up a provisional veterinary hospital at Ledo to support this depot and the veterinary animal service activities of the local X-Force units. During June 1943, this company also established a veterinary hospital at Rāmgarh and in October 1943 set up hospital facilities near a newly developing remount depot at Shillong. Subsequently, this company's activities at the Rāmgarh center were taken over by three small veterinary units (the 39th, 40th, and 41st Veterinary Animal Service Detachments which were activated and organized within the theater during July 1944), and its hospital activities at Ledo were augmented in September 1944 by another two veterinary detachments (the 51st and 52d Veterinary Animal Service Detachments which had just arrived from the Zone of Interior). During December 1944, the 2d Veterinary Company (Separate), with Negro enlisted personnel, newly arrived from the Zone of Interior, was moved into the Ledo area, and then the entire 1st Veterinary Company (Separate) was removed to Shillong. At the same time, the 39th, 40th, and 41st
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Veterinary Animal Service Detachments were transferred from Rāmgarh, where all animal activities were now discontinued, and were attached to the company at Shillong. Aside from the foregoing two companies and five veterinary animal service detachments, the services of supply organization in September 1944 activated and organized the 78th Veterinary Hospital Detachment to operate in the Calcutta area to assist in the disembarkation and transshipment of Army animals arriving at that port from the Zone of Interior and Pacific theaters; before this time, animals unsuitable for immediate shipment to the depots were cared for at the port by an Indian Army veterinary hospital.
The veterinary animal service activities with Services of Supply paralleled the remount operations in the India-Burma sector of the theater. These operations, prior to March 1944, were conducted by the Army Veterinary Service, beginning in the fall of 1942, when veterinary officers undertook the supervision of the British supply of animals to Chinese divisions in training at Rāmgarh and then later at Ledo. During November and December 1943, the first few of 30 or more animal transports that were to bring approximately 10,000 horses and mules into the theater during the war were unloaded and the animals processed for distribution, but it was not until March 1944 that a Quartermaster Corps remount officer was officially named for the India-Burma sector of the theater. At the same time, a provisional remount depot, organization (the 5321st Depot) was being organized at Ledo; this was disbanded during July 1944 when a newly activated 699th Quartermaster Remount Troop was organized to conduct operations there. Also, in this month, the 698th Quartermaster Remount Troop, newly arrived from the Zone of Interior, set up operations at Rāmgarh-both troops having organic veterinary detachments. Before the end of 1944 another two remount troops were brought into the theater services of supply remount operations: Troop A, 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron (later redesignated 475th Quartermaster Remount Troop) and Troop A, 253d Quartermaster Remount Squadron (later renamed 476th Quartermaster Remount Troop). These four remount troops, each with its own veterinary detachment, were operating depots at Shillong, Ledo, and Myitkyina (noting, of course, that the Rāmgarh depot facility was now closed), and there was a port remount section (the 3113th Quartermaster Section) at Calcutta.
Laboratory service.-The veterinary requirements for the laboratory analyses of foods and clinicodiagnostic services in the theater were met by the 9th Medical Laboratory, complete with its own veterinary section, which arrived from the Zone of Interior during February 1944 and set up station as a services of supply-controlled unit at Chabua.
Chinese Training and Combat Command
Successor to the original Stilwell China Mission, the Chinese Training and Combat Command was the U.S. military administrative organization in the China-Burma-India theater which undertook the training, supplying, reorganizing, and advising of the Allied-sponsored Chinese military forces.
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When the Japanese captured Burma, the existing Chinese forces were divided, with one group of two divisions retreating out of Burma into northeastern India and the other and larger group into China; thus, the Chinese Army in India, and the Chinese Army in China. This occurred before the summer of 1942, and the overall Allied strategic plan now became one for a buildup of an aerial supply route over the Himalaya Mountain "Hump" into China (which would satisfy the most urgent supply needs of the Chinese forces in China) until northern Burma was cleared of the enemy and the overland Burma Road route (later renamed Stilwell Road) could be completed to increase the flow of supplies there. Obviously, initial energies were directed on the reorganizations of the Chinese combat divisions in India and, subsequently, of the Chinese forces in southwestern China, which would eventually converge in the fight for Burma. These were referred to in the code names of X- (or X-ray) Force and Y- (or Yoke) Force. Later, a third group of approximately 30 Chinese divisions in southeastern China was entered into the sponsorship of the United States, called Z- (or Zebra) Force; however, the schedule for training and equipping the Z?Force divisions was disrupted by the Japanese advances into southern China in mid-1944, so that these units were merged with the earlier Chinese Y-Forces, and the two became the Chinese Army in China. Concurrently, the Allied-sponsored X-Force became the Chinese Army in India. As already indicated, approximately a hundred Veterinary Corps officers, or two-thirds of the total number in the China-Burma-India theater, came on field duty with, or in units directly supporting, these Chinese units.
For purposes of administering U.S. activities and personnel with these Chinese forces, the Chinese Training and Combat Command was established as a major subordinate element of USAFCBI. It was subdivided into a staff group which acted in an advisory capacity to the Chinese General Staff, a training group which maintained schools of instruction for Chinese Army personnel, and a liaison group comprising the U.S. Army teams which were actually attached to the Chinese units entering the combat areas. Through this command organization, the Army Veterinary Service soon became involved with the wartime development of the Chinese Army veterinary service and the improvement of Chinese Army animal care and management; for example, for the first time in modern Chinese military history, its animals were properly shod.
X-Force.-Preparatory training and reorganization of the Chinese 22d and 38th Divisions, remnants of which had straggled out of Burma in the spring of 1942, was undertaken at Rāmgarh. During July 1942, veterinary personnel were deployed there primarily in connection with Services of Supply food inspection activities, but, before the end of another month, these officers and men were already involved in the survey of 126 ponies-once with the Chinese units in Burma-that the British had shipped and returned to the two Chinese divisions. Of this group, the Army Veterinary Service destroyed 13
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on account of glanders, 35 for surra, and 6 on account of epizootic lymphanitis infections. A small amount of veterinary equipment and supplies were purchased locally to satisfy immediate needs for the care of the animals, while requisitions for larger amounts to reequip the Chinese Army Veterinary Service of X-Force were processed for the British to meet. Beginning in September 1942, British horses, mules, and tonga ponies of Indian Army origin were provided to the Chinese units (100 in September, 700 in November, and 850 in December 1942), and the assigned veterinary officer was then designated additional duty as the remount officer at the Rāmgarh center. He found the animals to be "decrepit, oversized and undersized, ungroomed, and the outline of every bone could be clearly seen beneath their shaggy hides," and in the new arrivals he reported the presence of surra, strangles, and piroplasmosis (10). "Piroplasmosis accounted for the death of several animals, and, with no facilities available to dip them or drugs to prepare a dipping solution, it was necessary to manually remove the ticks in order to control the outbreak."
The program for instructing the Chinese Army Veterinary Service at Rāmgarh was begun in October 1942 and finally came to an end after 2 years of almost continuous operation (fig. 33). During this period, the Army Veteri-
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nary Service provided instructional services to 345 Chinese personnel (including veterinary officers and enlisted personnel, stable officers, stable sergeants, and horseshoers) and unit training to 36 veterinary detachments (including those of four army corps, division veterinary platoons, and a variety of detachments for field artillery battalions, infantry regiments and divisions, and animal transport battalions and regiments). The importance of this training to the Allied war effort is emphasized by the fact that there truly were no modern standards for Chinese military veterinary medicine; that animals were used (or expended) in the Chinese Army until they dropped in their tracks on account of disease or injury, lack of shoeing, debility, or exhaustion; and that horses and mules probably would comprise the only means of transport for the Chinese military units both in the Burma campaigns and in China.
In the spring of 1943, the veterinary school training program and other activities at Rāmgarh were temporarily increased when the third Chinese combat unit, the 30th Division, was added to X-Force by airlift from China, and a Veterinary Corps officer was temporarily assigned to X-Force Operations Staff at Ledo. Subsequently, as the original school training program came to an end, the Chinese X-Force units moved into the northeastern India province of Assam and thence into Burma, and the operations of the Chinese Training and Combat Command in that area were then organized under the new Northern Combat Area Command.
Y-Force.-As the veterinary instructional program for Chinese Army veterinarians and horseshoers in the Allied-sponsored X-Force was launched, a similar program was inaugurated for the 27 Chinese divisions of the U.S. sponsored Y-Force. In early February 1943, the first two of four veterinary officers were transferred (from Rāmgarh ) to K'un-ming, China, to establish a veterinary instructional program at the U.S. Y?nnan Field Artillery Training Center, and, on 1 March 1943, another two officers were detailed to inaugurate a second veterinary school training program at the U.S. Y?nnan Infantry Training Center, also located in K'un-ming. Later, during March 1943, the veterinary officer, who was to be designated as theater veterinarian in addition to other duties (April to July 1943), was assigned from the India-Burma sector to Y-Force Operations Staff to supervise the whole veterinary program of instructing the Chinese divisions. Subsequently, in September-October 1943, as more veterinary personnel became available from the India-Burma sector of the theater, a training program for Chinese Army veterinary personnel and horseshoers was established for two army groups at Ta-li; also, 3,000 Chinese Army animals were vaccinated against anthrax and were mallein tested for glanders before this training instructional group ceased operations in February 1944 (fig. 34). A similar school training project was inaugurated for another Chinese Army group at Yen-shan in November 1943; this project lasted until May 1944. Altogether, the student output from the four veterinary school programs approximated 1,500 Chinese personnel of Y-Force. The schedules for Chinese Army veterinary personnel included the subjects of animal diseases
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FIGURE 34.-A Veterinary Corps officer hoof branding an anthrax-vaccinated Chinese Army animal.
and injuries, veterinary first aid treatment, restraint of animals, animal care and management, and horseshoeing.
By December 1943, Veterinary Corps officers were being assigned to liaison duty with Y-Force's Chinese divisions, armies, and group armies. By February 1944, the Army Veterinary Service with the Y-Force Operations Staff totaled 37 officers and 41 enlisted personnel (including 22 horseshoer specialists). The Veterinary Corps officers were distributed as follows (13):
| Veterinary officers | |
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Y-Force Operations Staff | 1 |
Field Artillery Training Center | 3 |
| Infantry Training Center | 1 |
Training Instruction Group 1 | 13 |
| Training Instruction Group 2 | 8 |
Training Instruction Group 3 | 1 |
Training Instruction Group 4 | 8 |
93d Division | 1 |
Guerrillas | 1 |
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Z-Force.-As previously noted, the 30 Chinese divisions of Z-Force were never fully trained or organized, nor equipped, before they were threatened, in the summer of 1944, by the continuing advances of the Japanese southward along the Canton-Hankow-Peking railroad corridor and toward the U.S. airbases in southeastern China. However, after October-November 1943, a veterinary school training program had been in operation for Z?Force at the U.S. infantry training center in Kwei-lin, and, by January 1944, the Army Veterinary Service with Z-Force was fully organized. Six months later, or at the time that these personnel were moved westward to K'un-ming and added to the existing Y-Force, approximately 70 Chinese veterinary officers and 300 veterinary enlisted personnel and horseshoers had been trained at Kwei-lin.
Northern Combat Area Command.-Concurrent with these preparations of the three Chinese forces, the Army Veterinary Service in the China?Burma-India theater planned for augmenting both the Chinese Army veterinary services and that performed by U.S. veterinary liaison personnel on duty with the Chinese Army units, with small U.S. veterinary animal service detachments (or units) and veterinary companies (separate) which could evacuate sick and wounded animals from the Chinese frontline divisions and treat them. In the early summer of 1943, a requisition for 30 detachments was made by the theater on the War Department; each such detachment was to have two officers and nine enlisted personnel, such as comprised the veterinary section, medical detachment, of the organization in the artillery of a standard mountain division. The requisition was compromised more than a year later when, in July 1944, the War Department granted authorization for the activation and organization within the theater of 12 veterinary detachments-each having one officer and four enlisted personnel, such as were typically provided in the attached veterinary section of a standard 75-mm. howitzer pack field artillery battalion-and followed this with the shipment into the theater during September and October 1944 of another 12 detachments from the Zone of Interior. These included the 39th through the 50th, and the 51st through the 62d, respectively, Veterinary Animal Service Detachments. Actually, the field artillery battalion-type of organization for the detachments was discontinued after their arrival in the China?Burma-India theater, and new T/O's for teamlike units were prescribed instead. With the exception of three (the 39th, 40th, and 41st) of the 12 locally organized detachments and two (the 51st and 62d) of the 12 detachments received from the Zone of Interior, all were deployed into China; the excepted units, as previously noted, were deployed in India and Burma with the Services of Supply organization.
During the period that the foregoing veterinary animal service detachments were requisitioned and until they became available, X-Force's Chinese divisions were reentered into the fight for Burma, and a U.S. long-range jungle penetration combat team, the 5307th Composite Regiment (also called
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Merrill's Marauders), had been organized and started on its way southward from North Burma toward Myitkyina. In February 1944, when the campaign started, these divisions with their U.S. veterinary liaison personnel and the combat team were grouped under the newly organized Northern Area Command which directed the operations used to clear the Japanese out of Burma, particularly from that area of the proposed overland route from India, through Burma, and into China. For the direct support of the Chinese divisional veterinary services and the Army Veterinary Service with the 5307th Composite Regiment, Northern Area Combat Command was assigned Company E (Veterinary) of the 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, which had arrived in the theater from the Zone of Interior in December 1943. The company's platoons each operated more or less as separate entities, setting up numerous provisional veterinary hospital sites in back of the advancing United States and Chinese forces. After the capture of Myitkyina (during August 1944), Company E (Veterinary), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, continued to support the veterinary services of the Chinese Army in India as the latter pushed southward into the Central Burma campaign.
The veterinary service organization in 5307th Composite Regiment included a regimental veterinarian and three battalion veterinary sections. The latter cared for the animals of two pack troops (the 31st and 33d Quartermaster Pack Troops, which themselves had no organic veterinary detachments) such as were divided between the regiment's three infantry battalions. After the capture of Myitkyina, the original U.S. regimental combat team was succeeded by the 5332d Brigade (Provisional) or MARS Force. The latter, comprising the 124th Cavalry Regiment (Special), 475th Infantry Regiment, the Chinese 1st Regiment, the 612th and 613th Field Artillery Battalions, and the 31st, 33d, 35th, 37th, 252d, and 253d Quartermaster Pack Troops, had 5,810 mules and horses. These were provided first aid treatment by six veterinary sections, specially attached to the regiments, and the organic veterinary detachments of the two field artillery battalions, all under the technical supervision of a brigade veterinarian. In the rear areas of the Northern Combat Area Command, the brigade's veterinary service organization was supported by the 18th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital which came into the theater from the Zone of Interior in August 1944, and, of course, Company E (Veterinary), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, supported the Chinese combat divisions. Before the end of 1944, the 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital, and the 7th, 43d, and 44th Veterinary Companies (Separate) arrived from the Zone of Interior and were assigned to Northern Combat Area Command, but, of these, only the 7th was actually deployed; one platoon was attached to the 18th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital, and the remainder operated provisional hospitals in back of the Chinese divisions. Of course, by the end of 1944, the China-Burma-India theater was split, and the 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital, after receipt of its equipment, was transferred to the China
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theater. The 43d and 44th Veterinary Companies (Separate) were excess to requirements (due to belated arrival) in the India-Burma theater and, being unrequisitioned by the China theater, eventually were inactivated.
In regard to the Army Veterinary Service with the Chinese combat divisions in the Burma campaign, its activities are best described using the actual report (10) of one Veterinary Corps liaison officer as a classic record:
During July and August, 1943, the remainder of the 38th Division arrived in Ledo from Rāmgarh. My duties were primarily concerned with the problems related to animal management in the division. Much time was spent each day in traveling from one animal unit to another, inspecting animals, stables, and making recommendations to unit commanders and veterinary officers for the correction of defects that were observed. Most Chinese veterinary officers soon conformed to modern methods of wound treatment, but drug supplies were often too inadequate to permit a full departure from obsolete procedures. Unit commanders were advised to maintain definite feeding and watering schedules under the supervision of unit officers to eliminate the numerous cases of digestive disorders from which their animals suffered. It was a custom in the Chinese Army for each individual soldier to be responsible for his assigned animal and he fed, watered, and cared for it according to his own system. Efforts were also made to discourage the Chinese from bathing their animals in nearby streams, which reduced the amount of grooming, but resulted in numerous cases of rhinitis and conjunctivitis.
Controlling flies by convincing the Chinese that stable manure should be buried was one of our more successful achievements and far more successful than getting them to properly dispose of human excreta. Open latrines were common and often located not too far from mess kitchens.
Bamboo was the only material available for the construction of stables and corrals. The best type of stable was open on all sides, with uprights of large bamboo and a roof of bamboo leaves. The standings consisted of split logs sloped to the rear in order to provide drainage. The texture of the soil in the area sometimes caused the logs to become dislodged which the Chinese would fail to replace unless constantly coaxed to do so. Preventive maintenance was a Chinese weakness and always a problem to the veterinary liaison officer.
The best managed animal units were those commanded by officers with whom I had been able to make personal friends. They would keep their animals in good condition and accept my recommendations to save "face" for me. In turn it was necessary for me to praise their methods to their superior officers.
The division was scheduled to go into combat in the fall of 1943 and I made every effort to instill confidence in the Chinese veterinary officers in their treatment of animal casualties. At Rāmgarh, much of the actual work had been performed by the USF veterinary liaison officers with the Chinese acting as observers, but with the knowledge that combat operations were imminent I knew that it would be necessary for the Chinese to rely on their training. Therefore, I convinced them to assume the initiative and refused to treat the casualties brought to my attention, but outlined the treatment and insisted that they perform the actual work. All veterinary officers were taught to pass a stomach tube and were given instruction in conducting the mallein test. The only conditions which I felt should not be treated by unit veterinarians were diseases of a contagious nature and those which required hospitalization. These were evacuated to a USF veterinary hospital that supported the division in Assam after I had examined the casualties and issued the necessary authority.
A division school was established and instruction given to unit horse officers and noncommissioned officers. The management of animals in the field was particularly stressed, and emphasis placed on the proper fitting of pack saddles and adjustment of equip-
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meat. A horseshoeing school was also placed in operation to continue the training of unit horseshoers who had been unable to complete or take the course at Rāmgarh. Class instruction was given on the working of metal and anatomy of the horse's foot. This was followed by individual instruction on trimming of the feet, fitting the shoes, and nailing them into position. The last three weeks of the course was devoted to the actual shoeing of animals by the students under the supervision of an enlisted USF horseshoer. A few students were incapable of absorbing instruction but the majority turned out to be fair mechanics.
By September, the Chinese veterinary personnel was fairly well trained. Much time was spent in the inspection of animal equipment and assisting the Chinese quartermaster in requisitioning the proper supplies. Unserviceable animals were destroyed and every effort was made to place the serviceable animals in the best condition possible. At the close of the month, most animal units were ready for combat, although some equipment shortages still existed. British veterinary supplies were slow in arriving and many that did were exceedingly poor in quality.
The month of October was spent principally in securing veterinary supplies and equipping units moving out from the Ledo area into North Burma. I would move up several days march from Ledo and inspect the animals of units that had been on the march, recommending the evacuation of casualties that were unable to continue. Many new USF line officers were arriving to be assigned to liaison duties with the division, and I was given the additional task of orienting them. Few had had any experience with animal transport troops and it was necessary for me to instruct them in animal management and packing.
By the end of October, 1943, enough Chinese troops had been massed in North Burma to begin an advance against the Japanese. A reconnaissance had already been made of part of the region to determine the location and suitability of grazing areas, because the troops were to be largely supplied by air dropping and transport limitations would not permit long forage supply. I was ordered to make a reconnaissance via observation plane over the Hukawng valley of North Burma where the first contacts with the enemy were expected. After charting the areas which appeared from aerial observation to be suitable for grazing purposes, I was to join the advance elements of the Chinese Army and make a ground reconnaissance of the areas as soon as it was tactically possible to do so. When I arrived in the northern part of the Hukawng valley, I secured the aid of the native guides to take me to the charted areas and was furnished a platoon of Chinese Infantry for protection.
The Hukawng valley lies in Northern Burma with its long axis running from North to South. It is the first open country to be reached after crossing the mountains from Upper Assam to Burma. The campaign had progressed some fifteen miles into the valley before stiff Japanese resistance was encountered. One central air dropping field was established where the transport planes flying in from Assam dropped supplies to the troops. Most of the Chinese animal units were stationed close to the field and were employed to pack the supplies to forward areas, a round trip of about twenty miles which could be made in a day. I would alternate making trips with the various units. Animal casualties were averaging about twenty percent, seven percent of which were totally incapacitated. The casualties were principally due to pack saddle injuries and penetrating wounds of the feet and legs due to contact with sharp bamboo stubs which remained after cutting out trails. Veterinary supplies were air dropped on radio request as these were needed.
In that it was tactically unsafe to graze animals during this period, it became necessary for armed grass cutting details to be sent out daily from each unit to cut about twenty-five pounds of grass per animal. The grass was principally kunai and elephant grass which apparently was of good quality and maintained the animals in good condition. Cracked barley and gram was air dropped and fed on the basis of six pounds of
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the former and two of the latter to our animals that were mostly India tonga ponies weighing between six hundred and eight hundred pounds. Requests for increases in the grain ration were recommended to G-4, but refused due to the limited air tonnage. No animal casualties were evacuated from the units during this period, because the division veterinary platoon had not yet joined the forward elements and USF veterinary organizations had not arrived. Therefore, regardless of the types of casualties, all were treated by unit veterinarians in the horse park area and due to the slowness with which the campaign progressed it was possible to do so without difficulty. However, by the latter part of December 1943, the number of casualties had increased to the extent that the division veterinary platoon was ordered forward to establish a hospital and relieve the regimental and battalion veterinary detachments. Animal deaths from October to December 1943 inclusive were less than one percent from all causes.
The first week of January, 1944, the veterinary platoon arrived in the area. Capt. George E. Burch, VC, junior veterinary liaison officer with the 38th Division had accompanied the platoon forward and the two of us assisted in setting up a hospital. The platoon consisted of two Chinese veterinary officers and eighteen enlisted men and we considered it to be the poorest trained unit in the division. Therefore, we decided to make the platoon our headquarters. We convinced the Chinese command that all animals evacuated from units within the division to the veterinary platoon should be accompanied by soldier caretakers on the basis of one for every two animals, to feed, water, groom and cut grass for the patients. In n few days there were thirty casualties in the hospital which consisted mostly of back injuries, penetrating wounds of lower extremities and a few cases of influenza from units that had recently moved forward. Lack of proper veterinary supplies forced us to rely on good nursing and blood transfusions for the influenza cases. The first battle casualties were received in late January, the result of enemy artillery fire. We managed to procure a small quantity of sulfanilamide crystals from a portable surgical hospital and covered the wounds with Vaseline gauze. Most of the cases made uneventful recoveries with the exception of those in which the injuries penetrated the abdominal cavity.
One of us remained with the veterinary platoon at all times, while the other visited the units in forward positions to insure that animals were being properly cared for and that casualties requiring evacuation were sent to the hospital. As a general rule, Chinese line and veterinary officers were reluctant to evacuate casualties, fearing they would be short of transport, but losing sight of the fact that early evacuation of a casualty would insure the future usefulness of the animal.
In early February, 1944, a USF veterinary organization arrived in the area to support the 38th Division. This was one platoon of Co. "E" (Vet), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion. Our policy was to evacuate serious casualties, all surgery and infectious diseases to this unit, the lighter cases being kept at the division veterinary platoon for treatment. The USF platoon was equipped with one 2? ton 6 x 6 stock rack body truck, but this could not be used as an animal ambulance due to terrain obstacles, and casualties had to be evacuated by leading. The Hukawng valley was essentially level, but heavily wooded and swampy. Water for animals was not a problem, but grass grew only in clearings and rice paddies.
The grain ration consisted of barley and gram (a legume). This was air dropped in forty-pound, double-strength burlap bags marked with a large "G." It was impossible to tell if the bag contained barley or gram, and unless the issuing officer opened each bag prior to issue, some units would obtain all of one kind. When gram was fed in excess, it produced a severe diarrhea, while a full ration of barley was not palatable and was frequently rejected by the animals. My recommendations to the Services of Supply to mix the two grains prior to shipping were ignored without reason.
The middle of February 1943 saw the Japanese resistance in the upper Hukawng valley broken and due to the heavy human and animal casualties in the 38th division,
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ten days were permitted for reorganization. During this phase I made numerous inspections of all animals in company with unit commanders. Backs were examined and saddle pads were adjusted wherever indicated. It was found that the American Phillips type pack saddle had caused fewer abrasions than the British type, although the latter was more suitable for animals with thin backs and flat ribs. The British saddle was particularly damaging to animals with high withers, because of insufficient clearance to these parts. While the American saddle weighed twice as much as the British, this factor was not as important as a proper fit.
The tonga pony animals were carrying a pay load of 130-180 pounds. We also found that the more compact a load, the easier it could be carried, while bulky loads had a tendency to shift. I spent three days with the Seagrave Unit (volunteer hospital unit organized by Lt. Col. Gordon Seagrave, a medical missionary to Burma at the outbreak of the war) breaking their loads into more compact and easily picked units and did the same for USF Signal Corps units attached to the 38th Division. Unfortunately, staff members of the USF (CT & CC) associated with the Chinese Army in this campaign had had very little experience with pack transportation and most of them lacked a clear understanding of a pack animal's capabilities. Therefore, it was necessary to bring these matters to their attention as well as to the Chinese.
In February, trails and roads were sufficiently improved so that the horse carts which had been developed at Rāmgarh Training Center were brought forward to augment the pack transport. These carts were two-wheeled affairs, built of steel, rubber tires and equipped with steel shafts that were welded solidly to the body of the cart. One animal was to be hitched between the shafts and if the going was too difficult, additional animals were to be hitched in tandem. The carts were supposed to carry between 500-1,000 pounds. The troubles we had with these carts apparently had not been anticipated at Rāmgarh. First, they were not equipped with brakes and when going down steep hills, the holdback straps failed to stop the carts which proceeded to gather momentum and usually resulted in injuring severely the animals that pulled them. The bed of the cart was narrow so that it could be pulled along the trails, but when loaded it became topheavy and tipped over carrying the animal with it because the shafts were welded to the frame. The Chinese were unable to train their animals to pull evenly, so that the ones which were hitched in tandem to the front of the cart rarely assisted in pulling it. General Stilwell asked my opinion on the merits of the cart and I suggested that it be abandoned until wide, level loads were available.
The British had developed a veterinary chest for the use of small veterinary detachments, the contents of which were supposed to treat 3,000 animal casualties for one day. These were called Unit Pattern Chests, containing more cotton and bandages than was necessary, but lacking in drugs. The chests were made of thin plywood which failed to withstand moisture. The contents of many had deteriorated and were useless by the time we received them. We tried constantly to train the Chinese to conserve their veterinary supplies and stretch their use but to no avail. When they had consumed them, they appealed to us to replenish their stocks and when we failed, we lost much "face."
On March 1st, the 38th Division was again ready to continue the campaign. I was ordered to accompany a combat team of one regiment of Infantry and a battalion of 75-mm. Pack (How) Artillery to which was attached a battalion of USF Infantry, part of Merrill's Marauders * * *. The mission was a long range penetration project, with the object of encircling the Japanese forces that held the South entrance of the Hukawng valley. Chinese Army animals numbered about 400. I took with me one Chinese veterinary officer and seven veterinary enlisted men. To reach our destination it was necessary to trek through swamps and over high mountains, and it was expected to take two weeks to reach our objectives. One veterinary enlisted man was attached to each sepa-
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rate contingent of the combat team and supplied with drugs and equipment to last for the march.
We experienced little difficulty marching through the swamps, but lost a number of animals on the high mountain trails due to slippery footing. Sometimes it was possible to haul out the animals that had fallen into the gorges below the trails with ropes, but more often this proved to be impossible due to the injuries suffered by the animals or the depth of the gorges. It was then necessary for us to climb down and destroy them. In many places the trail led through dense jungles and had to be cleared by the forward elements before the column could proceed. In these instances our rate of march averaged only two to three miles a day. Several mountains were so steep, that it became necessary to unpack the artillery loads and carry them manually up the mountain side. The pack loads of the Seagrave hospital unit were also troublesome due to the width of the packs which would catch between the trees and bushes on either side of the narrow trail. When animals became too weak or lame to continue the march, they were destroyed and their loads distributed among the others. Grain rations were supposed to be air dropped along the way, but Japanese patrolling was so heavy that our column would be held up for several days at a time and the animals forced to do without grain during the hold up. There is no grass in the mountain jungles, so that bamboo leaves had to be fed exclusively. Bamboo leaves apparently have little nutritive value, but do supply the necessary bulk. The principal difficulties encountered due to feeding this type of forage were impactions from feeding excessive quantities. The deteriorated aloes boluses that had been issued for minor digestive disturbances proved to be adequate to produce a mild catharsis. A Chinese soldier who had given three to his suffering animal without results, finally took one himself with no effect and the aloes boluses lost much "face."
After the first week of the march, forty percent of the animals had developed abrasions of the back with varying degrees of severity. This incidence was lower than I had anticipated considering the type of terrain we were forced to march over. Animal casualties due to enemy action were only ten in number and most of these were due to small arm sniper fire. Enemy artillery secured a direct hit on three animals in the column and their worries were at an end. Water for both animals and men proved to be a problem at times when we were held up on ridge tops and could not reach the streams below due to enemy fire. On one occasion we were forced to go two full days without water which is a considerable length of time in the heat of the tropics.
The immediate mission of the combat team was to cut the line of communications behind the Japanese main position in the Hukawng valley. In order to do this it was necessary to make a night march from the mountains into the valley below using streams for trails because of the thick jungles. After reaching our destination we were subjected to heavy artillery fire and forced to keep our animals standing in a stream for five days before we could move them. During the three weeks' march our animals lost an average of two hundred pounds in weight.
When the Japanese had been forced to retreat, all animals were inspected and arrangements made to evacuate the more seriously injured to a hospital established by Co. "E" (Vet), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, which had moved up to a point twenty miles in our rear. During the three weeks' march, twenty-six of the four hundred animals we had started with, had died or were destroyed. We evacuated thirty casualties and of the remainder, sixty percent required treatment. I located a good grazing area and recommended to the Chinese commander that all animals be given a period of three weeks' rest before going into service again.
I was given my first leave after sixteen months overseas service and did not return to my organization until April 25th.
Routine inspection of animals, supervising the treatment of casualties in the division veterinary platoon and evacuating more severe casualties to USF veterinary installations
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constituted my principal duties until May 20th. The division veterinary platoon was now a well-functioning unit. Routine treatment of abrasions, thrush and other common conditions were now well take care of by the Chinese personnel.
On May 21st, I received orders to inspect the animals of one Infantry regiment and a battalion of pack artillery and eliminate all that were not capable of making an extended march through the mountains. This combat team had been designated to make a flanking movement and eventually to be responsible for cutting Japanese lines of communication. A few days after the team had departed, the entire division received orders to move out. During the ten-day march that followed, the division animals received the equivalent of two days' grain ration and ate nothing but bamboo leaves. The shortage of grain was due to staff officers who had deliberately reduced the ration without consulting the liaison officers and resulted in a fifty pound loss of weight for each animal in ten days.
I finally caught up with the animals of the combat team that had been left behind in the mountains for purposes of security when the team went down into the valley. I was ordered to remain with these animals until the team had cut the road behind the Japanese lines and established a block. We waited three days and then started on a two-day trip supposedly to join the road block troops. Due to heavy rains the preceding 48 hours, it was necessary to swim three different swollen streams with the pack train of three hundred animals. We finally arrived at the Mogaung river which proved to be too wide and too swift for crossing and had to return to the edge of the mountains to await further orders.
I received orders to proceed to the vicinity of the road block to inspect two hundred animals which had been captured and to salvage what I could from the stores of a captured Japanese veterinary hospital. The animals were of all types and descriptions and in a deplorable condition from lack of forage, mud, rain, no shelter, and overwork. All but seventy-five were destroyed and buried. The salvaged group were malleined and all proved to be negative to the test. Some of the animals were affected with a dermatitis due to mud, rain, and sunscald and were devoid of hair over the face and croup. The monsoon was now in full swing and it rained every day.
The Chinese tactical commander called upon me for a report on the captured animals. He informed me that unless they could be worked, or he could get his own animals cross the Mogaung river, it would be impossible for him to hold out much longer due to the inability of his men to carry ammunition and supplies forward to the fighting troops from the air dropping field. I suggested that the Japanese animals be used and to improvise pack saddles from riding saddles, blankets and what crude native pack saddles could be obtained.
A Chinese veterinary officer and I held a daily sick call for the captured animals, of which about twenty-five percent had wounds badly infested with screw-worms. It was a six-mile round trip from the air drop field to the front lines over the worst trail that I had ever travelled. Over half of the trail led through a swamp where the water rose to the horses' bellies, and the footing was made treacherous by the roots of trees that crossed it, and tripped the horses. If a horse was strong and not carrying too much weight upon his back, he could get up when he fell, if not, he drowned before we were able to get the pack off and his head out of water. After ten days of this packing, we had lost over half of the captured animals and the remainder were in a pitiable condition due to loss of hair from standing in the water, and severe lacerations of the coronet and lower extremities. It was decided to destroy all but three of the animals which had done little packing and were highly prized by several Chinese officers to whom they had been assigned. Had it not been for the captured Japanese animals, the Chinese would have been unable to maintain the road block which was said to have been a turning point in the Northern Burma campaign.
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After completion of the pack trips, I was free to examine and salvage the captured Japanese veterinary equipment. I was surprised to find that both drugs and instruments were excellent. The equipment was comparable to that of the USF veterinary evacuation hospital and far surpassed that of a veterinary company. About fifty percent of the drugs were of German manufacture and the rest, Japanese. A single microscope was found that proved to be in splendid condition and apparently had been manufactured in Germany. All of the supplies were distributed to the veterinary units of the 38th Division.
During the first six months of 1944, animal losses amounted to sixteen percent of the 2,000 animals in the 38th Division. It is believed that this record is rather remarkable considering the type of terrain over which the division operated, the amount of packing required of the animals and that all long forage was obtained from uncured grasses and bamboo leaves. Difficulties in air dropping did not always insure an adequate grain ration for the animals.
In the six months' operational period, it is estimated that motor transport was used less than ten percent of the time. Thus, had it not been for pack animal transport, which permitted heavy equipment to be carried from air dropping fields to forward elements and artillery to be employed in long range penetration projects, the campaign in North Burma would have been greatly retarded.
Tenth and Fourteenth Air Forces
The veterinary service organization with the AAF in the China-Burma?India theater was limited in numbers of personnel, because veterinary personnel assigned to Services of Supply were available to perform the required inspections of food supplies to airbases except for a few located too far distant from service forces areas of operations (such as at Agra and Andal). There was the Tenth Air Force, with headquarters initially at New Delhi, and its Air Service Command, and the Air Volunteer Group, under Gen. Claire L. Chennault, in China, which was inducted in mid-1942 into U.S. military service as the China Air Task Force and later, in March 1943, was reorganized as the Fourteenth Air Force. A Veterinary Corps officer was assigned to the Medical Section, Tenth Air Service Command, before the end of 1942, and he acted also in the capacity of air force veterinarian. In August 1943, Headquarters. AAF, India-Burma Sector, was organized to coordinate the Tenth Air Force and the China-Burma-India, Air Service Command which was the merger of Tenth and Fourteenth Air Service Commands; the Fourteenth Air Force (less its air service command), however, continued to operate separately in China but had no veterinary food inspection personnel assigned to it until 1944. Another air forces organization was the Air Transport Command's India-China Wing established in December 1942 with headquarters initially at Chabua. This organization was eventually assigned a Veterinary Corps officer, who, as of August 1944, was supervising the inspection of the food supply at as many as 12 bases in India and 4 in China.
U.S. Army Forces, India-Burma Theater
The Army Veterinary Service with USAFIBT, which theater, as noted earlier, was established in October 1944, was the continuation of that in the
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original India-Burma Sector of the former USAFCBI. The central office for administering the theater's veterinary service organization was located in the medical section of Headquarters, Services of Supply, at New Delhi.8 This medical section (including its veterinarian) served in a dual capacity or also as the theater headquarters' medical section because the two had been merged in August 1944 just before the China-Burma-India command was divided. This double status of the theater service forces veterinarian lasted until 15 May 1945, when Headquarters, Services of Supply, was abolished and the staff veterinarian was moved along with the other medical staff officers to Headquarters, USAFIBT.
When the India-Burma theater was established, the Allied Chinese military forces in Burma were beginning to clear the Japanese from their last holdings on the developing overland supply route into China, and, after that time, the theater was important only to support military operations in China. Many veterinary personnel were then transferred to USAFCT, as the requirements for them in India and Burma became less urgent. As of 1 November 1944, the India-Burma theater had 92 veterinary officers, but many of these, plus new arrivals, were redeployed gradually to the China theater. As of 1 January 1945, this personnel strength reached a temporary peak of 118 officers and then was gradually reduced to 74 by 1 July 1945. At the beginning of 1945, the veterinary service organization included:
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFIBT, and Medical Section, Services of Supply
Theater-assigned Troops:
Veterinarian, India-Burma Theater War Dog Detachment
Sector Veterinarian, Northern Combat Area Command:
7th, 43d, and 44th Veterinary Companies (Separate)
18th and 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospitals
Company E (Veterinary), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, 5332d Brigade (Provisional):
Veterinary Detachment, 124th Cavalry Regiment
Veterinary Detachment, 475th Infantry Regiment
Veterinary Detatchments, 612th and 613th Field Artillery Pack Battalions
Veterinary Liaison Officers on duty with Chinese Army in India
Services of Supply:
Sector Veterinarian, Base Section 1:
94th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
American Delhi Military Area Command:
79th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
Sector Veterinarian, Base Section 2:
78th Veterinary Hospital Detachment
80th, 81st, 82d, 83d, 901st, 902d, 903d, 904th, and 905th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Veterinarian, Headquarters, 69th General Depot (or General Depot No. 2)
Sector Veterinarian, Intermediate Section 2:
1st Veterinary Company (Separate)
39th, 40th, and 41st Veterinary Animal Service Detachments
91st, 92d, 93d, and 906th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Veterinarian, 9th Medical Laboratory
Veterinary Detachment, Troop A of 253d Quartermaster Remount Squadron
Veterinary Detachments, Troop A of 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron and 699th Quartermaster Remount Troop
Sector Veterinarian, Advance Section 3:
2d Veterinary Company (Separate)
51st and 52d Veterinary Animal Service Detachments
88th, 89th, 90th, 907th, and 908th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Veterinary Detachment, 698th Quartermaster Remount Troop
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, Air Service Command, AAF:
Veterinarian, 3d Air Depot Group
Veterinarian, 305th Air Service Center
Veterinarian, Surgeon's Office, India-China Division, Air Transport Command
8Theater veterinarians and officers acting in that capacity included Col. R. W. Mohri, VC (October 1944 to October 1945), Maj. N. G. Claus, VC (October 1945 to November 1945), and Capt. I. Zimmerman, VC (November 1945 through December 1945).
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The foregoing organizational list includes veterinary food inspection detachments, then called medical composite sections (food inspection), which were new to any similar listing for the original China-Burma-India theater. Sixteen such detachments (the 79th through the 94th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments) arrived during December 1944 from the Zone of Interior, and an additional eight (the 901st through the 908th, inclusive) were activated on 26 December 1944, within the theater; four veterinary food inspection detachments (84th through the 87th) were immediately transferred to USAFCT, and twenty were initially deployed in the Services of Supply organization. Others were activated in mid-1945, 2 on 2 May 1945 (the 916th and 917th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments), 14 on 11 June 1945 (the 937th through the 950th, inclusive), and 5 on 17 July 1945 (the 951st through the 955th, inclusive). The unit activations of June 1945 were made specifically for organization in India-Burma, utilizing personnel drawn from Company E (Veterinary), 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, which now was being inactivated, and for transfer eventually to USAFCT; however, of these 14, 8 (the (937th through 944th) were actually organized and ordered to China, but only 4 had departed before V-J Day.
As of 1 August 1945, the veterinary personnel strength included 71 officers who were on duty with the medical sections of theater headquarters, of Base, Intermediate, and Advance Section subcommands, Northern Combat Area Command, Air Service Command, and Air Transport Command; 1 veterinary evacuation hospital, 3 veterinary companies (separate), 5 veterinary animal service detachments, and 31 veterinary food inspection detachments; 2 medical laboratories; and 2 subsistence storage depots, a quartermaster war dog detachment, and 4 quartermaster remount troops. Following V-J Day, the India-Burma theater inactivated many of these units, and most of its personnel were returned to the United States so that by late January 1946 the theater's veterinary service organization, headed by an acting theater veterinarian in the grade of captain, totaled but 11 officers, who were assigned as follows:
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFIBT, at New Delhi
American Delhi Military Area Command
Surgeon's Office, Base Section, at Calcutta:
94th, 901st, and 955th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments at Andal, Calcutta, and Karachi
Port of Embarkation, Karachi
Surgeon's Office, Intermediate Section, at Chabua:
93rd Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment, at Chabua
475th and 699th Quartermaster Remount Troops, at Gauhati
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Effective on 31 May 1946, USAFIBT was inactivated, and personnel and activities remaining in that area were taken over by the new Detachment, U.S. Army Forces, India, with headquarters at New Delhi. By this time, all veterinary personnel and units had been withdrawn.
Summarizing, veterinary animal service activities in the India-Burma theater included the care and treatment of U.S. military horses and mules (peak of strength, 7,531 in February 1945). During the period from November 1944 to February 1946, there were 6,347 admissions from an average animal strength of 4,237; a total of 1,552 animals died or were destroyed, and 93 animals were killed in action. Also, the U.S. forces veterinary hospital installations admitted, in the period from November 1944 through April 1945, more than 2,200 cases of sick and wounded animals from the Chinese Army in India for treatment, and another 4,791 cases were treated by or under supervision of Veterinary Corps officers on liaison duty with the Chinese combat divisions in the field. The accomplishments regarding subsistence inspection, statistically, were not found in available documents.
Services of Supply, U.S. Army Forces, India-Burma Theater.-Headquarters, Services of Supply, with location in New Delhi, included the consolidated medical sections of theater and service forces headquarters until its disbandment in May 1945. During this time, the Services of Supply field organization comprised five area or section subcommands originally set up in the India-Burma Sector of the former China-Burma-India theater: Base Section 1 (with headquarters at Karachi), Base Section 2 (with headquarters at Calcutta), Intermediate Section 2 (with headquarters at Chabua, Assam), Advance Section 3 (with headquarters at Ledo), and the American Delhi Military Area Command. Each section included a staff veterinary officer in the headquarters medical section who administered the veterinary personnel and activities within the defined geographic area of the section concerned. Generally, these activities in the Delhi area and in the two base sections, Base Section 1 in western India and Base Section 2 in southeastern India, were largely that of food inspection, although Base Section 2, including the Calcutta port, necessarily played a role in the disembarkation of animal transports and transshipment of the animals northward. However, in the northeasterly located Intermediate and Advance Sections, the activities were divided between veterinary food inspection and veterinary animal service in the remount depots which provided animals to the Allied ground tactical troops fighting in Burma. It may be noted that, effective on 15 May 1945, when Headquarters, Services of Supply, was discontinued, the foregoing sub-
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section commands were transferred to direct control of Headquarters, USAFIBT. Concurrently, Base Sections 1 and 2 were consolidated into the new Base Section, with headquarters at Calcutta, and Intermediate Section 2 and Advance Section 3 were renamed Intermediate Section and Advance Section, respectively. On 1 November 1945, Advance Section was discontinued and was absorbed by Intermediate Section.
There was no immediate change in the veterinary laboratory services during the transition of the India-Burma Sector of the former China-Burma?India theater into the India-Burma theater. However, during May 1945, these activities, then being conducted by the 9th Medical Laboratory, were augmented when a second unit, the 29th Medical Laboratory, complete with a veterinary section, arrived from the Zone of Interior.
Northern Combat Area Command.-In the Northern Combat Area Command, the continuation of the Allied command organization originally created during February 1944 in the former China-Burma-India theater, the Army Veterinary Service provided close-in veterinary animal services support to the 5332d Brigade (Provisional), advisory assistance to the Chinese military forces and established a chain of animal evacuation and veterinary hospitalization for sick, injured, and wounded animals. The Allied objective was to clear the Japanese completely from the projected overland route to China (the Stilwell Road) and to drive southward through the central part of Burma to Mandalay. At the beginning of the new campaign in Burma, Headquarters, Northern Combat Area Command, included a sector veterinary section at Ledo, and there were six veterinary company and hospital units in the area: Company E (Veterinary) of 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, the 7th, 43rd, and 44th Veterinary Companies (Separate), and the 18th and 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospitals. Of these, only the 7th Veterinary Company, Company E (Veterinary) of 13th Mountain Medical Battalion, and the 18th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital were actively deployed. The 43d and the 44th Veterinary Companies (Separate) both arrived in the theater too late to enter the combat area and were used instead as service troops until their inactivation (in June 1945); the 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital was transferred in February 1945 to the China theater after receipt of its equipment. During this period of the Burma campaign, the number of Veterinary Corps officers on liaison duty with the Chinese military forces increased from 9 in December 1944 to 13 by 1 May 1945, but, by the end of July 1945, no officers were so assigned within the theater.
U.S. Army Forces, China Theater
In the fall of 1944 when the China-Burma-India theater was divided into USAFIBT and USAFCT, the veterinary service organization in China included that with the combined Y-Force and Z-Force Operations Staffs, which were concerned with the Chinese military forces, and the few personnel with the services of supply organization who were inspecting the foods
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MAP 6.-Locations of veterinary units in the China theater, as of 1945.
supplied by the Chinese War Area Service Command at U.S. installations, particularly at the larger bases of the Fourteenth Air Force. Headquarters, USAFCT, was established at Chungking, but in December 1944 this became the advance echelon staff, and the new Headquarters, Rear Echelon, USAFCT, with location at K'un-ming was established. Only the latter set up supervisory staff controls over Medical Department activities and personnel at theater headquarters level, and it included the theater surgeon's office to which a Veterinary Corps officer was assigned9 and designated (on 27 December 1944) as the theater veterinarian (14). Of course by this time, the fight for the reopening of the overland route (or old Burma Road) into China was all but ended, and the major military effort was being redirected from the India-Burma Sector to further the defense of American airbases in southeastern China which were being threatened by the Japanese armies.
As of 1 March 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with USAFCT (map 6) totaled 89 officers assigned as follows: Theater surgeon's office, 2; Services of Supply (including 4 veterinary food inspection detachments), 7; Air Forces Air Service Command, 2; Chinese Combat Command (including
9Theater veterinarians included Col. J. E. Fuller, VC (December 1944 to January 1946) and then Col. E. W. Young, VC.
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19 veterinary animal service detachments), 71; and Chinese Training Command, 7. As of 2 September 1945, this number of personnel had increased to 123 veterinary officers, then located as follows:
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, USAFCT
Theater Headquarters Station Command:
245th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
Surgeon's Office, Headquarters, Services of Supply:
Base Section 1:
87th, 243d, 915th, 917th, 938th, 940th, and 943d Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Base Section 2:
84th, 85th, and 944th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Base Section 3:
82d and 244th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Base Section 4:
80th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachment
Base Section 5:
86th, 913th, and 914th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments
Surgeon's Office, Air Service Command, Army Air Forces, China Theater:
Station Veterinary Detachment, 315th Service Group
Surgeon's Office, Chinese Training Command:
Station Veterinary Detachment
Surgeon's Office, Chinese Combat Command:
7th Veterinary Company (Separate)
19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital
42d through 50th, and 53d through 62d Veterinary Animal Service Detachments
Veterinary liaison officers
During July 1945, Headquarters, Rear Echelon, of the China theater, was discontinued and its medical staff section, including the theater veterinarian, was moved to the advance headquarters group at Chungking; however, following V-J Day, the theater surgeon's office was returned to K'un?ming where it added the Services of Supply headquarters medical staff to act as the central administrative office for both theater and service forces medical personnel and activities. Major efforts were then directed toward the early and rapid phase-out of activities, the inactivation of units, and the return of personnel to the United States. On 10 September 1945, the Shanghai Base Command, complete with a staff veterinary officer, was established; during the next month, the theater veterinarian moved with the theater surgeon's office from K'un-ming to Shanghai, where the Shanghai Base Command's medical section and theater surgeon's office were merged. Effective on 1 May 1946, USAFCT became U.S. Army Forces, China, and the few remaining veterinary officers were transferred to the latter's subordinate element, called China Service Command.
In the China theater, the Army Veterinary Service had considerably more to do with Chinese Army animals than with U.S. military horses and mules. In fact, the latter's animal strength reached a peak of 1,740 in July 1945, and only 426 cases of diseases and injuries were treated among these animals. During the period from January to September 1945, 288 animals
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FIGURE 35.-The horseshoeing shop, Veterinary School, Infantry Training Center, K'un-ming, China.
died or were destroyed (including 140 destroyed because of surra and 71 because of glanders). The Allied Chinese military forces had an estimated 16,000 to 22,000 animals, and U.S. veterinary officers, in the period from February through August 1945, treated or supervised the treatment of more than 11,000 cases of diseases and injuries in Chinese Army animals. Most of the U.S. animals in the theater were received from the India-Burma theater for issue to the Chinese combat units; however, a few were utilized in the mounting of U.S. military liaison teams and veterinary units on duty with the Chinese military forces or in the schools for instructing Chinese Army personnel in veterinary medicine, animal care and management, pack animal packing, and horseshoeing (fig. 35). In regard to meat and dairy hygiene services in the China theater, the Army Veterinary Service inspected, in the period from January through September 1945, approximately 46,740,000 pounds of foods, as follows:
Pounds | |
On delivery at purchase | 11,700,000 |
Army receipt except purchase | 9,625,000 |
Prior to shipment | 3,510,000 |
At time of issue | 20,750,000 |
In storage | 1,155,000 |
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Services of Supply, U.S. Army Forces, China Theater.-In China, those service forces personnel and activities supporting the U.S. commands which were concerned with the Chinese military forces and American air operations were grouped under Headquarters, Services of Supply, USAFCT, with headquarters at K'un-ming. The latter's medical section did not gain a staff veterinary officer until 16 January 1945, who then proceeded to organize and revitalize the existent meager veterinary services at two or three abattoirs throughout southern China. By the end of the next month, the Army Veterinary Service with Services of Supply had seven veterinary officers, including four as commanding officers of veterinary food inspection detachments (or units). The mission of this veterinary service organization had now become (1) the, inspection of foods being supplied to U.S. personnel by the Chinese (through its War Area Service Command) and the development and supervision of abattoir construction and operations, (2) the advising on veterinary supply to the United States-sponsored Chinese military forces, and (3) the providing of assistance in the procurement and transportation of Chinese Army animals. Also, a veterinary plan for evacuating and hospitalizing sick and wounded animals and for remounting the Chinese combat units was being undertaken as the war ended.
To better coordinate these veterinary and other activities with the Chinese military forces, the Services of Supply organization operated through five area commands, or base sections as they were named after April 1945. These were comparable to the territorial subdivision of the Chinese Services of Supply; in fact, during March 1945, a Veterinary Corps officer was assigned full-time duty with the headquarters of that Chinese Army organization. The latter was responsible for the local and actual procurement of most of the animals, feed and forage, animal equipment, and horseshoeing material which were required in the United States-sponsored Chinese armies and divisions, and for the full supply to the nonsponsored Chinese military forces. In these operations, the Army Veterinary Service lent assistance to the extent of formulating a quartermaster remount plan, participating in the specially formed Sino-American Horse Purchasing Bureau, recommending changes in the Chinese system for the procurement and distribution of forage, developing and starting the manufacture of compressed hay and a compressed emergency ration for animals, inaugurating equipment maintenance units, beginning the manufacture of horseshoes, and advising on changes in the administration of the Chinese Army veterinary service. The U.S. base subsections of Services of Supply, as of June 1945, were as follows: Base Section 1, with headquarters at Y?n-nan-i; Base Section 2, with headquarters at K'un-ming; Base Section 3, with headquarters at Chan-i, India; Base Section 4, with headquarters at Kuei-yang; and Base Section 5, also at K'un-ming. Following V-J Day, these were discontinued as U.S. military activities were recentered in the new Shanghai Base Command. The foregoing base section headquarters staffs generally had no staff veterinarian in
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their medical sections, but the veterinary personnel and various activities within each such subcommand were under the supervision of, and regularly inspected by, veterinary officers assigned to Headquarters, Services of Supply.
The theater's veterinary meat and dairy hygiene inspection services were formally started in early January 1945 when four food inspection detachments (the 84th, 85th, 86th, and 87th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments, then called medical composite sections (food inspection) ) arrived from USAFIBT. These detachments were assigned to station at Chan-i, Y?n-nan-i, Lu-liang, and Cheng-tu. During the next month, the 913th, 914th, and 915th Veterinary Food Inspection Detachments were activated locally and, after their organization and orientation, set up operations initially at Pai-shih-i, Kuang-han (in the Cheng-tu area), and Pao-shan. By September 1945, 27 detachments were authorized for the theater, but 10 detachments that were to be organized by USAFIBT either were not formed because of shortages in numbers of personnel (the 945th through 950th) or had not departed for the China theater before V-J Day (the 937th, 939th, 941st, and 942d). Altogether, 11 veterinary food inspection detachments were received from or through the India-Burma theater: The 80th and 82d (during April-May 1945), the 84th, 85th, 86th, and 87th (during January-February 1945), the 917th (during August 1945), and the 938th, 940th, 943d, and 944th (during August-September 1945). Six were activated and organized locally: The 243d, 244th, and 245th (during June 1945) and the 913th, 914th, and 915th (during February 1945).
These food inspection detachments, for the most part, were stationed in the vicinity of major subsistence storage points or depots and at abattoirs, many of the latter being specially constructed by the Army (such as at Pao-shan, Sian, Nancheng, Chih-chiang, Lu-liang, Kuei-yang, Pai-shih-i, Chungking, and Luhsien).10 The abattoirs, including those operated by the Chinese War Area Service Command organization (which provided housekeeping services to the American forces in China), were operated under the full supervision of Veterinary Corps officers to insure that the supplies of fresh beef, pork, and chicken were clean and sound. The Army Veterinary Service comprised the only inspection agency, and typically the abattoirs had no trained Chinese butcher personnel; serious difficulties were experienced with the supply of adequate potable water, the procedures for waste disposal, and the handling and distribution of the meat where refrigerated facilities were underdeveloped. As the U.S. troop strength increased, the animals to be slaughtered became more difficult to obtain, but the grade of beef was never higher than that used in the American meat canning; industry, only the carcass beef was accepted because edible organs generally revealed extremely heavy parasitic infestations. In the period January through September 1945, the Army Veterinary Service inspected approximately 63,000 live cattle and hogs for slaughter and conducted post mortem
10In the fall of 1944, the Army Veterinary Service was supervising the operation of nine abattoirs in China, K'un-ming, Y?n-nan-i, Yang-chieh, Chan-i, and in the Cheng-tu area. Abattoirs were newly constructed and in operation in places cited in the text, and, as of V-J Day, abattoir construction was approved or started at Kaiyuan, Meng-tzu, Nan-ning, and Liu-chow.
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inspection on 58,000; also, 361,000 live poultry were inspected ante mortem, and 308,000 carcasses were inspected during the slaughtering operations.
In the nonperishable (or canned) subsistence supply to the China theater, the Army Veterinary Service experienced an unusually high rate of losses. Of course, the subsistence was handled many times before arrival in the theater, and large quantities of it, long stored and now surplus to the Army in India-Burma, were received in broken containers or with the cans seriously rusted or damaged. The condition of the canned foods was not bettered when they were hauled over the Stilwell Road. This condition was not improved when subsistence stocks in Burma were loaded on airplanes without the benefit of preshipment examinations, flown over the Hump, and unloaded at destination within minutes and heaped on the airfields. Another veterinary activity at airbase and services of supply installations was the supervision of ice cream manufacture, using dried ice cream mix of U.S. origin or other raw material if the mix product was unavailable. Also, butcher shop facilities were established and specially equipped to trim and render fat into lard.
The Services of Supply, USAFCT, also cooperated with the Chinese Combat Command in the conservation of Chinese Army animal strength by administering the proper transport of animals rapidly into the vicinity of active combat areas in China. Under veterinary supervision at the loading points, along the routes of military animal traffic, and at destination, large numbers of horses and mules were moved by airplane, road marching, railroad, and truck convoy. In the first major animal movement, approximately 2,200 animals belonging to the Chinese New 6th Army (including the Chinese 14th and 22d Divisions) were redeployed by aerial transport from Burma into Chan-i. This took place during January-February 1945 and was repeated when, between 21 April and 11 May 1945, the same animals were airlifted from Chan-i to Chih-chiang-the last large American airbase which stood in the path of new Japanese advances into southern China. During June, July, and August 1945, another 3,164 horses and mules belonging to the Chinese New 1st Army and 1st Regiment were transported by airplane from Burma-this time to Nan-ning where the Chinese military forces were preparing for an offensive toward a Japanese-held port on the eastern China coast.
As these aerial movements were taking place and with the ending of the fight for Burma, approximately 3,000 animals belonging to the Chinese 30th and 22d Divisions (the latter's replacement animals only), 10th and 12th Engineer Regiments, and other units, and more than 2,400 mules and horses belonging to the two field artillery battalions and six quartermaster pack troops of the disbanding 5332d Brigade (Provisional) were roadmarched over the Stilwell route into China, over which Allied traffic had started to move in January 1945. Feeding-watering-resting bivouacs or camps, overnight stopover points, veterinary aid stations, and truck ambulances were
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established along the route of march by the Services of Supply. This project proceeded satisfactorily until early August 1945 when one confirmed case of surra appeared in an American field artillery mule. This led to the testing of all animals in the marching columns. Repeated testing during that month eventually led to the outright destruction of 181 of approximately 900 animals in the field artillery units. During September 1945, repeated testing of approximately 1,500 mules and horses of the six quartermaster pack troops-mostly bivouaced along the march route-was finalized; 453 were destroyed, 307 because they were known to be infected, and the remaining 46 because their physical condition made it evident that they were particularly susceptible to infection. Altogether, 18,480 microscopic examinations were made of animal blood specimens during the 2 months. It had been determined that only surra-free Army horses and mules would be turned over to the Chinese military forces. The disease also was uncovered by Veterinary Corps liaison officers on duty with Chinese divisional units. Also, from K'un-ming, railroad shipments were made of 5,500 horses and mules belonging to the Chinese field armies, divisions, engineer remounts, and field artillery battalions that were then being utilized into the defense of southern China. At Chan-i, or the terminal end of these movements by rail, the animals were transported by truck into the combat area as a means of further conserving their efficiency. In this connection, a regular fast-moving truck convoy system was established and used at first, but the results were disastrous in terms of dead animals on the trucks at final destination. The Army Veterinary Service soon requested the abolishment of the system, also called block movement, in favor of a somewhat slower movement during daylight hours only, with stopovers en route, and each truck was to be accompanied by animal attendants.
Within the Shanghai Base Command, established on 10 September 1945, but soon lost as a separate organization entity when the China theater headquarters moved there, the Army Veterinary Service surveyed and established inspections in local commercial plants which furnished fresh beef, pork, lamb, and chicken to the Armed Forces. The Army Veterinary Service also supervised the manufacture of ice cream and reconstituted milk in a dairy plant. using Army-owned raw materials, and located refrigerated warehouses for the storage of perishable subsistence. A port veterinary service was also inaugurated. Two veterinary food inspection detachments, the 84th and the 87th, were moved into Shanghai, but the 84th was inactivated before the end of 1945. It may be noted that a Joint Army-Navy Preventive Medicine Service was created to coordinate medical operations, including the veterinary sanitary inspections of food supplies and restaurants, to safeguard the health of the large numbers of American military personnel who came into Shanghai during the immediate postwar period (15).
Chinese Combat Command.-The China sector of the former China?Burma-India theater's Chinese Training and Combat Command, comprising
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the original Y-Force and Z-Force Operations Staffs, which now were merged, was continued within the new China theater as a major element of that theater for only a few months. In the winter of 1945, the Salween campaign for reopening the overland Burma-China route was all but ended, and in eastern China the Japanese southwardly advances had disrupted the schedule for completely training, equipping, and deploying the Z-Force. Thus, on 8 January 1945, the theater's training and liaison organization for the Chinese Army was separated into two subordinate theater commands, the training group, or Chinese Training Command, and the group on liaison duty with the Chinese field forces, designated as the Chinese Combat Command. The latter, with headquarters at K'un-ming, included a staff Veterinary Corps officer, formerly with Headquarters, Y-Force Operations Staff, who technically administered the U.S. veterinary services with the Chinese field forces. These veterinary services were conducted by personnel and units which were assigned to five territorial subcommands (each covering a China provincial area and paralleling the field organization of the Chinese Army): Eastern, Central, Southern, Kwangasi, and Reserve. Then, below the level of the five area commands within the Chinese Combat Command, there were 12 army liaison teams and 36 division liaison teams which were attached to, and moved with, the Chinese combat units. All liaison teams were authorized to include a veterinary officer, a veterinary enlisted man, and a horseshoer. As of the end of March 1945, the Army Veterinary Service with the Chinese Combat Command had 51 officers and 60 enlisted personnel (including 28 horseshoer specialists)-these being distributed among the headquarters, area commands, and liaison teams-and also, 19 veterinary animal service detachments. The latter augmented the liaison team veterinary services in the Chinese armies and divisions.
The principal objective of the veterinary liaison personnel were to assist "* * * in every way possible in improving the methods of animal management, care of sick and injured animals, supervision of packing and shoeing of all animals" in the Chinese armies and divisions. Schools of instruction were established within the units, and particular attention was paid to the development of trained and well-equipped Chinese veterinary detachments. Under this kind of supervision and instruction, the standards of animal care and management in the Chinese combat forces was greatly improved, but it must be noted that before this time there were little or no such standards practiced and that the Chinese Army Veterinary Service generally had few really well qualified personnel and was numerically inadequate. In addition to the liaison personnel and the 19 veterinary animal service detachments, the Chinese Combat Command also utilized the 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital and elements of the 7th Veterinary Company (Separate), as follows (16):
* * * The 7th Veterinary Company (Separate) was divided into three platoons which functions separately, one platoon with each division of the New 1st Army. The platoons
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of this company assisted in the loading and unloading of animals on planes which were used to airlift the animals from the IB [India-Burma] Theater to the China Theater. One platoon accompanied one division (30th Div., N 1st Army) on its overland movement from Lashio, Burma to Nanning, China. They furnished the necessary care and evacuation of animals while en route. The 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital established eleven feed and rest stations and Veterinary Aid stations along the Burma road axis from Wanting, China to Tuhshan, China. This unit designed and supervised the building of animal racks for all truck shipments, thereby eliminating injuries that heretofore caused great loss of animals from permanent injuries, death and long periods of treatment. Further, this unit assisted in loading and unloading of all truck and plane shipments of animals; 13,580 animals were handled by the 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital. Due to weather conditions, lack of trucks and planes and shortage of forage in some areas, the 19th had to maintain a 24 hour schedule for handling of all air, truck and overland movements. This hospital unit furnished invaluable assistance in loading of the 6th Army animals on planes and expediting their shipment from Chanyi to Chihkiang in April 1945 to halt the advance of the Japanese Army on Chihkiang.
After V-J Day, the veterinary animal service detachments were assigned to Services of Supply and then inactivated on 16 September 1945, and the 7th Veterinary Company (Separate) and 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital were redeployed to the India-Burma theater for return to the United States.
Chinese Training Command.-This command, with headquarters at K'un-ming, was established on 8 January 1945, when, it must be recalled, the training group and liaison group in the China theater's Chinese Training and Combat Command were divided and two subcommand elements were formed. The training command headquarters included a staff veterinary officer who had once been assigned to Z-Force Operations Staff at Kueilin; it continued the veterinary section of the Field Artillery Training Center which had been opened originally in the spring of 1943 in connection with the training of the former X-Force Chinese armies and divisions. Formal school-type courses of training in professional animal service, and animal care and management were conducted in the center for Chinese Army veterinary personnel, as were courses for horseshoers and animal pack masters of the United States-sponsored Chinese Army; also, orientation training was given to U.S. veterinary liaison personnel prior to assignment with the Chinese field units. The Army Veterinary Service with Chinese Training Command totaled seven or eight officers. This number included the two veterinary officers who were detailed full-time duty, since mid-1944, as instructors in the Chinese Army Veterinary School at An-shun. That institution, through the office of the Chinese Ministry of War, urgently requested additional U.S. veterinary instructors, but no other Veterinary Corps officers could be spared from the number which were available in the China theater. In August 1945, however, that school's 23 recent graduates and two instructors were accepted at the Field Artillery Training Center for a 4 week's postgraduate professional course of instruction.
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Army Air Forces, China Theater.-The veterinary service organization with the air forces in the China theater never exceeded two or three officers and a few enlisted personnel because the requirements for veterinary services, particularly food inspection, at the airbases were readily satisfied by service forces' assigned veterinary officers. This was mutually agreeable to the Services of Supply and Fourteenth Air Force. Actually, the bases were widely scattered, sometimes small in size, and were moved frequently so that a great many more veterinary personnel would have been needed than were available in the theater. Up to mid-1945, the theater's major air forces organization was the Fourteenth Air Force, with its own China Air Service Command to which the veterinary personnel were assigned; actually, the medical sections of the numbered air force and the air service command were merged after December 1944. Then, during mid-1945, as the Tenth Air Force arrived from the India-Burma theater, the new Headquarters, A AF, China Theater, was formed, and the Fourteenth Air Force's Air Service Command, with the assigned veterinary officers, became the theater's new air service command with headquarters at K'un-ming. Shortly after V-J Day, the air service command lost its veterinary personnel, and, on 1 December 1945, both the Fourteenth Air Force and Tenth Air Force headquarters were disbanded.
Another air forces unit in the theater was the Twentieth Air Force's XX Bomber Command, which in the spring of 1944 began to operate the very long range bombing program against the Japan mainland. During the first half of 1945, it was transferred out of the airbases in China to the Marianas Islands in the CPA; there was no organically assigned veterinary detachment with this air forces unit while in China. In the China theater, there was also an Air Transport Command wing organization to which a veterinary officer was assigned in September 1945.
References
1. History of the U.S. Army Medical Department, Veterinary Service. Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas. For the period, 7 Dec. 1941 to 30 June 1945. [Official record.]
2. Link, Mae M., and Coleman, Hubert A.: Medical Support of the Army Air Forces in World War II. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955, p. 732.
3. Letter, Col. Josiah W. Worthington, VC, to The Surgeon General, 1 Dec. 1945, subject: USAFFE and USFIP Veterinary Activities and Subsequent Experiences as Prisoners of War.
4. Report of interview, Chief, Operations Service, to Veterinary Division, 11 Apr. 1945, subject: Medical Department Activities in the Philippines.
5. Letter, Capt. Charles B. Frank to The Surgeon General, 8 May 1945, subject: Veterinary Activities in the Philippine Islands and Experiences as a Prisoner of War.
6. Smock, S. C., and Baker, J. E.: History of the Veterinary Service in Southwest Pacific Area. For the period, 1942-45. [Official record.]
7. Weisman, L. G.: History of the Veterinary Service in Southwest Pacific Area. For the period, 1942-45. [Official record.]
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8. Annual Report, Veterinary Section, Q. M. Branch, Procurement Division, Australia Base Section, U.S. Army Services of Supply, Southwest Pacific Area, for 1944. [Official record.]
9. Quarterly Report, Veterinary Branch, Headquarters, Australia Base Section, for 1 April through 30 June 1945. [Official record.]
10. Mohri, R. W.: World War II Historical Report of the Army Veterinary Service With U.S. Army Forces, China-Burma-India, 1942-45. [Official record.]
11. Letter, Lt. Col. Norman J. Pyle, VC, to Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Kelser, 29 June 1944, subject: Mission to China.
12. Gillespie, J. H.: Historical Reports, Veterinarian, Advance Section 1, for periods, 1 October to 31 December 1943 (dated 2 January 1944), and 1 January to 31 March 1944 (dated 3 April 1944).
13. Unidentified document, subject: Veterinary Service-Assigned and Attached, dated 26 February 1944, by Lt. Col. W. E. Jennings, VC.
14. The Veterinary History of the China Theater, 1945. [Official record.]
15. Essential Technical Medical Data, Headquarters, U.S. Forces, China Theater, for October 1945.
16. Jennings, W. E.: Historical Report for Chinese Combat Command (Provisional), U.S. Forces, China Theater, for period, 8 January-30 August 1945 (dated 5 September 1945).
