CHAPTER XIII
Animal Procurement
The Army Veterinary Serviceconcerned with the professional and technical supervision over the procurementand processing of remount animals for the U.S. Army in World War II included asmany as 50 Veterinary Corps officers. They were assigned to purchasing boards,remount areas, remount depots, and quartermaster units and organizations in theZone of Interior and in such oversea theaters as the South and Southwest Pacificareas, the China-Burma-India, Mediterranean, and European theaters. This personnel, includedin the organic composition of the worldwide remount activities and organization,provided professional services for, and supervisory care over, 140,000 horsesand mules coming into U.S. Army remount depots (including returned animals) andduring the tenure of their stay until issued, sold, or transferred. The animalsactually procured included the 60,000 purchased in the Zone of Interior, the6,000 purchased or obtained by reverse lend-lease inAustralia, and the many thousands which were captured,requisitioned, or received from the Allied military forces in theChina-Burma-India, Mediterranean, and European theaters. In China, animals were procured for the Chinese militaryforces by a Sino-American Horse Purchasing Bureau whose U.S. veterinary officers were sent into far-distant Tibet. Additional animals were purchased by the U.S.Army in the Hawaiian Islands, New Caledonia, and FijiIslands.
The Army Remount Service,under the control of The Quartermaster General, was responsible for theprocurement of animals and animal feed for the Army; the control over the care,training, and issue of animals at the remount depots, and the supervision of theArmy Horse Breeding Plan (1, 2). However, those professional and technicalaspects relating to the health and efficiency of animals within the Army RemountService were matters properly referred to the Veterinary Division, SurgeonGeneral's Office, and were supervised by the veterinary service withpurchasing boards, remount areas, depots, and quartermaster remount units.
ANIMAL PROCUREMENT IN THEZONE OF INTERIOR
For the administration ofanimal procurement activities in the Zone of Interior, the United States (and its territories) was divided into severalremount purchasing zones or areas. Originally, four such zones were describedbut these, becoming involved in the administration of the Army Horse BreedingPlan after World War I, gave way to remount purchasing and breeding areas, each with an area headquarters. As many as seven such areas were designated duringWorld War II, and their headquarters locations
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and geographically definedlimits varied from time to time, but by the end of the war only six were named.Each such area included a headquarters veterinarian who was responsible to theofficer-in-charge for the conduct of the veterinary service of the remount area(3). This included the investigation of the sanitary conditions surroundingthe procurement and transportation of military animals in the area, thesupervisory control over the veterinary officers assigned to the one or morepurchasing boards that may be operating within the area, and the furnishing ofprofessional services for the Army Horse Breeding Plan. Some few headquarterswere located in remount depots, but many of them had their own veterinarydispensary facilities where disabled animals from the purchasing boards couldbe treated or where Government-owned stallions could be wintered andreconditioned for reissue to civilian stallion agents.
During World War II, nomajor difficulties were experienced by the headquarters veterinarians in theanimal procurement programs throughout the remount areas. Dourine was the onlydisease occurring in the civil horse population that caused a temporary halt toprocurement in three States during 1940-41; glanders, mange, and ringworm wereunreported. However, equine influenza and the related diseases were observed atmany civilian assembly points, but steps were taken to lessen theirseriousness. The latter included requests for contractors to furnish clean andsuitable sales barns or stables and to assemble their offerings of animals justbefore the scheduled times of visit by the purchasing boards, which thentransshipped the newly purchased animals into the remount depots as soon as waspossible. Another action taken to minimize the chances of infection amonganimals being offered to Army procurement was the naming of as many as 12 to 30inspection and shipping points within a remount area rather than askingcontractors to concentrate any large number of animals at one or two points.This matter was of great importance when mules were purchased because most ofthem were obtained through dealers; on the other hand, where horses were boughtdirect from breeders and ranches, these problems did not arise. The "art ofbishoping," which made the determination of the animal's age moredifficult, and the traffic of rejected animals into the other remount areas wasobserved in only a few instances. A large number of mules were rejected fromprocurementon account of deformities of the feet which were caused seemingly by improperor neglectful trimming by the original owners.
In the remount area whereanimal procurement was not an extensive activity, the headquarters veterinarianalso served on the animal purchasing board within that area. Usually, only one such board operated at any time within a remountarea; the examination of animals for procurement could be made concurrently onthe same itinerary of travel which was followed to inspect the Government-ownedstallions standing at stud within the remount area. However, the two togethermore frequently comprised too great a
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workload so that mostheadquarters veterinarians were furnished an additional veterinary officer whowas assigned to the purchasing board.
The quartermaster purchasingboard included the Veterinary Corps officer as a board member, who was giventhe title of purchasing board veterinarian. Under the technical supervisionof the headquarters veterinarian of the remount area wherein the board wasoperating, he conducted the physical examinations on all animals offered forArmy procurement and supervised the sanitary conditions under which the animalswere collected by contractors and their subsequent handling and shipping by thepurchasing board. The purchasing board veterinarian also conducted the malleintest for glanders on all animals, whose ownership actually was not transferredto the Army until the test results became known, and identified the animals inaccordance with the Preston brand system. Under the conditions of rapid procurement of largenumbers, the animals were identified with a temporary brand (with paint orsilver nitrate) at the purchase points and then branded and mallein tested onarrival at the receiving remount depot. In all matters, the veterinaryofficer was directly responsible to the officer-in-charge or the purchasingofficer of the board (4).
The veterinary officer'sphysical examination of each animal was made for the purpose of determiningthe animal's age, physical condition, health, and soundness, and was followed bya specific recommendation of acceptance or rejection from purchase by the board.This was conducted in a positive, thorough, and systematic manner, without biasof any kind and with the best professional judgment: sometimes, it was madeconcurrently but usually followed that inspection by the purchasing officerwhich included the determination of the animal's type, conformation, color,height, weight, sex, and mannerisms as specified in the regulations of the Armyand procurement documents (5, 6). The procedures and the physical healthstandards used by the Army Veterinary Service during World War II were quitesimilar to those originally developed in 1918.
During World War II, or forthe calendar years 1940 through 1945, the Army Veterinary Service examined129,949 horses and mules for procurement; of this number, 60,230 (or 46.35) percent)1were recommended for acceptance, (table 37)(7,8). Rejections totaling 18,085 animals (or 13.8 percent) were madeon account of improper age (3,911) and a variety of pathologicaldisqualifications such as diseases of bone and the organs of locomotion(approximately8,100 animals), diseases of the nervous system and the organs of special sense,particularly the eye (1,700 animals), wounds (1,200 animals), diseases ofthe skin and cellular tissue (1,200 animals), and infectious and parasiticdiseases (1,000 animals), mostly equine influenza and related diseases of theso-called shipping fever group. The remaining number of
1This acceptance numbercompares favorably with the Quartermaster Corps information (18) on the procurement of 56,926 animals (26,403 horses and 30,523mules) in the fiscal years 1941-45.
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unaccepted animals includedrejections which were made on account of improper type or class of animal asdetermined by the purchasing officer.
Year | Animals examined | Animals recommended for acceptance | Animals recommended for rejection |
Number | Number | Number | |
1940 | 39,112 | 18,545 | 6,390 |
1941 | 31,853 | 13,565 | 5,657 |
1942 | 14,224 | 7,219 | 1,564 |
1943 | 20,260 | 10,746 | 2,254 |
1944 | 17,514 | 7,368 | 1,587 |
1945 | 6,986 | 2,787 | 633 |
| Total | 129,949 | 60,230 | 18,085 |
Sources: (1) Annual Report ofThe Surgeon General, U.S. Army. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office1941. (2) Reports, Veterinary Division, Surgeon General's Office, 1942-46.
REMOUNT DEPOT SYSTEM
The remount depot systemoperated under the control of the Army Remount Service as the intermediarybetween the animal purchasing boards and the mounted units of the Army. The onset of World War II found this system in the Zone of Interior ascomprising three permanent quartermaster remount depots; these were located atFront Royal, Va., Fort Reno, Okla., and Fort Robinson, Nebr. Their holdings, asof 1 July 1940, totaled861 animals. A fourth facility wasacquired during October 1943, when the Kellogg Arabian Nursery, received as adonation, was established as a quartermaster remount depot at Pomona, Calif.(fig. 48). Other than the depot atPomona, which became the U.S. center for thefurtherance of the Arab breed of horses and was integrated into the Army HorseBreeding Plan, the depots were operated mainly for the purposes ofreceiving remount animals from the purchasing boards and maintaining themduring the periods of their processing, conditioning, and training prior toissue to mounted units and organizations. Including the newly purchasedremounts and the animals which were returned from Army camps and the unitswhich were dismounted during the war, the animals coming into the four depotsapproximated 100,000 animals. In connection with the remounts, the depots alonewere specially equipped and organized to process animals with a minimal amountof so-called administrative losses,2 estimated not to exceed3 percent of the number of animals newly purchased (9, 10, 11).
2The cumulativeadministrative losses for the period from 1 July 1940 to 30 June 1942, coveringthe processing of 29,930 horses and mules in the remount depots, was 2.27percent.
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The remount depotrequirements of World War II were met with the expansion of the existentfacilities at Front Royal, FortReno, and Fort Robinson to capacities for 12,500 animals (12). The expansion was started after the fall of 1940 when the Office of theQuartermaster General announced plans for processing 28,860 animals for theArmy, including the National Guard that came into active military service,during the remainder of that fiscal year ending 30 June 1941.
Outside of the reception,processing and issue of animals, the remount depots also functioned as centers forbreeding animals that would demonstrate the type animals mostdesired by the Army, aided in the operations of the Army Horse BreedingPlan, and conducted programs of research on animal diseases (13). Theseseveral operational activities were a guide to the operationalorganization of the depots veterinary service (14, 15, 16, 17) which included the depotveterinarian under whom a veterinary hospital was operated. The depotveterinary hospitals were authorized stall capacities equal to 10 percent ofthe depot's animal strength, but, as of December
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1941, they aggregated 233hospital stalls and another 48 on loan against total animal strengths of 10,000in the three remount depots. The depot's veterinary service was further dividedinto a section of receipt, quarantine, and issue; a breeding and nurserysection; and another concerned with the medical supplies, food inspection for thedepot command, and the inspection of animal feeds and forage. The depots alsowere sites for veterinary officer replacement pools and were centers fortraining in remount operations. The actual operational personnel of remountdepots reached a peak of 20 veterinary officers and 200 enlisted personnel.
The veterinary service wascontinuous during the tenure of stay of the animals in the remount depots. Theincoming animals were inspected at the time of their unloading from railroadcars or trucks and then were placed in specially selected corrals where theywere maintained in quarantine status for 21 days under veterinary supervision.During the quarantine period, the remount animals were identified against theoriginal purchase descriptions, and their temporary identifications (made bypurchasing board veterinarians with white paint or silver nitrate) were replacedwith the actual Preston brands. If not mallein tested for glandersbefore shipment into the depots, the animals were so tested, and again at thetermination of the 21-day period. Including those also conducted on animalsbefore shipment from the depots, the number of mallein tests that wereconducted at the FortReno and FortRobinson depots during World War II alone aggregated morethan 200,000. Glanders did not become the disease problem of remount depots such aswas experienced in previous wars and actually was reported only on twooccasions. One involved a suspect clinical case noted at FortRobinsonduring February 1942 but was not confirmed byintradermic mallein test or the laboratory complement-fixation test onsamples of the animal's blood serum. The other involved 21 animals atFortReno that reacted as suspects to the intradermicmallein test; of these, 8 animals were positive to the complement-fixation testand were destroyed.
Equine influenza and relatedrespiratory disorders occurred with great frequency and resulted in the need tohospitalize large numbers of animals for relatively long periods of time. Forexample, equine influenza and pneumonia accounted for 58.2 percent of the totalcases of disease and injury reported at FortReno during the period from 8 September 1939 through 31 December 1941. However, the medical era of sulfonamide therapywas just beginning, so the case fatality rate at all depots was kept moderate.Then, as the war progressed and animals coming into the depots mainly included"seasoned" animals which were being returned from camps or dismountedunits rather than "green" remount animals, the respiratory diseaserate declined. At this late period of World War II, the incidence for injuryexceeded that for disease. In fact, the only significant diseases appearingamong depot animals in this late period was equine infectious anemia and apeculiar kind of toxemia which was named forage poisoning, at FortRobinson. Table 38 shows the
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numbers and rates of animaldisabilities experienced by the Army Veterinary Service at two remount depots.
TABLE 38.- Sick and woundedanimals of the Fort Reno, Okla., and Fort Robinson, Nebr., Remount Depots, 8 September1939 to 31 December 1945
Period | Average animal strength | Incoming animals | Animals issued or sold | Admissions for disease and injury | Died or destroyed | ||
Total | Disease | Injury | |||||
FORT RENO REMOUNT DEPOT | |||||||
Number | Number | Number | Number | Number | Number | Number | |
8 Sept. 1939-7 Dec. 1941 | 3,261 | 15,763 | 11,045 | 5,807 | 4,668 | 1,139 | 495 |
8 Dec. 1941-15 Aug. 1945 | 9,029 | 38,605 | 34,871 | 14,028 | 7,356 | 6,672 | 770 |
16 Aug. 1945-31 Dec. 1945 | 7,424 | 1,665 | 4,039 | 552 | 186 | 366 | 13 |
| Total | 6,885 | 56,031 | 49,955 | 20,387 | 12,210 | 8,177 | 1,278 |
| FORT ROBINSON REMOUNT DEPOT1 | |||||||
Rate2 | Rate2 | Rate2 | Rate2 | ||||
8 Sept. 1939-31 Dec. 1939 | 1,324 | 763 | 509 | 2,021.8 | 1,645.5 | 376.3 | 29.5 |
1 Jan. 1940-30 June 1940 | 983 | 75 | 845 | 1,147.6 | 722.3 | 425.3 | 20.4 |
1 July 1940-31 Dec. 1940 | 2,606 | 7,287 | 2,108 | 1,993.5 | 1,714.2 | 279.4 | 100.5 |
1 Jan. 1941-30 June 1941 | 3,334 | 3,063 | 5,053 | 956.9 | 719.3 | 237.6 | 61.8 |
1 July 1941-31 Dec. 1941 | 3,747 | 1,535 | 1,532 | 964.6 | 668.7 | 295.9 | 62.1 |
1 Jan. 1942-30 June 1942 | 3,781 | 4,435 | 316 | 634.3 | 331.0 | 303.3 | 42.2 |
1 July 1942-31 Dec. 1942 | 9,085 | 3,345 | 571 | 401.8 | 191.3 | 210.5 | 39.4 |
1 Jan. 1943-30 June 1943 | 11,403 | 5,092 | 1,706 | 350.5 | 194.7 | 155.8 | 77.4 |
1 July 1943-31 Dec. 1943 | 10,913 | 1,866 | 2,176 | 284.8 | 146.2 | 138.6 | 86.5 |
1 Jan. 1944-30 June 1944 | 8,103 | 3,902 | 4,955 | 333.2 | 167.6 | 165.6 | 86.6 |
1 July 1944-31 Dec. 1944 | 8,688 | 5,637 | 4,778 | 354.9 | 176.5 | 178.4 | 97.1 |
1 Jan. 1944-3 Sept. 1945 | 9,444 | 3,370 | 3,137 | 345.2 | 164.6 | 180.6 | 69.4 |
4 Sept. 1945-31 Dec. 1945 | 8,459 | 71 | 4,288 | 201.4 | 90.0 | 111.4 | 56.0 |
| Total | 6,471 | 40,441 | 31,974 | 480.5 | 290.6 | 189.9 | 71.4 |
1The arrival of animals into theFort Robinson depot influenced the trend of the morbidity rate to the extentthat newly purchased remount animals are demonstrably more prone to disease thanthe "seasoned" animals which may be returned from the Army camps anddismounted units. In this connection, mention must be made that the arrivalscomprised remount animals only, for the periods, 8 Sept. 1939-31 Dec. 1939through 1 July 1941-31 Dec. 1941. After the latter period, arrivals includedboth remount animals and a somewhat greater number of returned or"seasoned" animals.
2Animal rate per 1,000 animal strength.
The prophylacticinoculations made against equine encephalomyelitis, tetanus, and anthraxcomprised a large part of the veterinary workload in the remount depots; at FortReno and Fort Robinson these aggregated more than 200,000 inoculations during the war period. For example, as a part of the annual vaccination program against equine encephalomyelitis that was developed for Armyhorses and mules in the Zone of Interior beginning in 1938,
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the Army Veterinary Servicevaccinated (and revaccinated) the animals being maintained in the depots duringeach spring-summer season. At the two depots just named, 124,305 inoculationswere made against this viral disease. The inoculations with tetanus toxoid,including the initial double injection and the stimulating (or booster) dose,totaled 81,242 at FortReno and FortRobinson. The latter were a part of the protectivevaccination program-of Army?wide application, started in early1941-that wastaken to give permanent immunity against tetanus and replaced the former use ofantitetanus toxin in special cases of traumatic wounds.3 The third group ofinoculations-single doses of intradermic anthrax sporevaccine-against anthraxwas started at the depots in 1944 when the Veterinarian, China-Burma-Indiatheater, asked that animals shipped into that theater be previously immunizedagainst anthrax. Up to the end of 1945, the FortReno and Fort Robinsondepots had made 12,628 such inoculations.
The same quarantineprocedures and such prophylactic immunizations as were indicated were applied tohorses and mules which were returned from camps and dismounted units.In fact, beginning in 1942, the processing of returned animals became asgreat an activity as had been the processing of newly purchased remountanimals during the first few years of World War II, although mule procurementswere undertaken during the later period when horse buying had been stopped. Theremount depots thus became reservoirs of large numbers of animals surplus tomilitary needs. Under these circumstances, the Front Royal depot was almostclosed out by mid-1944 when many of its animals were transshipped to FortRobinson or issued to a mountain division at Camp Swift, Tex., and the remainder were disposed of by sale.With this trend, the average animal strength at FortRobinson increased from 3,781 for the first 6 months of1942 to 9,085 for the next 6 months and remained at about that level for thesucceeding 3 years. The animal strength of the FortReno depot was 9,029 for the war period, ascontrasted with the average of 3,261 animals therein during the period fromSeptember 1939 to 7 December 1941.
After the termination oftheir 21-day quarantine and processing, the animals were reinspected atregular intervals. At any time, sick and wounded animals were removed from thecorrals to the depot veterinary hospital for care and treatment. Preparatory toissue or sale, the animals were mallein tested and physically examined. It wasan inviolate rule that no animal would be shipped from the depots unless it wassound, healthy, and particularly free of diseases of the respiratory system, andringworm or other diseases of the skin. The depot veterinarians and the depotcommanders together reviewed the last-minute preparations on the issues andsales of 88,000 or more horses and mules from the depots during World War II.This number (for the fiscal years 1941-45) included 49,600 issued (or reissued)in the Zone of Interior,
2Only one case of tetanuswas reported among animals in the remount depots during World War II. Thisinvolved a remount animal 3 days after its arrival at Fort Reno and beforevaccination against tetanus was begun. The case was successfully treated withantitetanus toxin.
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7,800 issued for overseasupply, 4,000 issued to the Coast Guard and other armed services, 300 issued toforeign governments, 3,507 supplied on lend-lease to the United Kingdom,17,000 sold (excluding 9,400 animals which were sold at Army camps or by theCoast Guard), and 6,500 dying or destroyed within the depots (that is,administrative losses) (18). The animals within the remount depots on 30June1945, totaled 16,992 (or 12,454 mules and 4,538 horses).
OVERSEA THEATER REMOUNTOPERATIONS
Remount operationscomparable to those conducted in the Zone of Interior came into existence in theSouth and Southwest Pacific Areas and in the China-Burma-India, Mediterranean,and European theaters. The mobilization planning relative to such operations ina war theater, that was undertaken during the peacetime years preceding WorldWar II, was centered on the study of two types of quartermaster field units, theremount squadron and the remount troop. The remount troop was developed beforeWorld War II as a unit capable of receiving, conditioning, and issuing 400animals and was designed primarily to establish and operate a so-called armycorps remount depot. Three or more such troops were to be joined to form aremount squadron which was designed to operate a field army's remount depot (of1,200-animal capacity) or a depot (of 7,200-animal capacity) in the area behindthe army or communications zone. The units' organic veterinary detachments wereequipped to establish veterinary dispensaries within these depots, but theirprimary mission was not so much the treatment of disabled depot animals as itwas to maintain the depots free of disabled animals-these beingevacuated toveterinary hospitals outside of the depot area (19, 20). The experiences of theArmy Veterinary Service in World War I had shown that the remount depot was noplace for disabled animals.
These two quartermasterremount units-the squadron and thetroop-were continued in the organization ofthe Army throughout World War II.4 However, pacing the developments in thedismounting of the Army and the streamlining of tactical forces that had takenplace during the 1930's, these units were removed from the type field armies andarmy corps. In fact, the beginning of the war found them classed as reserveunits which would be deployed only where specifically needed. At this time,the internal organization of the remount squadron was standardized as comprisinga squadron headquarters, four operational elements or troops, and a veterinarydetachment of 5 officers and 24 enlisted personnel; it was designed to operate afield remount depot of 1,600-animal capacity (21, 22). The troop as a separateunit could operate a 400-animal depot and was organized to include a troopheadquarters and a veterinary detachment of one officer and seven enlistedpersonnel (23,
4During the war, two smallcellular teams or detachments were developed and described in a new T/O 10-500:Team B1 or Remount Detachment, and Team BJ or Augmentation Remount Detachment.The former could operate a 100-animal depot, which could be expanded into a 200?animaldepot if joined by the augmentation unit; neither included attached veterinarypersonnel.
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24, 25). While a number ofthese type units were activated in the Zone of Interior, only two troopelements of remount squadrons were sent overseas-one to theSouth Pacific Area,but this unit was returned as a "paper organization" and thenredeployed with the second unit to the China-Burma-India theater. Other oversea requirements forsuch units weremet with the additional activations of two squadron troops and two separatetroops within the South and Southwest Pacific Areas and the China-Burma-Indiatheater.5 In
5These units included thefollowing: Troop A, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron, activated inNovember 1942 in Southwest Pacific Area and disbanded in August 1944. Troop B,251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron, activated in February 1943 in the SouthPacific Area, utilizing personnel and equipment of Troop A, 252d QuartermasterRemount Squadron, which was returned during January 1943 as a "paperorganization" to the Zone of Interior, and inactivated in October 1944 inthe South Pacific Area. Troop A, 252d Quartermaster Remount Squadron, activatedin May 1941 in the Zone of Interior, deployed to the South Pacific Area duringMay 1942, returned to the Zone of Interior as "paper organization,"and redeployed during April 1944 to the China-Burma?India theater where it wasredesignated on 1 January 1945, as the 475th Quartermaster Remount Troop, whichwas inactivated in February 1946 in the India-Burma theater. Troop A, 253dQuartermaster Remount Squadron, activated in March 1943 in the Zone ofInterior, deployed in fall of 1944 to the China-Burma-India theater where itwas redesignated the 476th Quartermaster Remount Troop, which was inactivated inDecember 1945 in the India-Burma theater. 698th Quartermaster Remount Troop,activated in July 1944 in the China-Burma-India theater and inactivated duringNovember 1945 in the India-Burma theater. 699th Quartermaster Remount Troop,activated in July 1944 in the China-Burma-India theater and inactivated inFebruary 1946 in the India-Burma theater. (The 528th Quartermaster RemountTroop, activated in December 1942 and disbanded in July 1944, was not deployedfrom the Zone of Interior.)
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the European andMediterranean theaters, the remount activities were organized under locallyimprovised depot organizations which followed the pattern of the typical fieldunit (fig. 49). Each such quartermaster remount squadron element, troop unit,and provisional organization had its own organic veterinary detachment.
Southwest Pacific Area
The Army Veterinary Servicein the Southwest Pacific Area had its start with remount activities in April-May1942 when the Quartermaster, U.S. Army Forces in Australia, requested theinspection of Australian Army animals at Goulburn, Australia, as to theirsuitability for riding or pack purposes (26). During the next 6 months, ahorse-buying program was conducted, and 2,515 Army horses were transshipped fromAustralia to New Caledonia (in the South Pacific Area) (27, 28). With theexception of the single shipment of 477 horses on a U.S. animal transport whichwas accompanied by a Veterinary Corps officer, Australian personnel, includinga veterinarian, were employed to assemble and transship these animals to NewCaledonia.6
Just as this buying programin Australia was nearing completion, another was started in connection withplans to activate several quartermaster pack troops and field artillery packbattalions within the theater (29, 30). Requirements were set as high as 18,000 mules and horses, and, by the end of 1942, theU.S. Army Horse Purchasing Board (including a veterinary officer who soon becamethe board president), with station at Toowoomba, Queensland, had procured 216horses and shipped 194 of these to a remount depot which was being establishedat Townsville. During the early months of 1943, the original planning on the useof pack troops and artillery battalions in the fighting on the jungle islands ofthe Pacific was abruptly cut back, and the objective of the buying program inAustralia was reduced to 3,550 horses. These were transshipped from purchasepoints by railroad to Townsville where they were processed for issue. The mules,unavailable in Australia, were requisitioned from the Zone of Interior, butthe two mule-mounted units which came into the Southwest Pacific Area wererefused entry by Australian public health and animal regulatory officials ontheir expressed belief that the mules might introduce such diseases as equineencephalomyelitis, equine infectious anemia, and glanders. Instead, the twounits-the 98th Field ArtilleryBattalion and Troop D, 16th Quartermaster Squadron-were diverted to New Guinea.
6Nine shiploads, totaling2,048 horses, were loaded out of Brisbane, Melbourne, New Castle, and Sydney,Australia, on the Australian S.S. Jansenn during the period from 6 May through30 November 1942. The shipment of 477 horses on the U.S. Animal Transport Tjinegara, departing on 20 July 1942, from Brisbane, was lost by enemy actionagainst that transport (on 26 July 1942). While en route to Noumea, NewCaledonia, the animal losses, on account of disease and injury, on the S.S. Jansenn totaled 16; thus, only 2,032 horses of Australian origin were receivedin the South Pacific Area.
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The horse buying inAustralia was halted during May 1943, although depot receipts of newlypurchased horses were continued until mid-June 1943. The rate of procurement hadbeen slowed down by seasonal rains, the distances of travel between purchasepoints even though an airplane was used, and the earlier limitations that onlybroken (or trained) horses be procured (31). Of course, the remount depot atTownsville had to be built and expanded and, lacking sufficient numbers ofexperienced personnel, could not receive any large numbers of untrained horsesuntil after the spring of 1943. Incomplete reports indicated that 68 percent ofthe horses examined in Australia were accepted for Army procurement.
The Remount Depot,Townsville, was an operational facility of Troop A, 251st Quartermaster RemountSquadron, which was activated during November 1942. The depot was builtlargely through the labors of veterinary personnel (32), and, for many months(November 1943 through April 1944), its animal population averaged more than3,200 horses and a few burros or donkeys. Through June 1943, the remount depotreceived approximately 3,600 newly purchased animals; later in that year, 1,200animals, which were previously issued to mounted units, were returned.Including a veterinary detachment within the depot unit, a veterinarydispensary was established, but this was operated as a type of a veterinaryhospital which cared for the depot animals as well as those more seriouslydisabled among the few mounted units which were stationed in the vicinity of thedepot. Attempts to gain a separate veterinary hospital outside of the depotarea, that would operate in support of the remount depot's and other unit'sveterinary detachments, were not approved by the theater headquarters (33).Instead, the depot veterinary detachment was augmented by the temporaryassignment of five separate veterinary detachments which were obtained fromthe Zone of Interior for assignment to mounted units. These were VeterinarySections E, F, G, H, and I. Depot issues (and reissues) of approximately 1,600horses were made, beginning in February 1943, to the 61st, 62d, 63d, and 68thQuartermaster Pack Troops and the 167th Field Artillery Battalion. The unitswere provided with separate veterinary detachments, but many of these returnedtheir sick animals to the depot's veterinary dispensary for care and treatment.
Beginning in August andcontinuing through November 1943, during which time it had become evident thatpack-mounted units were not essential to the fighting on Japanese-held islandsin the Pacific, the four quartermaster pack troops and the field artillerybattalion in Australia were dismounted or inactivated, and their horses werereturned to the remount depot. Being advised by the War Department that the3,200 animals in the depot were not needed elsewhere, arrangements werecompleted for their transfer to the Australian Army; the depot veterinarydispensary was closed on 28 April 1944, and the remount squadron troop wasdisbanded a few months later.
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Up to the time that theveterinary dispensary, Remount Depot, Townsville, was closed, 1,883 cases ofdisease and injury were reported (34), as follows:
Average mean strength | 2,329 |
Admissions:1 | |
| For disease | 1,297 |
| For injury | 586 |
| Total | 1,883 |
Treatment-days | 67,025 |
Average days per admission | 36 |
Died or destroyed | 241 |
Number admitted per 1,000 average animal strength per year: | |
| For disease | 419.4 |
| For injury | 189.4 |
| Total | 608.3 |
Number per 1,000 average animal strength per year died or destroyed | 78.1 |
1Data include veterinaryservices rendered by the depot veterinary section for animals belonging to the62d Quartermaster Pack Troop (January-September 1944) and the 63d QuartermasterPack Troop (January-July 1944).
During the first 6 months ofthe period when the depot was receiving large numbers of remount animals fromthe purchasing board and processing them for issue, diseases rather thaninjuries constituted the major cause of animal morbidity. In fact, through June1943, only 259 injury cases were recorded, whereas disease accounted for 1,041cases. The latter, as would be expected among newly procured animals, includedhundreds of cases of equine strangles, infectious rhinitis (or"colds"), and pneumonia. The animals had been procured during theseasonal cold and rainy season, but the more important factor contributing tothe relative high rate of these respiratory diseases was that the Australianrailroads were not equipped to unload, feed, and rest the animals at regularintervals during the long shipments from the purchase points to the remountdepot. After the summer of 1943, when the depot's animal population had become"seasoned" and was being placed or maintained more or less on a ranchbasis, the animal disease situation improved considerably. However, keratitisbegan to make its appearance among many animals, probably caused by wind anddust or by awns of certain grass seeds. Other commonly occurring diseaseswere trichophytosis (or ringworm) and tick infestations which were controlledby dipping or spraying the animals with lime-sulfur solution; gastrointestinalparasitisms were treated by the administration
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of phenothiazine. DuringApril 1943, the immunization program against tetanus was undertaken, but, beforethis was completed, three fatal cases of that disease were reported among thedepot horses. Glanders-a disease from which Australia claimed to befree-wastested for in 1,400 newly purchased animals, and the test results were negative.
As the transfer of thehorses to the Australian Army was nearing completion (in April 1944), theChina-Burma-India theater expressed an urgent need for the animals; 2,336 ofthese were transshipped to that theater during the winter of 1944-45. Actually, the horses were processed for this movement by the AustralianArmy and then embarked on U.S. animal transports pursuant to the animal exportlaws and quarantine regulations of Australia;7 once loaded, the horsesreturned to the technical jurisdiction of the Army Veterinary Service or itsVeterinary Corps officers who were assigned to these transports (35, 36, 37).
On New Guinea (in theSouthwest Pacific Area), quartermaster remount activities were started duringJuly 1943 when Troop A, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron (with station inAustralia) established a forward echelon depot at Port Moresby. Mounted units onthis island base were the 98th Field Artillery Pack Battalion, withapproximately 1,200 mules, which had come from the Zone of Interior duringFebruary and June 1943, and Troop D, 16th Quartermaster Squadron, with 323mules, which had arrived on 23 July 1943. Subsequently, with the dismounting ofthe latter unit (in October 1943) and the reorganization and subsequentdismounting (in March 1944) of the battalion, these unit animals were turnedin to the remount depot-a peak strength of 1,352 mules being reached bymid-1944. The advance depot, having no assigned veterinary personnel, wasoriginally dependent on the organic veterinary detachment of the quartermastersquadron's pack troop, but, after October 1943, its veterinary needs were metsolely by the 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital which had set up station onNew Guinea during February 1943. As illustrated in the following tabulation,from 1 August 1943, through 2 November 1944, that hospital treated 1,139 animalpatients; most of these originated from the advance remount depot, although afew were evacuees from the pack troop and artillery battalion (38):
7These shipments includedthe Peter Silvester, with 30 horses, departing on 5 August 1944; the Virginian,with 640 horses, departing on 5 November 1944; the Charles W. Wooster, with 235horses, departing on 8 November 1944; the Henry Dearborn and the JoshuaHendy,each with 320 horses, departing during November 1944; the Cyrus W. Field and theJohn J. Crittenden, each with 320 horses, departing during December 1944; andthe William S. Halstead, with 151 horses, departing during February 1945. Withthe exception of the first shipment, all shipments originated at Townsville;the first originated from Brisbane. The Peter Silvester and the Charles W.Wooster also received mules at Port Moresby, New Guinea, before proceeding fromthe Southwest Pacific Area.
503
Average mean strength1 | 746 |
Admissions:2 | |
| For disease | 465 |
| For injury | 674 |
| Total | 1,139 |
Treatment-estimated days | 41,353 |
Average days per admission | 38 |
Died or destroyed | 54 |
Number admitted per 1,000 average animal strength per year: | |
| For disease | 593.8 |
| For injury | 744.0 |
| Total | 1,337.8 |
Number per 1,000 average animal strength per year died or destroyed | 72.4 |
1Only for period fromDecember 1943 to 2 Nov. 1944.
2During August-November1943, the 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital treated only those disabledanimals as were evacuated by the attending veterinarian for the depot, including43 cases also received from the 98th Field Artillery Battalion and from Troop D,16th Quartermaster Squadron. In the period from December 1943 to 2 Nov. 1944,the 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital alone provided the veterinary servicesrequired by the depot and also received 37 cases evacuated from the 98th FieldArtillery Battalion (December 1943-March 1944), the latter being included in thestatistical data.
No serious animal diseaseswere reported among the mules while on New Guinea. A few clinical cases ofbotrytimycosis were treated; cutaneous habronemiasis and thrush of the feetcaused losses of animal efficiency, but these were reduced when the mules undertreatment could be isolated in screened-in veterinary stables or removed fromthe muddy corrals during the rainy season. The healing of wounds, any kind ofwound, seemed to take a long period of time and was usually marked withexuberant granulations of the healing tissues (39, 40).
Under much the sameconditions that the horse-mounted units in Australia were canceled from thetactical planning and their animals were not needed in the Southwest PacificArea, 1,340 Army mules on New Guinea were transshipped from the Advance RemountDepot, Port Moresby, to the China?Burma-India theater during the fall of 1944.8With the fourth or final shipment of these mules (during November 1944), the16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital closed station and began preparations formovement into the Philippine Islands where it was to be used in the theater'sfood inspection service.
8These shipments includedthe following: (1) 650 mules on the Virginian, departing on 2 August 1944, andaccompanied by 1st Lt. E. W. George, VC. (2) 285 mules on the PeterSilvester,departing on 14 August 1944, and accompanied by 1st Lt. H. L. March, VC. (3) 320mules, departing 1 October 1944, and accompanied by 1st Lt. W. McClaskey, VC,(name of the transport was not determined; the transport casual detachment wasdesignated 6629A). (4) 85 mules on the Charles W. Wooster, departing on 2November 1944, and accompanied by 1st Lt. I. I. Franklin, VC. An additional 30mules on New Guinea were disposed of by transfer to the ANGAU on 7 October 1944.The Peter Silvester and the Charles W. Wooster also received horses in Australiabefore proceeding from the Southwest Pacific Area.
504
South Pacific Area
On New Caledonia (in theSouth Pacific Area), quartermaster remount activities were begun and a remountdepot was established on 6-7 July 1942, when Troop A, 252d Quartermaster RemountSquadron, with 481 mules, arrived from the Zone of Interior (41). By thisdate, the 97th Field Artillery Battalion having arrived 3 monthsearlier-alreadyhad obtained a few animals from local sources and received some shipments ofU.S. Army horses from Australia (in the Southwest Pacific Area). Most of thesehorses were turned in by the field artillery battalion to the remount depot inexchange for the American mules, and the horses then were reprocessed and issuedto the 112th Cavalry Regiment which arrived on New Caledonia during August1942. By the end of that year, approximately 3,000 horses and mules wereassembled on this Pacific island base-781 mulescoming in from the Zone ofInterior and the Panama Canal Department,9 2,032 horses being received fromAustralia (in the Southwest Pacific Area),10 and 180 animals being boughtlocally.
During the early months ofthe next year, the 97th Field Artillery Battalion, with 947 mules and horses,departed for Guadalcanal where tactical operations had come under U.S. Armycommand, and, on 13 May, the 112th Cavalry Regiment returned 1,481 horses andmules to the remount depot prior to its departure for the Southwest PacificArea. Therewith, the remount depot gained a peak animal population of about1,700 horses and mules. These animals were cared for by the veterinary sectionincluded in the organic composition of Troop A, 252d Quartermaster RemountSquadron; this unit, during January 1943, was returned as a "paperorganization" to the Zone of Interior, but its equipment and personnelwere retained and used in the organization of the newly activated Troop B,251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron. The latter's veterinary section wasaugmented by the Veterinary Detachment, 112th Cavalry Regiment, when thatregiment was dismounted.
After mid-1943, the remountdepot was concerned mainly with the examination of the horses and mules forcombat serviceability and their processing for oversea shipment to theChina-Burma-India theater. Beginning in September 1943 and continuing throughthe next 12 months, 1,571 animals (including 1,554 horses and 17 mules) wereembarked on five animal transports departing from Noum?a, New Caledonia.11
9The mules arrived in twoshipments: The Tjinegara,arriving on 6-7 July 1942, with 100 from the Zone of Interior and 381 from the PanamaCanal Department, and the Peter Silvester, arriving during November 1942, with300 mules.
10See footnote 6, p. 499. The first shipment of these horses was received on 25 May and the last on5 Dec. 1942.
11These shipments includedthe Virginian, with 590 horses, departing on 23-26 September 1943; the PeterSilvester, with 308 horses, departing on 2-3 November 1943, and at another time,on 11 May 1944, with 152 animals; the Samuel H. Walker, with 352 horses,departing on 4 June 1944; and the Santiago Iglesias, with 169 animals,departing on 13 September 1944. The Peter Silvester's second voyage and thelast-named shipment also included horses and mules being transshipped to theChina-Burma-India theater from Guadalcanal and the Zone of Interior.
505
During the period from 1January 1943 through 17 September 1944, the depot's veterinary section, asaugmented by the Veterinary Detachment, 112th Cavalry Regiment (Dismounted),treated 1,096 animal cases of disease and injury (42), as shown in the followingtabulation:
Average mean strength | 746 |
Admissions: | |
| For disease | 684 |
| For injury | 412 |
| Total | 1,096 |
Treatment-days | 29,622 |
Average days per admission | 27 |
Died or destroyed | 188 |
Number admitted per 1,000 average animal strength per year: | |
| For disease | 534.9 |
| For injury | 321.7 |
| Total | 856.6 |
Number per 1,000 average animal strength per year died or destroyed | 147.5 |
Disease conditions of commonoccurrence included thrush and separation of the sole of the feet, arthritis,and a dermatitis of fungus origin. All mallein tests for glanders were negative. Shortly after the last animal shipment was made, the depot's veterinarydispensary was closed (on 17 September 1944) and the remount unit-Troop B, 251stQuartermaster Remount Squadron-was disbanded on 14 October 1944. Duringmid-November 1944, the Veterinary Detachment, 112th Cavalry Regiment, departedfrom New Caledonia.
China-Burma-India Theater
The Army Veterinary Servicein the China-Burma-India theater became concerned with remount activities firstin connection with the lend-lease supply of animals to the Allied-sponsoredChinese Army in India (43, 44, 45). The latter includedremnants of the Chinese 22d and 38th Divisions, which, having been forced out ofBurma, were being reorganized to fight against the Japanese enemy. As early asSeptember 1942, veterinary officers at the Rāmgarh, India, training center forthe Chinese were supervising the receipt and distribution of British animals forthese divisions. This activity lasted for more than a year. Then, in connection with theplans to deploy U.S. combat teams, with animals, into Burma, a quartermasterremount organization was improvised. Thiswas the 5321st Remount Depot Detachment (Provisional) which established stationduring November 1943 at the Rāmgarh training center; it transferred itsoperationsnorthward to Ledo, during May 1944, where it was soon disbanded, being replacedon 13 July 1944 by a newly activated quartermaster remount troop.
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At both depot sites,veterinary dispensaries were established by the 1st Veterinary Company(Separate) which had arrived in the China-Burma-India theater during the springof 1943. Until the provisional remount organization had become operational, theArmy Veterinary Service-utilizingChinese military personnel-had received andprocessed the original shipments of U.S. Army animals arriving from the SouthPacific Area.
During the latter part of1944, the theater's remount service was gradually expanded to include fourseparate remount troops and a remount section. These were needed in connectionwith the continuation of plans to provide animals to the U.S. combat teamsthat were being deployed against the Japanese enemy in Burma and with newrequirements to complete the mounting of the Chinese Army in India as theBritish animal supply dwindled. In fact, between June 1944 and July of thenext year, approximately 5,300 mules and horses were supplied under lend-leaseto this Chinese Army. These animals were brought into the China-Burma-Indiatheater from the Zone of Interior and from the South and the Southwest PacificAreas where they were surplus to military needs. Altogether, 29 animaltransports with 10,703 animals arrived. Upon their disembarkation atCalcutta, India, after September 1944, the animals were processed fortransshipment from the port to the remount depots in India and Burma by the3113th Quartermaster Remount Section which was activated within the theater. Theremount section, without its own attached veterinary personnel, referred itsdisabled animals to the 78th Veterinary Hospital Detachment which wasactivated at about the same time (in September 1944) and had established stationin the port. Priorto September 1944, the disabled animals which had been disembarked from thetransports and which could not be removed from the port area were cared for byan Indian Army veterinary hospital.
The remount troop unitsincluded the 698th Quartermaster Remount Troop which, upon activation duringJuly 1944 within the theater, replaced the original depot detachmentorganization at Ledo, and the 699th Quartermaster Remount Troop which wasorganized at Rāmgarh.The Rāmgarh depot was augmented by Troop A, 252d Quartermaster RemountSquadron, which had arrived earlier with a shipment of animals from the Zone ofInterior; during December 1944, the two units were transferred from Rāmgarh toShillong, India. Troop A, 253d Quartermaster Remount Squadron, also accompanyinga shipment of animals from the Zone of Interior, arrived and, duringNovember-December 1944, established a depot at Myitkyina, Burma. On 1 January 1945, theforegoing two remount squadrons' lettered troopswere redesignated, respectively, as the 475th and the 476th QuartermasterRemount Troops. Though each of the fourremount troops had its own veterinary detachment, separate veterinary units,including two companies and five animal service detachments, set up hospitalfacilities in the vicinity of each remount depot (table 39).
Of the animals arriving inthe China-Burma-India, theater, half of the 4,760 mules from the Zone ofInterior actually belonged to the quartermaster
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Veterinary unit | Rāmgarh | Ledo | Shillong | Myitkyina | Calcutta (port) |
1st Veterinary Company (Separate).1 | June 1943-July 1944. | May 1943-December 1944. | October 1944-V-J Day | --- | --- |
2d Veterinary Company (Separate). | --- | December 1944-V-J Day. | --- | --- | --- |
40th Veterinary Animal Service Detachment | July 1944-December 1944. | --- | December 1944-V-J Day. | --- | --- |
51st Veterinary Animal Service Detachment. | --- | September 1944-August 1945. | --- | --- | --- |
52d Veterinary Animal Service Detachment. | --- | September 1944-V-J Day. | --- | August 1945-V-J Day. | --- |
78th Veterinary Hospital Detachment. | --- | --- | --- | --- | September 1944-July 1945. |
1The parent 1st Veterinary Company(Separate) was located at Ledo for the period from May 1943 to December 1944when it was transferred to Shillong. The other dates relate to the detachmentsof that company unit.
pack troops and fieldartillery battalions which on arrival were assigned directly to the U.S.tactical forces (or the theater's Northern Combat Area Command). Otherwise, theanimals arrived as "casuals" and were processed by the remount depotsystem of the theater's Services of Supply organization. Another 872 animals,mostly horses, were received from the British or the Indian Army on a reverselend-lease basis. The veterinary situation applicable to these animals insideof the remount depots could not be determined. Before V-J Day, 5,300 animals-aspreviously noted-had been supplied to the Chinese Army in India, and 2,300 to2,450 were transshipped to the China theater; after V-J Day, the animalsremaining in the depots were disposed of by the transfer of 103 to the Britishand the sale of more than 1,000 through a Foreign Liquidation Commission.
In the China theater(formerly a sector of the China-Burma-India theater which was discontinued inthe fall of 1944), the remount activities were limited to the supply ofanimals for the American liaison teams on duty with the Chinese armies anddivisions, and the turnover to these activities of 2,300 to 2,450 animals whichwere marched over the Stilwell Road during the summer of 1945. The Chinesemilitary forces in China, unlike the Allied-sponsored Chinese Army in India andBurma, had a kind of a remount service of its own in China. However, with theincreased emphasis on the combat preparation of some of the Chinese armies anddivisions, a Sino-American bureau was organized for the purchasing andtransportation of military animals in northern China and Tibet (46, 47, 48).Army veterinary personnel were included in the membership of this bureau.Beginning in April 1945, the first of a group of 2,000 or more such horses wereshipped into Hsi-ch'ang, China; others were assembled elsewhere in the SikangProvince as of V-J Day. The 45th and the 62d Veterinary Animal ServiceDetachments and elements of the 19th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital providedveterinary services for the
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Chinese animals in remountstations at Hsi-ch'ang and Kuei-yang. Most of the animals, as the result of a6-week overland movement, arrived at these stations in poor physical conditionand required a prolonged period of reconditioning.
Mediterranean Theater
In the Mediterraneantheater, animals were procured by purchase, capture, requisition, confiscation,and shipment from the Zone of Interior; others were obtained by transfer and theevacuation of disabled horses and mules from the Allied military forces.Approximately 16,000 or more such animals, including those returned from unitsand organizations, were received and processed by the remount depot system ofthe Peninsular Base Section, an element of the theater's Services of Supplyorganization which supported the Fifth U.S. Army's northward advances againstthe German enemy on the Italian peninsula.12 This depot system had its startunexpectedly and shortly after that Army's combat divisions, landing at SalernoGulf (on 9 September 1943), had called on their division veterinarians toorganize and maintain animal pack trains (49, 50).Onlypack trains could transport the needed supplies to the outpost positions in therugged, roadless terrain of the Southern Apennine Mountains. At about the sametime, with the uncovering of an Italian Army remount station at Persano (inmid-September 1943), the Veterinarian, Fifth U.S. Army, undertook thereplacement of the animal losses in the divisional pack trains. A hundredanimals belonging to the Italian station were collected from the countryside andwere prepared for issue. During the next few months, Italian Army animals wererequisitioned, and others were purchased from civilian owners; altogether, 1,100mules and horses were obtained before the end of 1943. By this time, the newlyassembled animals that became seriously sick and the disabled animals were beingevacuated from the pack trains to the Fifth U.S. Army Provisional VeterinaryHospital which was organized with Italian personnel during December 1943 andto a French Army veterinary ambulance company.
During this early period,material assistance in the development of an animal supply was given by theVeterinarian, Peninsular Base Section, and then by that command's QuartermasterRemount Division which, in January 1944, gave way to a remount squadron type oforganization, the 6742d Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead) with its ownattached veterinary detachment (49). The depot organization assumedoperational control over the procurement, processing, and issue of animals forthe U.S. forces in the theater and set up station at the remount depot siteswhen vacated by the Fifth U.S. Army. Depots, other than the one at Persano, weresoon established at Santa Maria (on 15 November 1943) and at Bagnoli (on 16December 1943). The
12While remount operationsin the Mediterranean theater seem to have first originated at this time, combatdivisions had procured and used animals earlier during the campaigns in NorthAfrica and then in Sicily.
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depots, each having its ownveterinary personnel, included veterinary dispensaries which also served asveterinary hospitals for many months, receiving disabled animals evacuated fromthe three or four veterinary evacuation hospitals that were deployed by theFifth U.S. Army, as well as providing definitive care and treatment for depotissue animals. A share of their professional workload, however, was referred toa U.S.-supervised Italian veterinary general hospital, but it was not untilthe spring of 1945 that the depot veterinary dispensaries were completelyrelieved of their operational functions as base veterinary hospitals. At thatlate date, two U.S. provisional veterinary hospitals and two U.S.-supervisedItalian veterinary hospitals were brought into the Peninsular Base Section anddeployed to support the depot veterinary dispensaries and the Fifth U.S.Army's veterinary evacuation hospitals. (These new hospital organizations werethe 2604th Veterinary Station Hospital (Overhead), 2605th Veterinary GeneralHospital (Overhead), Italian 1st Veterinary Station Hospital, and Italian 2dVeterinary General Hospital.)
Although the remountactivities in the Mediterranean theater originated with the problems ofmaintaining the pack trains which were improvised within the combat divisionsduring the fall of 1943, they soon were redirected toward the supply of animalsfor U.S.-supervised Italian Army pack mule trains (or companies). These wereassigned under the operational control of the Fifth U.S. Army's corps anddivisions, and, coming into the army from Sardinia first during December 1943,eventually replaced all of the provisional pack trains of the divisions. Theutilization of these units was based on the recommendations following a surveyof Sardinia by the Veterinarian, Fifth U.S. Army, where 5,000 mules and 1,500horses were found, together with much needed equipment, including two veterinary hospitals. By April 1944, veterinary personnel on Sardinia hadembarked 1,262 mules and 53 horses on ships for Italy.
During the summer and fallof 1944, the remount depot system was greatly changed. The original facilitiesat Persano, Santa Maria, and Bagnoli were closed during May-June 1944, and,following the Fifth U.S. Army's breakthrough into Rome, one depot was set up fora short period of time at a racetrack in that city. Subsequently, remount depotswere established at Grosseto and Pisa, with capacities for 4,000 and 600animals, respectively. Then, on 14 September 1944, the 6742d QuartermasterRemount Depot (Overhead) was divided into two parts: The 1/2-6742dQuartermaster Remount Depot, (Overhead) which was transshipped with the SeventhU.S. Army to Southern France and then transferred to the European theater, andthe 6742d Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead)-1/2, which continued to operatethe depots at Grosseto and Pisa in Italy. The latter were later augmented withItalian Army remount units which were under the technical supervision of anew remount organization, the 2610th Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead),formed on 21 January 1945. This new organization, on
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7 July 1945, replaced the6742d Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead)-1/2 which was disbanded during thefollowing month (on 25 August 1945).
Through June 1945, the remount depotholdings of animals reached a peak of more than 3,600 mules and horses. The ArmyVeterinary Service with the remount depot system of the Peninsular Base Sectionhad treated 4,741 cases of diseases and injury (51, 52); the admission rates asbased on the depot's animal strength by month had become considerably less afterthe winter of 1943-44 when the depots were first filled with almost any kind ofanimal that could be procured, and the depot veterinary dispensaries constitutedthe major veterinary treatment facilities in back of the Fifth U.S. Army. Theanimal disease rate within the depots was not unusually high considering thatthe average mean strength of 1,725 mules and horses over a 19-month periodactually represented a constantly changing animal population. Arrivals,includingreturned animals and some animal patients, approximated 15,600, and issues,sales, administrative losses, and evacuated patients totaled 12,400. The 15,600animals received included at least 3,900 from Allied British and French forces,1,100 from Italian sources, 2,400 from Sardinia and Sicily, 2,881 mules broughtin from the Zone of Interior, 1,000 recovered animal patients from Services ofSupply veterinary hospitals, 90 from a miscellany of service units, and theremainder from the Fifth U.S. Army's field remount depots, pack companies, andfield artillery battalions. The 12,400 animals disposed of included 1,500 forthe British forces, 700 sold, 600 for the remount depot which was transferredto the European theater, 500 to Services of Supply veterinary hospitals fortreatment, 90 for a variety of service units, 306 which died or were destroyedon account of disease or injury, and the remainder for the Fifth U.S. Army.
Despite the constant changesof the animal populations and the assembly of such large numbers from a widevariety of sources, the animal disease situation within the depots wasrelatively secure. On arrival, the animals were mallein tested for glanders andheld in quarantine, during which time they were examined for physical condition.Stallions were ordinarily castrated. The more serious diseases reported amongthe depot animals included piroplasmosis and epizootic lymphangitis. Thelatter disease was controlled by the destruction of those animals found to beaffected and led to the loss of a hundred horses and mules; it was seen inanimals obtained in Italy as well as in those imported from Sardinia and Sicily.Piroplasmosis was reported in 70 animals, but only 21 of the cases terminatedfatally or had to be destroyed because some success was obtained in theirtreatment with a trypanocidal drug, Acaparin. As would be expected, cases ofmange, glanders, and tetanus occurred, but these were almost a rarity; infact, clinical diagnoses of mange could not be confirmed by laboratoryexaminations. The respiratory disorders that are commonly seen in remountanimals did not cause any great loss because most of the animals had beenalready "seasoned" or conditioned before coming into the depots.
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During the last 6 months of1945, the major effort of the Mediterranean theater's remount organization wasdirected at the disposition of its mules and horses. During this period, the2610th Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead)-which had superseded the 6742dQuartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead)-1/2-closed out the Grosseto depot (inSeptember 1945) and centered its activities in Pisa. On 10 October 1945, thedepot organization was discontinued, but the disposition of the animals wascontinued by the Remount Division, Office of the Quartermaster, Peninsular BaseSection. By December 1945, only 50 horses and mules remained; dispositions hadbeen made by the transshipment of 280 horses to Marseilles, France (in the DeltaBase Section, European theater), the sale of 700 horses and mules to Italiangovernmental agencies, and the transfer of 2,800 mules (originally received fromthe Zone of Interior) to the United Nations Relief and RehabilitationAdministration for supply to Yugoslavia (52, 53, 54).
European Theater
The Army Veterinary Serviceconcerned with remount activities in the European theater evolved about the6835th Quartermaster Remount Depot, which was the successor organization to the1/2-6742d Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead) (55, 56). It may be recalled that the latter originated with the 6742dQuartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead), in the Mediterranean theater, when itwas divided into two parts; subsequently, this one part-including its ownveterinary detachment-was transferred as a Seventh U.S. Army unit to SouthernFrance, arriving at Marseilles on 20 October 1944. With the 600 to 700 mules andhorses which were obtained in Italy and had accompanied the movement of theorganization, remount depot operations were set up first at Is Surtille on 17November 1944; a month later, these operations were moved to Chaumont, France.Through May 1945, the 6835th Quartermaster Remount Depot had received andprocessed 1,800 animals and had issued more than 750 of these, mostly mules, tothe 513th Quartermaster Pack Troop. In the spring of 1945, the organization wasdesignated to purchase 700 horses from the French in the European theater'sNormandy Base Section area for transshipment to the Mediterranean theater,however, it turned out that no purchases were actually made (57).
After V-E Day, a few hundredcaptured German horses were processed by the depot organization which hadreestablished station at Dornholzhausen, Germany, and another 650 animals,mostly mules, were disposed of either by sale to the United Nations Relief andRehabilitation Administration or issue to military government. Only 275 horsesand 45 mules were in the depot as of the end of 1945. Throughout the periodsince its organization in Italy, the depot's veterinary detachment had treated1,036 cases of animal diseases and injuries, as shown in the followingtabulation:
512
Average mean strength | 7,752 |
Admission: | |
| For disease | 470 |
| For injury | 1566 |
| Total | 1,036 |
Treatment-days | 19,686 |
Average days per admission | 19 |
Died or destroyed | 42 |
Number admitted per 1,000 average animal strength per year: | |
| For disease | 46.7 |
| For injury | 56.2 |
| Total | 102.9 |
Number per 1,000 average animal strength per year died or destroyed | 4.1 |
1Includes 30 battle casualtycases admitted during the months of December 1943 through June 1944; in March1944 alone, 23 such cases were reported.
By the end of 1945, also,U.S. military government controls were being enforced over the former Germanhorsebreeding establishments at Kaisheim, Bergsteten, Altefeld, and Monsbach (58).
ARMY HORSE BREEDING PLAN
The Army Horse BreedingPlan, started in 1920, had for its objective the encouragement of the breedingof horses of the type which could best be used by the Army (1). It was operatedto make available a large number of Government-owned stallions of suitable typeand good breeding, which, in the hands of civilian stallion agents, could bebred to privately owned mares throughout the Nation. In December 1941, thenumber of such stallions approximated 566; all were kept under theprofessional care and technical supervision of the Army Veterinary Service.
Though operating on areduced scale caused by manpower shortages, rising costs, and reduced militarydemands for horses, the Army Horse Breeding Plan during World War II gave originto 39,000 foals.13 In the 1945-46 breeding-foaling season, 450 to 500Government-owned stallions were bred to more than 11,000 civilian-owned mares;the resulting foal crop totaled 7,293 horses (59). It may be mentioned that theauthority for the Army to conduct remount breeding was abolished on 1 July 1948,at which time, also, the Army Remount Service was transferred to the U.S.Department of Agriculture (60).
The distribution ofGovernment-owned stallions and administrative controls over the Army HorseBreeding Plan were made by the same quartermaster remount area headquartersthat supervised the procurement of animals in the Zone of Interior.The several remount area headquarters veterinarians, in addition to theirresponsibilities concerning animal procurement, conducted
13See footnote 1, p. 491.
513
physical examinations on thestallions when coming into Government ownership, investigated the sanitaryconditions under which the stallions were kept and used by the civilian stallionagents in order to maintain animal health and efficiency, examined the privatelyowned mares in order to protect the stallions' health and to discourage themating of unsound animals, and assisted in the instructional program forbettering the principles and techniques used in the Nation's horse industry. Thestallions-quite a few of which were donated by civilianowners-were speciallyexamined against acceptances of any having diseases of bones and the organs oflocomotion, chronic respiratory disorders, evidences of having been"nerved," congenital deformities, diseases of the reproductive organs,and those defects which were hereditary in nature. The Thoroughbred breed waspredominant on the list of Government-owned stallions, but registered Morgan andStandardbred animals also were obtained. The Arabian stallions were especiallyadvanced in the Plan after the fall of 1943 when the Kellogg Arabian Nursery was donated to the Army andbecame the location of the Pomona Remount Depot.On arrival at the remount area headquarters or depots, the new stallions weremallein tested for glanders, examined for fertility, and their blood specimenswere laboratory tested for dourine and, if not recently immunized, for equineinfectious abortion; these procedures were followed by branding and prophylacticinoculations against equine encephalomyelitis, equine infectious abortion, andtetanus. It was obligatory that only healthy and sound stallions be issued tothe civilian stallion agents.
Following their issue, thestallions were reexamined in their places of standing at least once each yearby the headquarters veterinarian. They were mallein tested, reexamined forfertility, revaccinated as might be indicated, treated for internal parasitism,and their blood samples were forwarded for laboratory examination for dourineand equine infectious abortion; also, such dental treatment and foot care aswas required was given (61). Concurrent with this, the veterinary officerinvestigated and advised the civilian agents on environmental sanitation and themethods used in breeding and handling the stallions, including the technique ofartificial insemination. To the extent that it was practical, the civilian-owned mares which were scheduled for servicing to the Government-ownedstallions were examined for soundness. The mares, except those in the areasspecifically exempted by the Surgeon General's Office, had to be tested andfound free of dourine, but the mallein test for glanders was not mandatory.Periodically, these stallions were returned to the Army remount depots forreconditioning, physical examination, and test for fertility. During the waryears, 1940 through 1945, approximately 700 to 800 agent stallions wereexamined at the Army remount depots.
At one time, a brood mareband of 50 animals was prescribed for each of the three remount depots, but, asof December 1941, the depots had aggregated 199 mares, together with 458 foalsand a few stallions. In many ways,
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these were cared for andhandled according to certain principles of veterinary sanitation andzootechnics, including artificial impregnation. In the five breeding-foalingseasons of 1940-41 through 1944-45, the depot-produced living foals numbered 557(table 40). This number, when used in the computation involving the number ofmares bred to determine a living foal percentage of 69.8, was an impressiveindex to the efficiency of the breeding techniques, brood mare band management,and programs of disease control. The most singular disease was equine infectiousabortion (Salmonella abortivo equina) which since the early twenties wascontrolled by administering a bacterin agent to both mares and stallions (62). Aso-called equine virus
TABLE 40.- Breeding-foalingresults among remount depot brood mare bands, by year, 1940-45
Breeding-foaling results | 1940-41 | 1941-42 | 1942-43 | 1943-44 | 1944-45 |
Number | Number | Number | Number | Number | |
Stallions bred | 10 | 11 | 16 | 12 | 15 |
Mares: | |||||
| Bred | 161 | 162 | 194 | 168 | 113 |
| Conceived | 139 | 133 | 168 | 132 | 83 |
Aborted: | |||||
| Equine virus abortion | 0 | 0 | 23 | 0 | 0 |
Streptococcus genitalium | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Salmonella abortivo equina | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Other causes | 12 | 6 | 13 | 9 | 7 |
| Total | 13 | 6 | 36 | 9 | 8 |
| Died before foaling | 0 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 2 |
| Died as result of foaling | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Foals: | |||||
| Living at birth | 126 | 126 | 121 | 119 | 65 |
| Living foal percentage | 78.3 | 77.8 | 62.4 | 70.8 | 57.5 |
| Died within 30 days: | |||||
| Pyosepticemia neonatorum | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Premature | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Deformity of legs or joints | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Other causes | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 4 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 3 |
Not normal at birth | Unknown | Unknown | 0 | 8 | 7 |
Source: Jennings, W.E.: Twelve Years of HorseBreeding in the Army. J. Am. Vet. M. A. 116: 11-16, January 1950.
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abortion, reported first in1937-38, reappeared in endemic proportions during 1942 at Fort Reno, causing 23of the 49 pregnant mares to abort.
Equally as important as theanimal disease controls were the studies conducted on the techniques of breedingand methods of managing brood mare bands and young horses. Higher rates ofconceptions were shown among foaling mares than in the group of maiden (orvirgin) mares and were more readily assured if the mares were selected on thebasis of prebreeding bacteriologic examinations of the genital tract and ifthe foaling mares were not routinely bred during the foaling heat period (thatis, ninth?day breeding).
References
1. TM 10-395, 18 Dec.1941.
2. AR 30-405, 15 May 1942.
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4. AR 30-435,29 May 1942.
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6. AR 30-440, 18 June 1942.
7. Annual Report of theSurgeon General, U.S. Army. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1941.
8. Annual reports, VeterinaryDivision, Surgeon General's Office, 1942-46.
9. Letter, Col. Edwin N.Hardy, QMC, Office of the Quartermaster General, 10 Dec. 1940, to officers incharge of remount areas and commanding officers of remount depots, subject:Ratings by Receiving Units.
10. Letter, Col. Edwin N.Hardy, QMC, Office of the Quartermaster General, 1 Feb. 1941, to officers incharge of remount areas and commanding officers of remount depots, subject:Administrative Lossesin Issue Animals During Period, 1 July 1940 to 15 January 1941.
11. Letter, Col. Edwin N.Hardy, QMC, Office of the Quartermaster General, 18 July 1941, to all remountdepots and remount areas, subject: Statistical Data Reference Processing ofAnimals at Remount Depots.
12. Letter, Col. Edwin N.Hardy, QMC, Office of the Quartermaster General, to The Surgeon General, 4 Oct.1940, subject: Veterinary Hospital Facilities at Depots.
13. AR 30-415, 1 June 1942.
14. Miner, John W.:Veterinary History of the Reno Quartermaster Depot (Remount). Fort Reno,Oklahoma, 8 September 1939 to 31 December 1945. [Official record.]
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22. T/O&E 10-95, 21 July1943.
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25. T/O&E 10-97, 22 Jan. 1944.
26. Check sheets, Lt. Col.C. M. Cowherd, VC, to Chief Surgeon, Hqs., USAFIA, 30 Apr. 1942, and to ChiefQuartermaster (Col. Gardiner, QMC), 4 May 1942.
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31. Letters, Lt. Col. JosephH. Dornblaser, VC, President, U.S. Army Horse Purchasing Board, to Lt. Col. W.E. Hamrick, QMC, Office of the Chief Quartermaster, SWPA, 20 Dec. 1942, and 9Jan., 23 Jan., 6 Feb., 15 Feb., and 27 Feb. 1943.
32. Annual Report,Department Veterinarian, U.S. Army Remount Depot, APO 922, 1943.
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34. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, Troop A, 251st Quartermaster Remount Squadron,January 1943-July 1944.
35. Letter, AustralianQuartermaster General Military Board, Department of the Army, Melbourne,Australia, to General Purchasing Agent, USFFE, 14 Sept. 1944, Subject: Shipmentof Horses.
36. Check sheet, Office ofthe Chief Quartermaster, to Chief Surgeon, Headquarters, USASOS, SWPA, 30 Sept.1944, subject: Examination of Horses, with comment 2, 1 Oct. 1944, and comment3, 3 Oct. 1944.
37. Letter, Capt. DavidErlich, VC, Base Service Center, Base 2, APO 922, to Surgeon, Base Section,USASOS, SWPA, 22 Jan. 1945, subject: Transportation of Horses.
38. VeterinaryReports of Sick and Wounded Animals, 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital, August1943-2 Nov. 1944.
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40. Annual Report,Commanding Officer, 16th Veterinary Evacuation Hospital, 1944.
41. Kester, WayneO., and Miller, Everett B.: History of the U.S. Army Medical DepartmentVeterinary Service, Headquarters, United States Army Forces Pacific Ocean Areas,7 December 1941 to 31 December 1945. [Official record.]
42. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, 112th Cavalry Regiment, January 1943-17 Sept. 1944.
43. Mohri, Ralph W.: Historyof the U.S. Army Veterinary Service in the China?Burma-India Theater. [Official record.]
44. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, CBI, 4 Nov.1943-Sept. 1944.
45. Veterinary Reports of Sick and Wounded Animals, IBT,October 1944-December 1945.
46. The Veterinary Historyof the China Theater. [Official record.]
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48. Letter, Lt. Col. Ilia A.Tolstoy, AUS, to Col. J. G. Fuller, VC, Theater Veterinary Officer,Headquarters, USFCT, 19 May 1945, subject: Commendation of Officer-Major BertReinow-0-379830 VC.
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51.Veterinary Reports of Sick and Wounded Animals, Quartermaster Remount Division,Headquarters, Peninsular Base Section, MTO, December 1943-January 1944.
52. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, 6742d Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead), February1944-June 1945.
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54. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, Remount Division, Office of the Quartermaster, Hq,PBS, 20 Oct.-December 1945.
55. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, ?-6742d Quartermaster Remount Depot (Overhead),14 Sept-31 Oct. 1944.
56. Veterinary Reports ofSick and Wounded Animals, 6835th Quartermaster Remount Depot, November1944-December 1945.
57. Semiannual Report,Veterinary Division, Office of the Chief Surgeon, USFET, January-June 1945.
58. Report, Veterinarian,Office of the Chief Surgeon, USFET, 1945.
59. QMC Manual 22-2, May 1947.
60. Public Law 494, 80thCongress, 2d Session, approved 21 Apr. 1948.
61. Letter, Col. Edwin N.Hardy, QMC, Office of the Quartermaster General, 27 Dec. 1942, to remount areas,subject: Inspections of Stallions in Hands of Agents.
62. Annual Report of TheSurgeon General, U.S. Army. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1920.
