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The Combat Medics Badge
Web Site Award
Presented by the American Military Medical
Impressions, Inc. Please visit their fine web site at:
AMERICAN MILITARY MEDICAL
IMPRESSION, INC.
Please pick a category:
History of WWII Medicine
Equipment of a WWII Combat Medic
Personal Accounts of WWII Medics
WWII Medical Items For Sale
WWII Medical Detachment
WWII African American Medics
The WWII Navy Corpsman
WWII Medic Helmets and
Markings
WWII Medical Kits &
Miscellaneous Medical Equipment
WWII Medical Tentage
and Related Parts
Army Ambulances of WWII
The intention of this web site is to
honor all the brave men and women who supported the life saving aspect of war. The study
of army medicine is so vast that it would be hard to cover all aspects in a single
website.
The inspiration for this website came
to me after viewing the movie, "Saving Private Ryan". Anyone who has seen this
movie cannot easily forget the death scene of Medic Wade.
As stated by Stephen Ambrose,
"It was the universal opinion of the frontline infantry that the medics were the
bravest of all".
SOME OF MY FAVORITE WEB SITE LINKS
King & Country
At the Front
International Military Antiques
Inc.
Militaria-
Military Marketplace
Welcome to RZM.com- Your
online source for WWII books & more!
Jerry's Military
Collectibles
Texas Military
Forces Museum
Preserve History
Stan Wolcott’s Lucky
Forward Militaria:
B & L Collectibles
eBay - Your Personal Trading Community
.US ARMY Medals
and Awards Page.
US Military
Combined Service Uniform Decorations
The Unofficial
Tommy Gun Page
Research
Page for Collectors of Lee-Enfield Rifles
Militaria International
Military
Collectibles
Larry Stone Books &
Collectibles
P & K Military
Antiques
Fulton Armory
Lost Battalions Homepage
Military Transport Association of
Northern New Jersey
MVPA ONLINE
World War Two
Impressions. A virtual showroom of WWII U.S. uniform reproductions.
Notched Dog Tags
Reenacting World
War II
Military Personnel
Records - NPRC(MPR)
What
Price Glory
COMBAT! Home
Page
Welcome To The 83rd Infantry
Division Re-Enactment Group Online
Replicas and
Models
Jon's Swords
134th Infantry Regiment Home
Page
Band Of
Brothers : A site dedicated to Medic Eugene Roe
USMC & USN
Reenactors Association
33rd Signal
Construction Battalion
Strictly G.I. WWII US ARMY RE
ENACTMENT ASSOCIATION
Norman D Landing US Militaria
TheTroubleshooters.com Home
The Crile Archives and Center
for History Education
45th Infantry Division WWII
Reenacting Group and Living History Venture Crew
752nd Tank Battalion in WWII
World War II-Research
&Reenacting
The following books are a excellent read on the WWII
combat medic and WWII medicine
Fighting For Life - American
Military Medicine in World War II by Albert
E. Cowdrey
Combat Medic by Isadore Valenti
Combat Surgeon - On Iwo Jima with the
27th Marines by James S Vedder
Combat Medic Memoirs -
Personal World War Ii Writings and Pictures by
Richard L. Sanner
V-Mail - Letters of a World War
II Combat Medic by Sarah Winston
The German Army Medical Corps in WWII by Alex Buchner
All of the above books can be
ordered from
Amazon.com--Books,
Music, Video & More
The Military Bookman Military
Books Military History
Second World War
Books, News $ Informationl
Please feel free to email me with any comments,
corrections or constructive criticism. I want to keep the information in this website as
accurate as possible.
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This website is dedicated to the brave men of the World War II
Medical Corps and Naval Hospital Corps who risked and many times gave their lives in the
aid of a wounded or sick comrade. The intention of this website is to share information on
the history, equipment and combat experiences of the World War II combat medic
"Few people
are aware of the personal sacrifices the aid men went through. We were not strangers with
the platoon we served with, everyone was a comrade. And unlike the other members of
the platoon who can't stop to aid a wounded buddy, have no idea how it tears the aid man
apart to witness one of his buddies wounded and helpless. We eat, sleep, laugh, and
yes even cry with these comrades, we become a family, and like any family,
death effects us all. But more so because it is the aid man who remains with the wounded,
until he can stabilize the wounds and have him delivered to batt. aid station. I can never
describe the feeling you get when you see your closest friend dead from his wounds,
and knowing that you were unable to save his life. But it has one advantage, you
learn not to become to close to anyone, because the pain is to deep when it was a friend
who had died. You have to remove every emotion in your body, or end up a raving madman. No
one can ever understand that unless they themselves lived it. In every war history book
you read, there is never a description of what the aid man truly feels, and you never
will. That is why I have chosen to give a detail account of the pain and sorrow that the
aid man lives with every single moment of the day. It isn't the acts of the aid man
that becomes important but rather the inner pain that he carries within himself. A
pain he dare not show publicly, for to do so you risk the probability that others may see
that pain, or (fear) which would demoralize the riflemen who puts their trust in your
hands. I'm human and like all humans I'm born with fear, but we can control that
fear when faced with the realization that there are others who depend on you're ability to
save their lives. I never considered myself a brave man.There wasn't a moment that I
wasn't scared, but that's a disadvantage an aid man has to live with, we either
control it, or demand to be relieved of their duties. There is one thing I discovered in
combat, the vast amount of soldiers can control that fear, While there are others who are
to stupid, to understand the meaning of fear, and they are the most dangerous,
because in their drive to win medals and return a hero, they take risks that
eventually ends up getting someone else killed."---Albert
Gentile, Aid-Man for Company B, 333rd Infantry, 84th Infantry Division, WWII.
Duties of a WWII Combat Medic
Brief History of the Medical
Corps
The WWII Medical Department
World War II and the Combat
Medic
Evacuation of Wounded
During World War II
The Function of a Field Hospital During
WWII
The Function of a WWII Aid
Station
Listing of
WWII Hospitals
Camouflage
of Medical Installations.
Medal of Honor Citations-Medical
Personnel
Please remember all WWII Veterans and donate to the WWII National
Memorial. For more information, please visit the organization's website:
The National World War II Memorial
The combat medic was one of the unsung heroes of World War II. He
lived with the front line infantrymen and was the first to answer a call for help. He gave
first aid to his wounded comrades and helped them out of the line of enemy fire. More
often than not, he faced the enemy unarmed and was the foundation of the medical system
with hundreds of thousands of surgeons, nurses, scientists, and enlisted medics. (above painting by Lawrence Beall Smith in the U.S. Army Art
Collection)
Medics help a wounded medic in France, 1944
(National Archives, Washington D.C.)
If a wounded soldier was still alive when the medics got to him , he had
an excellent chance of survival. The medics could do whatever was necessary to stabilize
the wounded soldier. They could stop the bleeding, lessen the pain, bandage the wound and
get him to the aid station.
Brief
History of the Medical Corps
The Medical Service Corps traces its
beginnings to the establishment of an Apothecary General during the American Revolution,
and the creation of the Ambulance Corps and US Army Storekeepers in the Civil War. It was
during the Civil War that Surgeon Jonathan Letterman, Director of the Army of the Potomac,
realized a need for an integrated medical treatment and evacuation system with its own
dedicated vehicles, organizations, facilities, and personnel. The Letterman plan was first
implemented in September 1862 at the battle of Antietam, Maryland, and has continued as
the basis of Army medical doctrine ever since.
The next major
development of the Medical Service Corps occurred in World War I. The Army’s
requirement for medical and scientific specialty officers to support combat operations
resulted in the creation of two temporary components: the US Army Ambulance Service
established on 23 June 1917 as a descendent of the Ambulance Corps, and the Sanitary
Corps, established on 30 June. Today the Medical Service Corps mirrors the Sanitary Corps,
which quickly expanded to nearly 3,000 officers during World War I. The Sanitary Corps
enabled the Medical Department to make available to itself a group of officers
commissioned in specialties which were at the forefront of the medical technology of the
day. Officer’s of the Sanitary Corps served in medical logistics, hospital
administration, patient administration, resource management, x-ray, laboratory
engineering, physical reconstruction, gas defense, and venereal disease control. They were
dedicated members of the medical team that enabled American generals to concentrate on
enemy threats and not epidemic threats.
Between World War I and
World War II. it became apparent that the Army needed a permanent source of medical
administrative specialty officers. This led to the establishment of the Medical
Administrative Corps in June 1920. The Medical Administrative Corps expanded to include a
variety of administrative positions and freed the physicians, dentists, and veterinarians
for medical care responsibilities. Following World War II, Congress established a
permanent component in the Army for medical administrative and scientific specialty
officers. On 4 August 1947, Congress created the Medical Service Corps. For the first
time, the Medical Department had a permanent home for both its administrative and
scientific specialty officers. Since 1947, U.S. military actions have demonstrated the
efficiency of that decision. The Medical Service Corp have been important members of the
U.S. military medical support team for combat operations in Korea, the Dominican Republic,
Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. The story of the Army’s operations in Vietnam
would not be complete without mention of the magnificent record of the evacuation
helicopter pilots, who carried on in the tradition begun in the Civil War. World War II
and the Combat Medic
World
War II and the Combat Medic
It wasn’t any
different to be killed in World War II then it was during the Civil War or World War I.
However, if the World War II GI was wounded by a bullet, shrapnel or fallen by a disease
such as malaria, without killing him, his chances for survival were much greater then his
ancestor in the Civil War. During the Civil War, 50 percent or more of the men admitted to
hospitals died, during World War I, it was 8 percent, World War II, 4 percent.
During World War II
drugs such as sulfa (Sulfanilamide) and penicillin were discovered and advanced surgical
techniques were introduced to make these improvements possible, but the first reason for
such successes in improving the mortality rate was the speed with which wounded men were
treated. It began with the frontline combat medics. In the beginning of the war at
training camps, medics had been mildly despised because many of them were conscientious
objectors and often ridiculed. Sometimes called "Pill Pushers" or worse. But in
combat they were loved, respected and admired. Medic Buddy Gianelloni recalls,
‘Overseas it becomes different. They called you medic and before you know it, it was
Doc. I was 19 at the time."
The main objective of the medic was to get the wounded
away from the front lines. Many times this involved the medic climbing out from the
protection of his foxhole during shelling or into no-man’s-land to help a fallen
comrade. Once with the wounded soldier, the medic would do a brief examination, evaluate
the wound, apply a tourniquet if necessary, sometimes inject a vial of morphine, clean up
the wound as best as possible and sprinkle sulfa powder on the wound followed by a
bandage. Then he would drag or carry the patient out of harms way and to the rear. This
was many times done under enemy fire or artillery shelling. In most cases, the Germans
respected the Red Cross armband.
Evacuation of Wounded During World War II
The evacuation process of the wounded during
World War II is best described by Pfc. Keith Winston, a combat medic during WW2 for the
398th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry Division. He explains the
evacuation process in a letter to his wife during the war;
"You asked
me to describe the exact function of the Aid Station. First let me tell you how evacuation
works: A boy gets hurt on the line. Within a minute or less a telephone message is sent
back to our forward Aid Station, a distance of 300 to l000 yards from the front where a
Sgt. and 4 litter-bearers are always on hand. They rush right up to thc line with a
litter. During this time, thc Company in which the casualty is a member, has their Aid-man
administering first-aid on the spot—usually consisting of stopping the bleeding with
Sulfanilamide powder, bandaging and giving wound pills internally. By that time, another
litter team is there and carries the casualty to thc nearest point where a jeep can
travel--anywhere from 25 to 3000 yards, depending on conditions. The injured boy is then
rushed to the Aid Station, one to three miles behind the line. Here the physician removes
the first-aid bandage, makes a proper diagnosis and applies a more permanent bandage,
administers blood plasma if needed, and in severe cases, gives morphine; makes the patient
comfortable, warm, gives coffee, etc. Whereupon he's rushed back to a point known as
Clearing Company, pretty far in thc rear--this time by a comfortable ambulance which
stands ready for action at thc Aid Station's door. Now--here, if the wound requires it,
he's given emergency operation or attention. This place is well-staffed and well-equipped.
Then the casualty is taken by ambulance to an Evacuation hospital further back where
first-class attention is administered. If thc case is one whereby the wound or casualty is
so severe and he won't get better very soon, he's shipped back even further to a General
Hospital, and eventually back to the States. Reason for the continual moves? One of room.
As the patient warrants a further move back, he leaves space for another boy, and needed
room is of the essence. The Aid Station has no beds. Its job is the most important--to
evacuate the wounded boy from place of incident to the rear, after essential treatment is
administered to save his life. The well-equipped rear station the soldier and bandage him
with the skill that is possible only in a quiet hospital".
Anyone who attended, taught, or was stationed at
Lawson General Hospital in Chamblee, Georgia during World War II and in particular
attended the X-ray Technicians School and remembers Staff Sergent Fred W. Buch, please
email me.
ALWAYS INTERESTED IN PURCHASING WWII
MEDICAL ITEMS
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