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With the Suddenness of War XIV

With the Suddenness of War

1940_1943

“But only through the agency of competent medical administrators will these 

medical practitioners be able to work to proper advantage in the new conditions 

created by war.”1

The President declared a state of limited national emergency on September 8, 

1939, less than four months before General Metcalfe succeeded General De Witt as 

Post Commander.2

 The international situation steadily became more alarming, and on 

September 19, 1940, the American Army began calling reserve officers and nurses to 

active duty and increasing the troop strength. On October 1, the Out-Patient Service3

at Walter Reed opened a Physical Examining Section to examine retired, reserve and 

National Guard officers prior to assignment or reassignment to active duty. 

It was not only impractical but impossible that some old customs and strict 

procedures be maintained. As a result of the Act of November 29, 1940 (P.L. 884, 

76th Congress), the Secretary of War was authorized to dispense with any part of the 

examination for promotion of Regular Army Medical, Dental and Veterinary officers 

except the physical examination.

Thereafter, with rapidity which was often confusing to interested bystanders, junior 

officers became field officers and hospital commanders, although the majority were 

without the prior leavening of experience which had formerly marked the transition 

in the Regular Army Medical Corps from ward doctor, section chief, chief of a service 
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and, in time and if the position was desired, hospital commander. Their staffs were, by 

and large, Reserve Officers on extended active duty or Army of United States personnel, 

men who may have practiced their profession in civilian institutions but who had rarely 

been attached permanently to an organization complete with regulations and insigne 

and where military rank rather than ingenuity governed their income. There would be 

adjustment problems for some, with the personal struggle of the individual reluctant 

to meet the organizational code reminiscent of the axiomatic proverb concerning immovable objects and irresistible forces. As a consequence, perhaps, a whole new era of 

military medicine was in the making. 

Any appreciable increase in manpower affected the hospital system, which at best 

provided only a fifteen per cent emergency expansion in fixed beds. As the number of 

dependents likewise increased, at a time when the professional personnel situation was 

critical, the Secretary of War found it necessary to limit the medical care of dependents 

during the national emergency.4

 By May 27, 1941, the President had declared a state of 

unlimited national emergency, and personnel and training became ever-present problems 

to all types of Regular Army commanders, most of whom appeared to realize that war 

was almost inevitable. At the Army Medical Center, during 1940, the number of fixed 

Radio Station, 1940
297

With the Suddenness of War XIV

beds increased from 1,250 to 1,440. The area behind the old gymnasium, still used as 

a plant propagation field for the greenhouse, was selected as the site for new barracks 

and bachelor officers’ quarters for additional reserve officers and Medical Department 

Professional Service School students.5

Within the hospital organization, the latent and usually unacknowledged morale 

problem of military service versus civilian personnel emerged clearly at the ward level. 

The difference in cash or take-home pay and hours of work for military and civilian 

personnel caused more than the usual dissatisfaction in the former group. Whereas an 

enlisted ward attendant received a cash salary of $360 annually for twelve-hour duty, and 

all of the amenities such as food and clothing, shelter, medical care, including indefinite 

absence from duty, the civilian employee received $780 annually, none of the amenities 

and a restricted fifteen-day sick leave. Some of the basic dissatisfactions would in time 

be reconciled somewhat through Congressionally authorized increases in military pay, 

but the psychology of group identification, i.e., the man in uniform versus the civilian, 

was deeper than the dollar value placed on service. 

Judging from the early recommendations for meeting personnel shortages, General 

Metcalfe was in complete sympathy with the expressed sentiments of national policy 

groups, including medical, that all able-bodied men must train for combat. In fact, 

he went one step farther and openly advocated replacing all enlisted personnel with 

civilian employees. A year later, however, under the pressure of the expansion, he realized that a fluid civilian staff presented even more complications than a fluid military 

staff. Wages, hours, availability and preference for hospital employment affected the 

civilian group significantly. As both industry and the Army were competing for skilled 

as well as adaptable trainee personnel, hospitals, civilian and military, were compelled 

to be less selective in their employment practice than was desirable in the interest of 

economic management. 

By 1941, a soldier-assistant appeared even more preferable than usual to the hospital 

commander, who noted in the Annual Report that “the enlisted men in surgical clinics 

and wards, to a great extent, have been replaced by civilian personnel, which on the 

whole has been a poor substitute, and valuable training for enlisted technicians has been 

lost.”6 Training, the ever-present responsibility of the military hospital commander, was 

not incidental to the care of the sick but inseparable from that care.

Preparing for Mobilization

Recruits newly arrived at the Army Medical Center were assigned to the Recruit Training Section of the Headquarters and Service Detachment for three to four weeks of basic 

training. Following such training the more adaptable men were detailed to the Medical 

Department Professional Service Schools and to form a pool of qualified technicians, 

cooks, etc., for other Post activities and for stations in the field. Whereas the hospital 

and the School had long provided an indirect but steady flow of training technicians 

for other Army medical installations, the training program now had a three-fold objective: (1) maintaining the usual hospital activities; (2) maintaining the usual School 
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activities; (3) providing men trained in administration and general service (Headquarters 

and Service Section) for ultimate reassignment to holding or inactive units in the Troop 

Basis.7 The third requirement created an especially difficult problem, for the current 

lack of Post housing and food service facilities did not then permit the training of a 

large number of men, while the overall demand for such personnel was mounting.8

All of the non-commissioned officers in the Walter Reed Detachment, men assigned 

to the hospital, were qualified to operate iron lungs and oxygen tents, and all wardmasters 

were trained in the latter technique. By and large, however, the general spread of Medical Department activities was so broad that it was necessary to have the men specialize 

in some aspect of the professional program. By November 11, 1940, a special training 

course was initiated which would prepare corpsmen for duty as assistants to surgeons 

in small hospitals. On December 1, fifteen corpsmen began a course in instruction in 

the duties of wardmaster and ward attendant.9

The Medical Service then controlled 807 beds and five cribs and conducted the usual 

specialty clinics. The number of consultations was increasing rapidly, for the military 

population of the District of Columbia had increased 400 per cent in 1940 and 1941. 

This placed an extremely heavy burden on the staff of the Out-Patient Service, which 

in 1941 attended 3,449 military personnel and 38,099 dependents.10

With one exception, the chiefs of the medical sections were still Regular Army 

1940, Bergonie Chair
299

With the Suddenness of War XIV

doctors, but Reserve officers were beginning to replace the ward doctors. Although 

they were well trained and conscientious “as would be expected, a certain amount of 

time (was) necessary for training them in the peculiarities of military medicine and 

government hospital administration.”11 By 1941, an attempt was made to correct such 

drawbacks by accepting fifty officers for one to three months of professional and administrative training at Walter Reed, prior to reassignment as directed by the Surgeon 

General’s Office. 

The Neuropsychiatric Section, perhaps even more than some other medical sections, 

was pressed for space and expanded to eight wards and 311 beds. Further, through a 

temporary arrangement with St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, military patients could be transferred to that institution but remain under the administrative authority of Walter Reed. 

In order to expedite the professional care, two doctors, ten civilian nurses and three 

stenographers were assigned to St. Elizabeth’s for temporary duty. The ten patients present on January 21, 1941, increased to 144 by July 31, but thereafter the number declined 

steadily until the program was terminated on December 31, 1941.12 There were more 

than 400 fewer inpatients at Walter Reed in 1941 than in 1940; still, the administrative operations increased. The United States Government had already sent military 

observers’ groups to many strategic areas, but the later large overseas hospitalization 

program had not developed, and so 413 patients were transferred from Panama, Puerto 

Rico, Bermuda, Trinidad, Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland to Walter Reed during this year. The work of the Disposition and of the Line of Duty Board in this and other 

Army hospitals increased so rapidly that, as a further effort to economize on time and 

personnel, War Department Circular No. 217, October 15, 1941, permitted the former 

board to perform both functions.

Some other organizational changes were incidental to the mobilization program. For 

instance, in the spring of 1941, a sub-section of maxillo-facial surgery was established 

at the hospital, under the direction of the chief of the EENT Section. In August a 

joint course of instruction was inaugurated for medical and dental officers, with Colonel Roy Stout, Dental Corps, representing the latter service. A one-to-three month 

course in Orthopedic and Traumatic Surgery was given forty Reserve Officers with 

prior experience in this field, the course including ward administration and military 

routine. Further, five enlisted men were given a four-to-six month course in shop 

training, thereby becoming qualified brace-makers and fitters of prosthetic appliances. 

Although blood substitutes were still not in general use, both the liquid and dried 

type were provided by the Army Medical School, for use in the operating room at the 

hospital. Such substitutes, the professional staff decreed, not only had no ill effects 

on the patient, but they were more readily available for transfusions than the former 

system of individual typing or cross-matching with donor. As a further concession to 

time-saving factors, the hospital staff began using commercially prepared intravenous 

fluids, purchased through medical supply channels rather than made entirely at the 

laboratories of the School, with their depleted personnel.
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Of the 22,355 patients examined in the various surgical clinics of the Walter Reed General 

Hospital during the year, 1,175 were gynecological. The increasing size of the Army was not 

confined to uniformed manpower, for 3,015 female patients attended the pre-natal clinic in 

contrast to the 1,182 of 1940, and 302 infants were delivered, in contrast to the 175 of the 

year before. It was necessary, therefore, not only to establish an appointment system for the 

pre-natal clinic, but as a matter of War Department policy, Army hospitals were allowed to 

admit female dependents on the Surgical Service for emergency work only.13

The demands for additional personnel and services were not confined to doctors, nurses 

and corpsmen, but included dieticians and physiotherapy and occupational sides. In an effort 

to cooperate with the Army training program, the American Medical Association Council on 

Medical Education and Hospitals reduced the usual one-year physiotherapy aide-training 

to six months, provided the half-year in 

theory and practice was supplemented by 

a six-month supervised practice period in 

an Army hospital.14

Civil defense preparations brought a 

large-scale redraping of many of the hospital 

windows with blackout curtains, including 

six rooms in the Obstetrical Section. An air 

conditioner was provided for the delivery 

room. Further, as there was always a possibility that the power system would fail 

during a bombardment, a new Army field 

X-ray machine, with film processing and 

drying units, was acquired for accessory 

and reserve (emergency hospital) functions. 

Corpsmen and civilian personnel were 

instructed in air raid precautions and fire 

fighting, and all wards and services were 

issued flashlights and other paraphernalia 

needed during such an occurrence.

Colonel Roy Stout, Dental Corps, Oral and 

Maxillo-facial Surgeon

Increasing the Tempo

Brigadier General Shelley U. Marietta succeeded Brigadier General Raymond F. Metcalfe 

on February 1, 1941, and the Army Medical Center had for the third time in its history a former 

staff member and chief of a professional service as Post Commander.15 As noted elsewhere, 

General Marietta’s professional reputation required no enhancing.

Following the declaration of war with Japan, December 8, 1941, the tempo of hospital activities increased rapidly. Single rooms became two-bed rooms. Double rooms became threebed rooms, and cubicles and wards were crowded to capacity as stand-by beds were 

set up. The 8,025 admissions for 1941 increased to 10, 818 during 1942, and providing 

satisfactory hospital service for such a number presented many difficulties. The patients 
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With the Suddenness of War XIV

were restless, apprehensive over the mobilization objective, duration of emergency service 

and their families, in many instances still residing in the home communities. Hospital 

activities were influenced by an atmosphere of tension which had not characterized the 

World War I expansion period. In the former emergency, of short duration, evacuation 

of the wounded was not only a longer process, but the war was practically over before the 

peak load of evacuees began arriving in the United States, and few if any were returned 

to active combat. By the spring of 1942, however, when the convoys began arriving from 

North Africa, a global war had become almost a front-yard affair. Later, some patients 

followed the order of battle so closely that on occasion, as they underwent anesthesia, 

their last comprehensible mumblings were pleas for information on siege of Bizerte.16

Regular Army service or maintenance personnel was not only in short supply, 

but the demands of the civilian labor 

market, supported by increasingly tempting salaries, created such a grave civilian 

personnel situation that by September 

1942, General Marietta was compelled 

to replace some civilian ward mess attendants with enlisted personnel in order 

to maintain the necessary services to the 

sick. There were no major changes in the 

hospital organization during the year. 

On the other hand, the changing type 

of cases admitted, such as an increasing 

number of burns, maxillo-facial injuries, orthopedic, paraplegic, infectious 

hepatitis and neuropsychiatric cases, 

required more medical and nursing care 

than usual. The principal interruption 

of professional activities arose from the 

requirements for training a large proportion of reserve officers, the majority of 

whom apparently had no prior service, 

while maintaining the usual high quality of medical care afforded the sick. Such an 

arrangement, while necessary to the war effort, placed a heavy burden on the staff 

and probably prolonged the hospitalization of some patients. Many patients objected 

to the rapid change in staff members as this interrupted the doctor-patient relationship so important in maintaining confidence and a sense of professional security, 

the lack of which retard physical and mental recovery in some types of cases. The 

Medical Service, with an authorized allowance of forty-three duty officers, had only 

thirty-three regularly assigned, who must also supervise 152 trainees and six internes 

on rotating assignments. 

Major General Shelley U. Marietta,

February 1, 1941–February 9, 1946
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XIV Borden’s Dream

The enrollment of physiotherapy students not only increased, but four doctors from 

the Medical Department Replacement Pool17 were given brief courses in this department during 1942. A Dieticians’ Pool was organized in June 1942, to train in Army 

methods and procedures, and with a view to future foreign service assignments, dieticians admitted from civilian hospitals. The regular student training course was, like the 

course for aides, shortened from one year to six months. Regularly scheduled courses 

were conducted for mess officers, sanitary officers, enlisted cooks and mess stewards. 

Large numbers of officers from the Adjutant General’s Departmental (nutrition) School 

made “field trips” to the hospital kitchens, messes and ward kitchens during the year. 

Further, the director of the Dietetic Department lectured monthly to the Medical 

Department Replacement Pool officers then being trained for unit assignment, and to 

newly assigned duty officers at the hospital.18

As a result of some defective commercially prepared yellow fever vaccine, the Army 

experienced an outbreak of toxic hepatitis in late 1942, with 116 cases admitted to 

Walter Reed from the United States and overseas stations. This unfortunate circumstance 

encouraged intensive study of this condition both at the Army Medical School and in other 

military medical installations. As was to be expected during a period when personnel faced 

New Addition to Red Cross, WRAH
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With the Suddenness of War XIV

The New Fire Station, located near the site of the old Lay Mansion, 1946

increased exposure to the elements, there was an unusually large number of admissions 

for atypical pneumonia. Further, the doctors at Walter Reed noted that “a new drug, 

Penicillin, was tried for the subacute bacterial endocarditis.”

The Surgical Service met many of the expansion problems which characterized the 

World War I period. Orthopedic surgery increased, and all of the attendant functions, 

such as plaster, X-ray and dressing rooms were concentrated on Ward 11, in the Main 

Building. Moreover, the brace shop began training additional brace-makers for overseas 

stations. An Orthopedic Branch of the occupational therapy program began functioning in February 1942 with diversional work carried on with bed patients. In December 

the entire Occupational Therapy Department was placed under the supervision of the 

Orthopedic Section. The Surgical Service likewise experimented with Penicillin, finding 

it especially helpful in treating osteomyelitis. 

From May 16, 1942, until the end of December, 105 major neurosurgical operations 

were performed at Walter Reed, the work becoming so heavy that a separate section 

was established on December 26, under the direction of highly a trained civilian doctor, 

commissioned to and assigned to duty. The majority of the patients were directly or 

indirectly under treatment because of trauma, although the usual percentages of neo-
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plasms, intractable painful maladies and congenital anomalies appeared. Of especial 

interest to the military service, thirty-nine patients were treated for intervertebral 

discs. As the war progressed and complaints of low back pain increased, distinction 

between discs, traumatic injuries of temporary nature and the fancied injuries of the 

neuropsychiatric casualty was a time-consuming process for doctors in the classified 

stations as well as those in the hospitals.19

The EENT and Maxillo-Facial subsection trained forty-one Medical Department 

Replacement Pool officers, in connection with a four-week course at the Army 

Medical School. In addition to the regular staff, a special detail of instructors was 

assigned which included Doctor John B. Davis of Baltimore and Doctors Robert 

H. Ivy and A.B. Batson of Philadelphia. Lectures, demonstrations, applications 

and visual aids were used in instructing the eighty-eight Dental and forty-seven 

Medical Officers so trained.

Pressed by bed shortages and too many patients, the Obstetrical Section, which 

had appeared busy when receiving thirty patients a month, was able to accommodate ninety by reducing the number of hospital days per patient. Thus, as a result of 

emergency economies, American women again adopted some post-partum habits of 

remote ancestors. The practice of early ambulation of the patient and early discharge 

from the hospital became so commonplace that by 1949 it was accepted therapy. In 

this, as in other sections of the hospital, able civilian doctors were in charge. 

Main Entrance, Forest Glen Section
305

With the Suddenness of War XIV

The Anesthesia Section (General Surgery) was especially busy, for in addition to 

the increased case load for surgery, the newly activated units required both doctor 

and nurse anesthetists. Some fifty-four one-hour lectures were given during the year. 

On October 1, 1942, six officers arrived for a three-month course in Anesthesia.20

Replacement Pool officers assigned to temporary duty in this section were required 

to follow the established training program provided by the Surgeon General’s Office. 

Twenty-one officers were so trained, all of whom received anesthesia assignments on 

departure from Washington.21

As the number of ward patients increased, the entire Red Cross welfare program 

expanded, and the Gray Ladies came into their own again. The Radiologic Section 

accepted Gray Ladies as chaperones for female patients, thus economizing on the 

services of nurses, for, like other sections of the hospital, the radiology work increased 

phenomenally. From 23,001 X-ray examinations in 1941, the number increased to 32,826 

in 1942, with 720 consultations by mail. Further, an increasing number of diagnostic 

time-consuming procedures such as myelography, encephalography, venography and 

arteriography were performed in this department, directed by Colonel Aubrey Otis 

Hampton, a reserve officer on active duty, formerly Chief of Roentgenology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

In view of the steadily increasing number of carcinomas diagnosed at the Walter Reed 

General Hospital in the last ten-year period, formation of the Tumor Board, in 1942, is 

of special interest. This was encouraged by Major Milton Freidman, likewise a reserve 

officer on active duty. The board, composed of the chiefs of Medicine, Surgery, Radium 

Therapy, the pathologist and the senior roentgenologist, met weekly for discussion of 

all tumor cases with the ward doctors prior to adoption of specific therapy.

Expanding the Army Medical Center

Neither time nor costs permitted construction of a significant number of permanent-type general hospitals during this period, and some military authorities believed it 

more practicable to convert existing structures to emergency use. The building program 

was not without complications and misunderstandings,22 for in March 1942 the War 

Department formed a new overhead agency called the Services of Supply, a year later 

renamed Army Service Forces, for coordinating and streamlining emergency activities. 

The Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces and the Army Services of Supply were 

established, and the geographically divided administrative areas of the Army, once 

known as Departments, then as Corps Areas, in 1943 became Service Commands. Further, and 

unfortunately from the Surgeon General’s viewpoint, the general and station hospitals 

were transferred from the direct control of his office to the Service Commands, each of 

which, however, had a senior ranking medical officer in charge of Medical Department 

activities. Thereafter, in the case of the Army Medical Center, an “exempted” station, 

some administrative affairs were under the jurisdiction of the Third Service Command, 

Baltimore, Maryland, and some were under the Military District of Washington.
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XIV Borden’s Dream

During the summer of 1942, the Surgeon General’s Office was directed by the Services 

of Supply organization to plan for emergency expansion by surveying hotels, hospitals and 

other buildings suitable for conversion to immediate use in the event of enemy action. In the 

meantime, a construction program was under way which would enable the Medical Department to provide increased hospitalization for troops in the Zone of Interior, the continental 

United States, and for long-term cases evacuated from overseas stations. 

Exterior View, Forest Glen
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With the Suddenness of War XIV

In Washington and at Walter Reed, hospital authorities surveyed the adjacent neighborhoods of Takoma Park and Shepherd Park, apparently with some idea of adapting 

one of the larger apartment houses in the vicinity to convalescent use or as officers’ 

quarters. In this as in other communities where civilian housing was to be affected, the 

proposal was unpopular. The Army Medical Center expansion problem was met through 

purchase, on September 1, 1942, of the National Park Seminary, a girls’ school at Forest 

Exterior View, Forest Glen
308

XIV Borden’s Dream

Glen, Maryland. The buildings were heterogeneous, old and in poor repair, but the 185-acre 

tract was only four miles from the Center, and valuable. On one side it adjoined property of 

the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which afforded a way station, and excellent paved roads 

connected the tract with Washington and Silver Spring, Maryland.

The restoration and adaptation of the school structure was both more extensive and more 

costly than at first contemplated. By December 31, 1942, when the first patients arrived, 

1500 people could be fed there, regardless of the fact that the principal features of the plant 

were incomplete. Called The New Section, Convalescent Section and finally the Forest Glen Section, 

the addition was used for the extended care of convalescents. Occupational Therapy and 

Main Recreation Room, Forest Glen Section
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With the Suddenness of War XIV

Physiotherapy rooms were provided, and the Post Exchange and Library maintained branch 

services. In fact, except for the professional care of bed cases, administration at the Forest 

Glen Section emulated the usual Post functions so familiar at the Army Medical Center.

A Distaff Branch

The National Capital Parks donated two greenhouses to the Army Medical Center in 

1943. One was located, rather conspicuously, on the Georgia Avenue side of the reservation rather than behind the formal garden area with other greenhouses. The structure was 

dismantled by the Post Engineer, who salvaged eighty per cent of the wood and forty-five 

per cent of the glass. Half of the building was redesigned as a moving picture theater, and all 

of the equipment, including the picture screen, was furnished by the Army Motion Picture 

Service. General Marietta had long considered more extensive recreation facilities a necessity 

for enlisted men of the Post, but because of nearby community facilities, the movie project 

was not authorized by the Military District of Washington. Movies were shown only on the 

wards and in the Red Cross house, for patients; therefore, the makeshift “greenhouse theater” 

was a welcome addition to the recreational facilities of the command. The remaining half 

of the building was converted into a recreation room for the enlisted men. One company 

of service troops was assigned to the Center during the year, quartered at Forest Glen, and 

provided with appropriate recreation facilities in that area.23 The remaining greenhouse was 

erected adjacent to other greenhouses under the jurisdiction of the head gardener. 

The Greenhouse; Enlisted Men’s Game Room (later occupied by a snack bar)
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XIV Borden’s Dream

Lumber from a dismantled chicken house was used to convert an old granary into a rabbetry, for the hard-pressed Army Medical School. About 200 shrubs were replaced, and at 

Forest Glen, some 1,000 pieces of mixed trees, shrubs and evergreens were added. The plant 

heating facilities of the Center were expanded; a second story was added to the Guard House, 

and in the Main Building the air conditioning apparatus, installed in 1934, was removed to the 

attic in order to provide additional space for hospital activities. A radiation therapy extension 

was completed in October 1943, and a 100,000-volt, a 200,000-volt and a 1,000,000-volt 

therapy room were installed. In July 1943, facilities were prepared for housing a forty-piece 

band at Forest Glen.24 New tennis courts were constructed as the personnel increased, and 

schedules at the Rea swimming pool were modified to accommodate the increased members. 

Road maintenance and upkeep was constant throughout the Post, and the usual repair, utilities and enlargements were made as required in a rapidly expanding organization.

Lt. Colonel Gertrude L. Thompson, Principal Chief Nurse at Walter Reed following Miss 

Keener’s retirement in the summer of 1943, faced a hard four-year period during which demands for nursing service increased rapidly. Supervision of the auxiliary training program for 

WAC’s, nurses and corpsmen was a function of her office, as well as increased responsibilities 

which came at a time when she had fewer Regular Army nurses as assistants. Petite, agreeable 

and scholarly, Colonel Thompson had a quietly expressed preference for being addressed as 

“Miss,” and she seldom invoked the “official” title of her office.

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was authorized on May 14, 1942 (Public Law 554, 

77th Congress) without full military status or the corresponding military grades afforded the 

Regular Army, inequalities which were corrected in the reorganization of the Women’s Army 

Corps a year later. The pre-authorization public relations material featured the Auxiliaries as 

numerical replacements for able-bodied enlisted men required by the combat forces, and this 

idea became firmly fixed in the minds of some military authorities, including key personnel 

in the Surgeon General’s Office. 

Organization of such a Corps had strong Congressional support from Congressman Edith 

Nourse Rogers, of Massachusetts, a Gray Lady at Walter Reed during World War I, and from 

influential military leaders such as the Chief of Staff, General George Catlett Marshall.

At the time of organization, the Surgeon General and the Superintendent of the Army 

Nurse Corps objected to using WAC’s as hospital attendants. The Surgeon General believed 

such a policy would result in dismissal of faithful civilian employees, as well as creating a 

housing problem. The Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps disapproved on the general principle that non-professional personnel, including nurses’ aides, should not care for 

patients.25 As personnel shortages became acute, circumstances forced a reevaluation of 

Medical Department policy. Because of an already critical housing situation for the Troop 

Command, as well as the inherent problems of administering two classes of enlisted personnel, both General Marietta and his executive officer, Colonel Thomas Hester, MAC, resisted 

the assignment of WACs as long as possible.26 However, as Walter Reed was in the spotlight of national affairs, in proximity to WAC (policy) headquarters, it afforded an excellent 

background for public relations and recruiting media featuring the WAC. It was, therefore, 
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With the Suddenness of War XIV

a foregone conclusion that Walter Reed, as the Army’s best-known general hospital, would 

have a detachment of women.27

On June 1, 1943, a group of enlisted members of the WAC were assigned to duty 

in ward kitchens, replacing a like number of soldiers, and, with additional WACs 

arriving periodically, their total strength in the Dietetic Department (was) forty-six, 

thus relieving an equivalent number of men. Two WACs (were) Staff Sergeants 

serving as assistant stewards and two (were) corporals.28

An old landmark lost part of its identity in December 1943 when Building No.7, the 

enlisted men’s barracks, underwent modest transformation into barracks for female enlisted 

personnel. A beauty shop, laundry tubs and ironing boards were installed in the basement, 

with clothes lines in the basement and on the second floor porches. The former recreation 

and lounge rooms were expanded and equipped for women.

The early public relations media claiming that women could serve as numerical replacements for men created problems for the Director of the WAC as well as for some hospital 

commanders. The former, responsible for the morale and efficiency of the women only, and 

the latter, responsible for the morale and efficiency of an entire organization, thereafter 

including women, plus his primary mission – care of the sick – sometimes found their mutual 

problem difficult to solve. As a result, the Medical Department, including the Commanding 

General of the Army Medical Center, was criticized for showing a lack of understanding 

of the problems of women, poor utilization and the misuse of enlisted women beyond 

the limits of their physical endurance. In fact, in the opinion of some WAC officers,29 the 

Medical Department was an organizational “Simon Legree” of the worst order.

For a time some Army nurses allegedly resented the assignment of WACs to ward duty, 

viewing them only as female orderlies or manpower replacements as promised by recruiting propaganda and not as equally fragile members of the reputedly weaker sex. Some 

enlisted men resented the arrival of the enlisted women; and many believed the women 

were favored in the matter of ratings. The situation was in some respects like the earlier 

objection of the hospital stewards and corpsmen to the Army’s use of graduate nurses. Although the WACs had basic training, drill, were instructed in social hygiene, gas-mask drill 

and, after conversion to the WAC in August 1943, attended many of the same orientation 

lectures, they were for at least two years something of a public curiosity. Unavoidably, since 

progress is ever painful, some civilian and military staff members accepted them as such. 

Some of the early job-placement difficulties developed from the too literal interpretation 

of “the law,” for insofar as heavy work was concerned, the women were not one-for-one 

replacements for men. By the end of 1943, it was obvious to administrative officers and 

Walter Reed that

In the progressive replacement of male by female technicians, a minimum of 

men is necessary for certain work, such as heavy lifting, unpleasant clean-up duties, 

morgue or veneral work.30
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The Laboratory Service, whose procedures increased in proportion to the 18,046 

inpatient admissions for the year and which had voiced longstanding complaints over 

both the quality and inconstancy of technical personnel, apparently welcomed the WACs 

more enthusiastically than some of the other hospital sections. The first WACs were 

assigned to the Laboratory in July, and by the end of December, twelve were on duty in 

this section, the Laboratory officer noting that his problem was minimal, for 

As a whole they were professional medical technicians before entry into military 

service and hence, they were rapidly assimilated.

As was to be expected, the fact that both male and female personnel believed themselves appreciated and necessary to the war effort contributed to harmonious working 

conditions. In fact, the Laboratory officer wanted at least twenty-five to thirty-three 

per cent of the staff to be in this category. With the change from WAAC to WAC, 

only twenty per cent of the auxiliaries at the Army Medical Center requested release 

in comparison to twenty-five per cent at other stations. 

During the first year of their assignment the days lost by women on furlough never 

exceeded ten per cent; no days were lost for Absence Without Leave, arrest or confineReviewing the Lady Soldiers.
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ment in the guardhouse. The average duty strength from July to December, 1943, was 141.15; 

the women had so proved their abilities that General Marietta noted cautiously in the Annual Report that “the arrival of WAC personnel entailed considerable office work at the 

outset; however, their efficiency as soldiers had greatly overshadowed the problems first 

encountered.”

Associate Activities

The 28th Portable Surgical Hospital was activated at Fort George C. Meade, Maryland, 

on June 14, 1943, and transferred to the Army Medical Center on September 6. The Commanding Officer and a cadre of six enlisted men were present for duty, and two surgeons 

and one internist joined later.

The transient unit personnel had almost doubled by September, and activities transferred 

to the Military District of Washington required the maintenance of new files and the initiation of new procedures. Essentially a responsibility and a function of the Medical Service of 

the Army Ground Forces, the portable surgical unit was developed to create a self-sustaining 

portable hospital capable of portage over terrain inaccessible to motor transportation. The 

training emphasis was placed on emergency nursing and surgical procedures and individual 

protective measures against the enemy. Although the unit had not actual maneuver experience, its activities formed the basis for preparing experimental work reports to the Surgeon 

General’s Office. The unit headquarters, for organization and personnel, was established at 

the Army Medical Center, but the unit supply depot was at the Forest Glen Section. The men 

lived a life of simulated field activity, housed in pyramidal tents erected on the old playing 

field, on the north side of the reservation.

In preparing the final report of this experiment for the Surgeon General’s Office, military 

medical authorities agreed that both officers and men should be general service personnel 

(rather than specialists), the former as graduates of the Medical Field Service Training Course 

at Carlisle Barracks, and that the unit should have maneuver experience, with all of the supplies and equipment functionally marked at supply depots prior to issue.31

The presence of this unit did not directly affect the hospital staff or the inpatient care, 

but its location and association with the organizational set-up of the Army Medical Center 

was reminiscent of the early post-Spanish-American War plans. At that time the Companies of Instruction formed the basis of determining the training and equipment required 

by the medical components of a field medical Army; and because of this a Field Hospital 

was assigned in conjunction with the Walter Reed General Hospital when it was opened for 

service in 1909. 

References

1. Editorial: Military Surgeon, Vol. XLI, 1917, pg 721.

2. From December 26, 1939 to January 31, 1941.

3. Called Service rather than Clinic in order to agree with later designations.
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XIV Borden’s Dream

4. AG 702 (11-28-40) M-A-M (Ltr of Dec. 18, 1940).

5. Annual Report, WRGH, 1940.

6. Ibid, 1941.

7. The overall planning program for present and future military activities. The Troop Basis is 

ordinarily forecast a year or more in advance, but in periods of military activity it is under 

constant study and revision. 

8. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1940.

9. Ibid, In evaluating Medical Department training activities at the Army Medical Center, it should 

be recalled that the medical doctrine is prescribed by the Surgeon General’s Office.

10. In terms of visits, or treatments.

11. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1940.

12. Ibid, 1941.

13. AG Ltr. 18 Dec. 1940. As the war progressed all regulations governing the medical treatment of dependents were tightened, and dental care was eliminated for all cases except 

extractions and actual emergency work.

14. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1941.

15. Percy M. Ashburn, CO from Sept. 19, 1915-October 5, 1916, was Chief of the Medical 

Service and Adjutant.

16. Personal knowledge of the writer.

17. Pools were established for all classes of personnel, in order to provide ready assignment or 

replacement. 

18. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1942.

19. Ibid.

20. One additional student joined later.

21. Annual Rpt., WRGH, 1942.

22. Blanchfield, Organized Nursing and the Army, op cit.

23. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1943. In this case the service troops were Negro.

24. The hospital had a band for a short time during World War I, and during the early twenties, 

an orchestra.

25. Blanchfield, op cit.
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26. Conversation, Col. Thomas Hester, MAC, 1943.

27. Interview, Miss Mattie Treadwell, WAC Historian, 1946-1950.

28. Ibid, and informal review of the official history of the WAC organization.

29 Ibid.

30. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1943.

31. Ibid.
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