Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1944-09-01
Air Evacuation Of Wounded Takes lis Place With
Sufa Drugs and Blood P|asma as One Of Modern
Military Medicines Greatest Life Savinq Plans
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON

Released by Western Newspaper Union.
LIE WAS one of the doughboys
L L who jumped down from a
landing barge to the sandy shore
of Normandy on D-Day.
A chattering machine gun in
German pillbox, that hadn't yet
been silenced, sprayed lead
across his path and he slumped
to the ground. There was a cry
of "Medic! Medic!" and a mo-
ment later skilled hands were
binding up his gaping wounds.
The next morning four planes
(unarmed C-54s) swooped down
near the field hospital where he
lay. Land mines were exploding
$50 yards away when the first
two ships landed. Out from these
planes sprang two flight nurses
-Marjean Brown of Columbus,
Ohio, and Suella Bernard of
Waynesville, Ohio. "All right,
soldier, you're going to take
little trip with us!" smiled one
of them.
Within two hours they had gath
cred up not only this CT Joe but
dozens of other desperately wound
ed, loaded them into the planes
which were soon winging their way
back to England Two weeks in an
American army hospital there and
then on June 90 huge Air Trans
port Command plane settled down
on an airfield on Long Island, N. Y.
1t was just 10 hours since it had left
the British Isles.
A days rest in a hospital near
New York-then aboard a plane
again. And today this CT Joe is con-
valescing in an army hospital out in
the Colorado Rockies, near enough
to his home so that Dad and Nom
and Sis can come to see him get
well. It's several thousand miles
from the place where his blood dyed
the sands of the French coast to this
place where both his body and mind
are being healed of the wounds of
war but this cycle of life, near-death,
then life again, is encompassed with
in the time span of less than four
weeks!
The reason for this can be
summed up in two words: air evacu-
alton. No wonder that Maj. Gen.
David N. Grant, air surgeon for the
army air forces, was able to de-
clare recently that the army's sys-
tenn of air evacuation of its wounded
takes its place with sulfa drugs and
blood plasma as lone of the three
greatest life-saving measures OF
modern military medicine!
Because of air evacuation, men
are alive today who would have per-
ished in the jungles of Maxim island
or on the Anzio beachhead, and
personnel of the air transport COM
mand's ferrying division, who have
participated in the air evacuation
of more than $500 war wounded,
have no hesitancy in indorsing the
air surgeons statement.
It's a part of the armys policy of
handling wounded soldiers through
a progressive system of unit hospi-
talization which has been developed
to a high degree under the direc-
ton of Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk,
surgeon general of the army. Be-
cause of front-line treatment given
American soldiers, more than 81 per
cent of the wounded brought from
battlefelds to evacuation hospitals
have heen saved
Once the wounded have been treat
ed, they must be sent to hospitals far
from the scene of battle where they
can rest and recover and, of course,
the quickest way to get them there is
by airplane. Part of these wounded
have been flown from foreign thea
tiers of war to their homeland and
thousands of them have been flown
from hospitals on the coast to hos
pitfalls near their homes where they
can convalcsce and benefit in spirit
from visits of family and friends,
for it is basic army policy to get
its wounded soldiers as close to
home as possible for the GONZALES
cent period
IN recent report on the handling
of men wounded during the invasion
of France, Maj. Gen. Paul r. Haw-
ley, chief surgeon of the European
theater of war, stated: "There has
not been the slightest hitch in the
chain of evacuation. AS a result of
the speed with which these wound
ed were evacuated from Normandy,
the condition of the casualties on
arrival in the United Kingdom has
been surprisingly fine" To that COM
ment might be added the fact that
approximately 1000 sick and wound
ed have been returned to this coun-
try aboard Air Transport command
planes, part of them over regularly
scheduled transport services operat-
ed by the ferrying division of ATC.