General hospitals, in contrast, primarily took care of the sick and wounded left behind as troops moved out and, more importantly, to deal with the influx of sick and wounded transported in from field hospitals for longer term care than could be managed near battlefields or by soldiers on the march. They held those too sick or injured to remain in their camp or post quarters, but not sick or injured enough to be transferred to one of the general hospitals in Alexandria, Washington or Georgetown. Given the number of troops needed to garrison the posts and batteries, and to be held in reserve in case of attack, these post and camp hospitals provided care for tens of thousands of soldiers. Field and post hospitals served only the companies and regiments assigned to them, and were under the authority of the highest ranking military officer in the specific command. (3)Īs the army constructed fortifications around the District, it also established post hospitals to serve those who garrisoned the forts. The District of Columbia hosted huge camps for mustering the troops moving through the city to form the armies operating to the south and southwest, and so had flexible camp hospitals.
(2) For armies encamped, there were post hospitals created out of tents or wooden barracks these were organized at the regimental or brigade (3 to 6 regiments) level. For armies on the march, these were field hospitals, with supplies carried along in wagons and set up in whatever quarters could be found or organized around ranks of tents. In theory, every regiment had a hospital (a regiment was 10 companies of 100 men each). The military imposed order (or at least tried to) on the proliferation of hospital sites, working along both military and medical chains of command. It was the military, after all, that requisitioned space, built new hospitals, provided supplies, and needed regular, complete reports of the numbers of sick and wounded. Both volunteer and newly recruited medical officers must have quickly discovered that they needed to learn something about the military as well as something about hospitals in order to work in some of the ad hoc, transitory establishments that housed the sick and wounded at the start of the war. In the Pacific, fixed hospitals were first established in Hawaii and Australia, then followed into secured regions."At the outbreak of the civil war," the author of the chapter on general hospitals in The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion wrote, "this country knew nothing practically of large military hospitals indeed, most of our volunteer medical officers knew nothing of military hospitals, small or large." (1) In fact, most of the volunteer medical officers would have known nothing of hospitals at all unless they had practiced in a city large enough to have had one or more charity hospitals, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Washington, DC. When the Allies invaded Sicily and Italy, North Africa was the COMZ, and as the front advanced, the COMZ was established in the Naples area of southern Italy. In the Mediterranean Theater, Morocco served as the first COMZ, then Algeria. In each theater of operations, fixed hospitals operated in what was called the “Communications Zone.” In the European Theater, the COMZ was originally in England, then as the Allies approached the German border, the COMZ extended to include Normandy and Belgium. In England before D-day, field and evacuation hospitals waiting for the Normandy invasion functioned as station hospitals to care for patients. The station hospitals (250, 500, or 750 beds), general hospitals (1000 beds), and convalescent hospitals (2000 or 3000 beds) were set up far from the front to keep patients safe from danger, but also to keep them in the theater, which made it easier to return the soldiers to duty. US evacuation hospital tents on the Anzio beachhead, Italy, spring 1944, revetted for protection from bombs and shells (US Army Medical Dept.)
WHO ESTABLISHED A WAR HOSPITAL SERIES
This article is the second in a three-part series on US Army hospitalization in World War II. In my novel On Distant Shores, the hero serves as a pharmacist in an evacuation hospital and the heroine serves as a flight nurse. “I just had them done.” (On Distant Shores, p. “Heavens to Betsy!” Bergie said in a falsetto, inspecting his fingernails.
“I’ll put the captain on my team and mess up his pretty officer’s manicure.” What’s mud compared to the blood and guts I usually swim in?” “In Boy Scouts.” The surgeon raised a three-finger salute. Hutch crossed his arms over his soggy mackinaw and gave Bergie half a smile. Photo: US Army nurse preparing dressings, 15 June 1944, 13th Field Hospital, St.-Laurent-sur-Mer, Normandy (US National Archives)
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