Navy Medicine 1941
Jennifer Mitchum

Pearl Harbor was a wake up call for a nation undecided, vacillating, hanging on the precipice preparing for war - hoping for peace. It all changed in an instant on 7 Dec 1941. This was a conflict different from any war America had ever fought - bond and rubber drives, ration stamps, blackouts, victory gardens - every single facet of American life was in some way connected to winning the war. Pearl Harbor united the American people as no single event had before or since.

Navy medicine was there from the beginning, expanding its services to accommodate the Navy and marine Corps in a global effort. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, there were only 18 continental
hospitals, 3 extra-continental hospitals, 2 mobile hospitals, and 2 hospital ships in commissions. These
facilities were manned by approximately 1,957 doctors, 511 dentists, 524 nurses, 195 hospital corps officers, and 10,547 hospital corpsmen. By 1945, the ranks had swollen to about 169,225 personnel - 14,191 doctors, 7,012 dentists, 10,698 nurses, 3,429 hospital corps officers, 132,500 hospital corpsmen, and 1,125 WAVES.(1) They were assigned to 56 continental hospitals, 12 fleet hospitals, 16 base hospitals, 14 convalescent hospitals, 12 hospital ships, 5 special augmented hospitals, and many dispensaries.

Throughout World War II's 50th anniversary years, Navy Medicine will showcase the personnel and events that contributed to final victory by featuring a chronology of Navy medical history in each issue.

Four days after Germany attacked Poland on 1 Sept 1939, President Roosevelt issued a neutrality
proclamation. Immediately, he took steps not only to ensure the nation's defense but also to prepare for
possible involvement in the war. In response, RADM Ross T. McIntire, Navy Surgeon General, began
preparing the Medical Department for its expected role in any conflict. That same week, McIntire met with 11 BUMED department heads to assess preparedness. As a result of the meeting, department heads prepared and submitted plans to the Surgeon general that became components of the "overall plan for medical department activity in time of emergency."(2)

Navy Medicine Prepares

The problems confronting the Medical Department were many, severe, and immediate. On the same day Roosevelt issued the neutrality proclamation, he ordered the Navy to set up a neutrality patrol to "report and track and belligerent air, surface, or underwater naval forces approaching [the]Atlantic coasts of the United States or the West Indies."(3) Operations of the neutrality patrol lead to an increase in patients at
medical shore activities along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts as patrol staffs now began transferring more sick and injured to dispensaries and hospitals.(4)

On 8 Sept 1939, just 3 days after the patrol had been established, Roosevelt declared a "limited
national emergency" and called for an increase in the Armed Forces enlisted strength. This action increased the Navy force from 110,813 to 145,000 and the Marine Corps from 18,325 to 25,000. In addition, the President authorized the recall of Navy personnel on retired lists.(5)

In October 1940, approximately 16,400,000 men registered for the draft under the Selective Training and Service Act, and the Secretary of the Navy also placed the "Organized Naval Reserves on short notice for call to active."(6) With large numbers of recruits reporting to training centers, medical facilities like the USNHs (U.S. Naval Hospitals) Great Lakes, IL; Newport, RI; and Parris Island, SC, were rapidly filing to capacity. In an annual sanitary report submitted to BUMED in December 1940 from USNH Newport, hospital officials reported that on two occasions all but two hospital beds had been occupied.(7) Not only were these medical facilities lacking space, they were also in dire need of modern equipment and buildings.

Other Navy hospitals, not in desperate need of beds, required renovation. Some hospitals, like USNH Chelsea, MA, and USNH Brooklyn, NY, were partially housed in buildings that dated back to World War I.

Despite the need for renovation and additional equipment, the main concern was a lack of space for special patients - officers and convalescent patients. BUMED therefore began a program of expansion,
renovation, and construction. The first priority was those activities in training center regions. Within 2 years, USNH Great Lakes, acquired two new dispensaries. The first, a newly built, two-story building, was
commissioned on 12 May 1940 and the second was completed on 21 May 1941. Similarly, the U.S. Marine Base, Quantico, VA, dispensary gained new corpsmen and nurses' living quarters, becoming USNH Quantico on 1 July 1940.(8)

In some instances, new hospitals replaced obsolescent ones. In 1940, construction began on a new facility at USNH Charleston, SC on the site of the World War I hospital.(9) As existing Navy activities expanded and new ones developed, Navy medical facilities followed suit. Prior to Pearl harbor, naval air
stations, like the one at Pensacola, FL, (then called an aeronautics station), expanded rapidly as strides were made in aviation and as participation in World War II became more likely. A new hospital in Pensacola, FL, was dedicated on 15 Feb 1941.(10) USNH Jacksonville, FL and USNH Corpus Christi, TX were both
commissioned on 1 July 1941 to service naval air stations that had been established in both areas.

Navy Medicine West

Because the United States had fought all its previous wars primarily in the Atlantic theater, most of the
hospitals in commission by the close of 1941 were located on the east coast. Prior to pearl harbor, there were three Navy hospitals on the west coast: Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, WA: Mare island, CA: and San Diego, CA. Apart from these, there were but three other Navy hospitals in the Pacific region: Pearl Harbor, HI: Canacao in the Philippines; and Guam, all U.S. island possessions.

In May 1940, President Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely. This strategic measure posed problem for these new facilities. By early 1941, they were "experiencing some difficulty" increasing their bed capacity at a rate commensurate with incoming patients. In March 1941, USNHs San Diego, Mare Island, Puget Sound Navy Yard, and Pearl Harbor, reported a combined patient
census of 3,015 with a combined bed total of 2,690. In addition, officials at San Diego reported that after
utilizing all available hospital space, no hospital facilities were available for 230 other patients in the San Diego area. Pearl Harbor officials also reported that their facility was overwhelmed. Similarly, the hospitals at Mare Island and Puget Sound Navy yard were "taxed to the utmost."(11)

The problems plaguing the west coast/Pacific region were not ignored. Construction of new hospitals and additional facilities began immediately. In 1940, USNH San Diego, received two additional buildings for its medical department facilities. The first building, completed in April, raised the facility's bed capacity from 40 to 96; and the second, completed in June, served as a dental clinic that accommodated 20 dental units and included a waiting room. Subsequently, in 1941, San Diego's bed capacity 275 after BUMED procured two nearby barracks equipped with double bunks. The Navy medical Department's policy of procuring property from other service branches and government agencies as well as from the private sector would become a
principal element in the Medical Department's struggle to accommodate the sick and wounded.(12)

Mobile Hospitals

Another problem associated with the west coast/Pacific region was that of constructing facilities that would meet the needs of the rapidly expanding and mobilizing fleet and Marine Corps forces operating in the Pacific. In certain areas, it was nearly impossible to construct even temporary hospitals at the rate the fleet moved around. Thus, Medical Department planners sought to create a facility that would be as mobile as deploying large military forces but would offer care comparable to regular navy hospitals. Only two types of installation came close to fitting this objective - hospital ships and field hospitals. Hospital ships had facilities comparable to regular naval hospitals but, like the field hospitals, their primary purpose was to provide
intermediatecare and definitive treatment in between evacuation from the first aid and battle stations to
stationary naval hospitals. Neither was adapted to serve fleet and ground forces for lengthy periods of time.(13)

As early as 1939, long before many of the problems arose in the west coast/Pacific region, the Surgeon General and the BUMED Planning Division began contemplating the construction of some form of "
prefabricated, transportable general hospital."(14) consequently, in 1940, BUMED set up U.S. Naval Mobile Hospital No. 1 at the U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an experimental unit. As with any
experiment, this one, too, would be improved through trial and error. many problems associated with the
packaging, handling, loading, and unloading of crates would be corrected and would not plague U.S. Naval Mobile Hospital No. 2.

Navy Medicine in Progress

As 1941 came to a close, several hospitals were being constructed on both coasts, including USNH Bethesda, MD, the replacement for the USNH Washington, DC; USNH Treasure Island, San Francisco, CA, intended as a subordinate command to the U.S. Naval Station; USNH Coco Solo and USNH Balboa, both in the Canal Zone; and the USNH Long Beach, CA, for which the first slab of concrete was poured the day before the Pearl Harbor raid. In addition, a hospital that would replace the overcrowded USNH Pearl Harbor, was underway at Aeia Heights , HI.

Much progress was being made in aviation medicine and in November 1939, the U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine opened. Prior to its establishment, flight surgeons received training from the Army Air Corps. On 4 Dec 1941, 153 Reserve medical officers graduated as aviation medical examiners and 54 Regular medical officers became flight surgeons. In medical technique and treatment, progress had been made in chemotherapy, immunization, and in using whole blood and plasma in transfusions. Atabrine had already proven to be an effective treatment against malaria in the 1930's and sulfa drugs were now commonly used for treating war wounds and gonorrhea. Between March 1940 and December 1941, the Navy and Army
jointly developed "practical methods for collecting, processing, storing and packaging blood."(15) By July 1941, the Naval Medical School was issuing units of citrated plasma to continental hospitals.

Between June 1939 and June 1941, Navy hospitals experienced an increase of about 87 percent or from 4,124 to 7,723 patients. During that same period, personnel in the Medical Corps increased from 841 to 1,957; in the Dental Corps from 255 to 511; in the Hospital Corps from 4,267 to 10,545; and in the nurse Corps from 439 to 524.(16)

References

1. The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II, Vol. I: A Narrative and Pictorial Volume, p1.

2. U.S. Navy Medical Department Administrative History: 1941-1945, Vol. II: Organizational History,
chap. 1, p 1.

3. U.S. Navy Chronology of World War II, Naval History Division, p 1.

4. U.S. Navy Medical Department Administrative History: 1941-1945, Vol. II: Organizational History,
chap. 3, p 107.

5. U.S. Navy Chronology of World War II, p 1.

6. Ibid., p 6.

7. U.S. Navy Medical Department Administrative History: 1941-1945, Vol. II: Organizational History,
chap. 3, p 158.

8. Ibid., p 114.

9. Hospital history. Anodyne, newsletter for USNH Charleston, SC; 20 April 1945.

10. Patton WK. History of U.S. Naval Hospitals, Vol. I, p 255.

11. U.S. Navy Medical Department Administrative History: 1941-1945, Vol. II: Organizational History,
chap 3, p 118.

12. Patton WK, History of U.S. Naval Hospitals, Vol. II: All remaining hospitals including Special Augmented Hospital No. 6 Okinawa, p 404-438.

13. Ibid., Vol. I, p 143-144.

14. Ibid., Vol. I, p 144.

15. Ibid., Vol. I, p 234.

16. The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II, Vol. I: A Narrative and Pictorial Volume, p1.