Navy Medicine May-June 1942
Jennifer Mitchum

In the Battle of the Coral Sea from 4 to 8 May, U.S. naval forces halted what seemed to be an
uninterrupted Japanese push southeastward in the Pacific threatening Australia and New Zealand. This victory no doubt was a decisive one and marked the first turning point of the Pacific war. Midway would be the
second. In addition, it introduced a new kind of naval warfare as it became the first battle in naval history where opposing warships never came within sight of one another; instead carrier aircraft inflicted all damage. Navy medical personnel serving aboard ships in the Coral Sea provided exceptional service as demonstrated aboard USS Lexington which went down on the last day of battle.

"The story of the medical service aboard USS Lexington is the story of a plan that worked,"(1) said CDR Arthur J. White who was the vessel's senior medical officer. "What made it effective and enabled us to get all the injured off the carrier without losing one of the hundred or so patients was the perfect co-operation of every member of the medical department,"(2) concluded Dr. White.

The medical plan that contributed to a reported no loss of life during abandonment of the ship, was one geared toward treating casualties promptly and "on the scene" if possible to eliminate excessive movement during conflict. As part of this plan, hospital corpsmen, advanced in first aid, were "placed about the great ship wherever a number of men would be stationed during battle."(3) In addition, medical officers were assigned to several emergency dressing stations. Equipped with basic surgical equipment, medical officers performed minor surgery at these stations and sent only severely injured to the main operating room.

By the end of Coral Sea action, "Lady Lex" herself was stable although badly wounded. Repair parties had shored up torpedo damage temporarily, fires had been put out, and she had been sailing toward port at about 25 knots when a series of internal explosions racked the ship. It was about 1300 or a little over an hour after the closing action when gasoline vapors, released by a torpedo hit, ignited below a running motor
generator. Fires rapidly spread on the lower deck knocking out communication and lighting systems. Thus, dressing stations, sick bay, and operating room had to be lit by battery lights.

Upon the initial explosion, LTJG John F. Roach, the ship's junior medical officer, thought the blast was a delayed-action bomb going off as he worked on wounded at a dressing station near the ship's firerooms. Subsequently he and a corpsmen went up to the hanger deck to assist other medical personnel in treating a
large number of wounded that had been brought there from below. "...Arriving at the hangar deck, we found it to be in semidarkness and filled with smoke,"(4) said Dr. Roach adding, "Men were being brought out of Main Control up onto the hangar deck. Some of them had already died. Most of the injuries appeared to be burns complicated by the effects of noxious gases."(5) Carbon monoxide and other gases were problems for medical personnel as well. Although surgeons donned gas masks, working in the thick smoke was difficult.

Dr. White was in surgery when the explosions erupted. The first threw him about 20 feet down a
passageway. He landed against a bulkhead breaking his right collarbone and spraining both ankles. Despite his injuries, CDR White managed to get back to the operating room and labor for over 3 hours. Dr. White said
he didn't notice the damage to his shoulder until he tried to open the companionway ladder hatch and couldn't during the ship's evacuation.

By 1445 fire and engine room ventilation systems had been wrecked and the fires were out of control and spreading aft on the flight deck. Subsequently, CAPT Fredrick C. Sherman, the commanding officer, ordered medical personnel to evacuate wounded, which numbered about 150, into whaleboats. Medical
personnel lowered patients in basket stretchers into the whaleboats and destroyers took off the remaining
survivors.

Corregidor Falls

While battles raged to the south and east, defenders of Corregidor were lining up in surrender. Word came that allied forces on Corregidor were "throwing in the towel" 6 days before the actual surrender on 6 May. A lucky few were to be evacuated to Australia. One Navy nurse was among the evacuees. "It was an eerie, moonless night and sounds of shelling from the attacking Japanese were closing in,"(6) recalled nurse Ann A. Bernatitus. "Silently we crept into small boats and after maneuvering them beyond the touchy mine fields, we saw it. The USS Spearfish, our means to freedom, cast a low, dark, yet inviting shadow upon the water."(7) Bernatitus, along with 11 Army nurses, a Navy wife, six to eight Army and Navy officers, and two stowaways, boarded the submarine on 4 May for a 17-day voyage to Australia.

Others like PhM2c Ernest J. Irvin did not escape. Irvin was working in a convalescent ward in the Malinta Tunnel hospital. There were approximately 125 naval officers and men in the Navy Tunnel when Japanese troops entered with bayonets and grenades some 3 hours after the island's surrender.(8) "We all knew itwas a matter of time. We thought the Japs would either gas us in the tunnel or march us out and shoot us. They did neither," Irvin later recalled.(9) Instead the Japanese rounded up all forces except those assigned to the hospital and took them to what was known as the 92nd Garage area. Ambulatory patients were forced to leave the hospital and join those being transferred to the "92nd Garage area." Hospital staffers cared for those remaining wounded first in the Malinta Tunnel hospital and later in what was known as the Middleside
barracks which became the hospital's new location.

The 92nd Garage Area

The 92nd Garage area, named for a nearby garage, was a level, paved concrete strip about 500 feet wide and 1500 feet long. It was located between the beach and the cliffs inshore on the southern portion of Corregidor, facing Cavite province.

Prisoners arrived here on 8 May. Each prisoner was assigned a number which was painted on the back of his shirt. To protect against the scorching sun and tropical storms, internees built temporary shelters using shelter halves and other scrap materials. For the first 3 days, prisoners went without food and water. Subsequently, the Japanese issued rice occasionally supplemented by canned goods which the prisoners stole or salvaged while out on work detail.(10)

Navy medical personnel who had been accompanying Marine units set up a small dispensary and despite limited medicines and supplies were able to perform "almost impossible feats"(11) as they treated those suffering from heat prostration, dysentery, malaria, and malnutrition. The morning of 25 May, the interneeswere evacuated from Corregidor to Manila, they were marched through the streets to Bilibid prison.

Medicine in Manila

All medical personnel captured in January and interned at Santa Scholastica College were transferred to Pasay Elementary School, Pasay, Rizal, P.I., by 13 May. Hospital staffers at Pasay not only cared for
inpatients but for large numbers of men enroute to Bilibid prison from Bataan and Corregidor and those assigned to work details. On 23 May, 300 men enroute to Tayabas, P.I., to do road construction stopped at Pasay.(12) "...[They]were in all respects the most pathetic aggregation of American service men that any of us had ever had the misfortune to see,"(13) said CAPT Lea B. Sartin, MC, USN, as he described the health and condition of the road gang. He said that members of the gang told them they volunteered for the work detail to escapehorrid conditions then prevailing at Camp O'Donnell, Tarlac, Luzon, P.I., where they said "hundreds

of Filipinos and Americans were dying daily from the ravages of starvation and disease."(14) The overall health of the group was poor with 80 percent suffering from malaria, beri-beri and forms of diarrhea.(15) Doctors examined and treated the men and separated those whose conditions were too severe to continue with the road gang. To take up the slack, prisoners in better condition took their place. "It was the opinion of all the medical officers that this group of men was in no wise fit for any kind of a work detail,"(16) concluded Dr. Sartin.

On 30 May, the entire medical unit was transferred to Bilibid.

Bilibid

Considered "unfit for human habitation"(17) the old Bilibid prison built during Spanish rule, had
previously been used to incarcerate common criminals when the Japanese appropriated it for an internment camp. About 620 feet long on its north and south axis and about 330 feet wide at its maximum width, the prison was situated on low-lying ground, about a kilometer north of the Pasig River and about 3 kilometers from the Manila port area in the inner city. During the tropical season the area flooded and 2 to 3 feet of water "often remained for several days."(18) Conditions were terrible. The prisoners were confronted with terrible living conditions. "My recollection is to the effect that there were between two and three thousand prisoners there at that time." said Dr. Sartin.(19) "The buildings were old and extremely dilapidated and in an extreme
state of disrepair. Plumbing and lighting fixtures had been stripped from the buildings. Sanitary conditions were extremelybad. Prisoners and patients were sleeping on concrete floors," he continued.(20)

The majority of the compound was used for Filipino civilians including women and children. The Americans were confined to the west sector of the prison. Medical personnel inspected the camp and found 115 patients suffering from malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition.(21) Medical staff set up a dispensary in the old hospital building.

Later on 1 June, a U.S. naval hospital was established by the interned medical personnel. The main hospital building was south of the guardhouse in the center of the prison compound. For the most part, many of the unconnected buildings that seemed to be sprouting out from this guardhouse served as hospital wards. In addition to these buildings, an old chapel served as an isolation unit and a large two-story building near the prison entrance housed a medical library. Personnel began improving hospital facility areas immediately,
cutting wastes water ditches into sewers, installing wash racks, and flushing stools.

On 3 June, the Japanese transferred a small medical unit to their senior camp in Tarlac, P.I. Among those transferred was CAPT Robert G. Davis, former commanding officer of USNH Canacao, P.I., and who more recently had been medical officer in charge at Pasay and would have assumed that position at Bilibid. Thus, Dr. Sartin assumed the role of medical officer at the prison. In charge and under Japanese orders, he submitted a list of equipment and supplies needed to operate the hospital. For the most part, items requested didn't materialize for the first month or so.

Food and supplies were almost non-existent at Bilibid. LCDR Hjalmar A. Erickson, MC, USNR, said he received only two Red Cross food boxes over the 3-year period he was interned there and only one of the many boxes filled with personal items that his family had sent him. Meals consisted of rice and
"whistle-weed," a type of grass with a straw-like toughness. "The rice was warehouse and wharf
sweepings...,"(22) said Dr. Erickson adding that occasionally meals were supplemented with "chunks of the
commonest fish, and rarely, a piece of partly rotten carabao meat."(23) Because of diet and other prison
conditions, malnutrition, bacillary dysentery, and beri-beri were major problems. However, hospital personnel sometimes managed to obtain more food by bribing Japanese soldiers with medicine.

"For a long time we gave a much-needed medical treatment to our guards. Most of them were plagued with gonorrhea, so a number of our men contrived a simple plan to swap food for pills,"(24) recalled Dr. Erickson. "They took sulfathiazole powder, pounded it in a carabao horn to make tablets, the curative value of which the Jap soldiers well knew. Many [Japanese soldiers] soon fought for the privilege of stealing food to exchange for the pills. All went well until the sulfa powder was used up,"(25) he continued.

There were 162 patients in the hospital as of 1 June.(26) By 7 June, the total had risen to about 201 and an overflow convalescent ward was established.(27) The hospital census continued to rise as men from work details and other activities came in for treatment. By the end of June, 760 patients were officially on the
hospital's sick list.(28)

Midway

U.S. victory in the Battle of Midway from 4 to 6 June, broke the offensive power of the Japanese in the Pacific and shut down its eastward drive toward Hawaii, Alaska, and the United States. It was also the second great battle in which carrier aircraft rendered nearly all the hits, with help from submarines and antiaircraft batteries. Navy Medicine was present during Midway but the need was not as great. At the end of action, 307 Americans lives, 150 planes had been lost. On 7 June, USS Yorktown (CV-5) and USS Hammann (DD-412) also went down. But, Japanese losses were much greater. Most importantly, four carriers had been sunk and more than 2,000 lives and 250 aircraft had been lost.

Elsewhere

As the war raged on, Navy medicine continued to expand both in CONUS and aboard. Since the beginning of the year, three continental hospitals - in Bethesda, MD, Charleston, SC, and Treasure Island San Francisco, CA - had been commissioned. In addition, a base hospital had been established in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. In May, U.S. Naval Base Hospital No. 2 was established in Efate Island, New Hebrides, and U.S. Naval Mobile Hospital No. 3 was being set up in American Samoa at Tutuila.

KIA

May and June brought major decisive victories for the allies in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. CDR Wadsworth C. Trojakowski, DC, and PhM2c Virgil L. Weeks gave their lives while treating others aboard USS Lexington (CV-2). CDR Trojakowski, who had taken control of the emergency dressing station on the ship's main deck, was killed when a bomb wrecked the dressing station. A doctor and a corpsman were also killed in battle in the Coral Sea aboard both USS Neosho (AO-23) and USS Sims (DD-409). Likewise, two corpsmen lost their lives aboard USS Yorktown during the Battle of Midway and one corpsman was killed
in the Atlantic while aboard USS Gannet (AM-41).

References

1. Oman CM. Doctors Aweigh, p 23.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., p 79.

4. Karig W and Purdon E. Battle Report: Pacific War, Middle Phase, p 23.

5. Ibid.

6. Rosenbaum MB. "A Navy Nurse Remembers," U.S. Navy Medicine. 1981, 72(6), p 22.

7. Ibid.

8. Karig W and Kelley W. Battle Report: Pearl Harbor to Coral Sea, p 324.

9. Irvin E, PhM2c, HC, USN. Interview by Jan K. Herman, 25 February, 24 March, and 22 May 1986. BUMED Archives.

10. The Japanese sent out large labor details to do such chores as clean gun positions, rebuild roads, and
gather ammunition. This practice was not restricted to Corregidor but was in effect in nearly all Japanese internment camps. These groups were not limited to American soldiers but included Filipinos and hospital
corpsmen.

11. Sommers S, ed. The Japanese Story, p 10.

12. Kentner RW. Journal, p 23.

13. Sartin LB. Journal, p 17.

14. Ibid.

15. Kentner RW, p 23.

16. Sartin LB, p 17.

17. Patton WK. "Bilibid: Account of Captivity at Manila, P.I. 1942 - 1945." p 37.

18. Ibid.

19. Sartin LB, p 16.

20. Ibid.

21. Kentner RW, p 25.

22. Coste F. "U.S. Navy Doctor Who Survived 37 Soul-Shaling Months in Japan Prisoner of War Camp Relates Experience," Star and Herald; 10 June 1945.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Patton WK, p 37.

27. Kentner RW, p 27.

28. Patton WK, p 37.