By: Sandra Buso
On September 11, 1942, Pharmacist’s Mate First Class Wheeler B. Lipes approached his commanding officer William E. Ferrall with a serious problem. Seaman First Class Darrel Rector had been ill for three days with severe belly pain, nausea, and fever. PhM1c Lipes was now certain that Seaman Rector was suffering from acute appendicitis. Standard medical practice called for an immediate appendectomy, but there was no surgeon aboard the USS Seadragon. The USS Seadragon was a submarine and the medical staff of a submarine consisted only of a hospital corpsman, a man with a few weeks of medical training and whatever years of experience the military had given him. Without immediate surgery, Rector would die. Lipes conferred with his commanding officer and decided to go ahead and perform the surgery.[1] Lipes recalled that the submarine had no blood-pressure apparatus, no laboratory, and no intravenous fluids, but he was determined to perform the operation anyway. Once Lipes began the operation, he was horrified to discover that the appendix was not in its usual place. Poor Seaman Rector’s anatomy was reversed and once the appendix was finally located it was gangrenous. It was removed immediately.[2] Seaman Rector went on to make a full recovery.
News of the appendectomy caused an uproar in the Navy medical community. Corpsmen were not considered qualified to perform such surgeries despite such exigent circumstances, and after two more submarine appendectomies were successfully performed, the Navy Medical Department issued a guide for the nonsurgical care of appendicitis until treatment could be rendered ashore.[3] Although Darrell Rector survived surgery, he did not survive the war. He was killed on October 24, 1944, in the sinking on the UUS Tang.[4]
Studies of World War II medicine in the past have focused on one of two directions. Scholars have focused on the advances in the medical field that saved lives and the role that doctors played in bringing such advanced care to the military arena. Additionally, the introduction of female nurses to the military provides a narrow scope of study for historian to focus their gaze. But the hospital corpsman has been neglected in the research of military medicine. I will argue that the great number of enlisted hospital corpsmen activated for World War II makes the hospital corpsman a worthy subject of study.
The hospital corpsman should be studied simply because there were and are so many military personnel filling the role of hospital corpsman. In any hospital setting, there are more paraprofessionals than professional medical workers. This ratio can be even more acute on a medical ship, which had both a sailing crew and medical crew. For example, during World War II the Navy hospital ship the U.S.S. Relief had a medical department that “consisted of 12 medical officers, 4 dental officers, 12 nurses, and 180 hospital corpsmen.”[5] The hospital ship Rescue had a similar medical staff. Its medical staff had 17 officers, 25 nurses, 8 chief pharmacists, and 156 hospital corpsmen.[6] The U.S.S. Solace, which saw action at Iwo Jima, had 17 doctors, 13 nurses and 175 corpsmen.[7] In the majority of the hospitals, the number of medical officers ranged from 40 to 54, dental officers from 1 to 4, Hospital Corps officers from 1 to 5, and hospital corpsmen from 235 to 500.[8] By 1945 there were 132,500 men serving as hospital corpsmen compared to only 14,191 medical corps officers and 10,968 nurse corps officers. [9] Clearly, the high number of hospital corpsman represents an important historic population that has been overlooked by historians.
Another area where the World War II scholarship has neglected the study of the hospital corpsman is the published accounts of oral histories. While broad studies of oral histories do include hospital corpsmen, they are not typically represented in sufficient number to reflect their great numbers in service. For example, in one book, Healers in World War II: Oral Histories of Medical Corps Personnel, edited by Patricia Sewell, there are only three oral histories of hospital corpsmen out of 35 published oral histories. The focus of her book is the doctors and nurses. This over sight is not due to a lack of oral histories of hospital corpsmen. The Library of Congress Veteran’s History Project has 450 oral histories of pharmacist’s mates available to researchers, many of which are digitized and readily available to the remote researcher. I will focus on 22 oral histories that I believe represent a broad spectrum of hospital corps experiences. Only a lack of interest prevents other historians from pursuing these rich primary source materials.
I used the digital primary source materials, where available, along with published oral histories, to convey the experiences of hospital corpsmen during World War II in the Pacific Theater both on Navy Ships and in Fleet Hospitals. My study will not be limited to hospital ships but will include the experiences of hospital corpsmen on ships of the fleet in combat delivering medical care to wounded sailors. The majority of the source material focuses on the Pacific Fleet, and that will be the focus of my paper. Included in my paper will be the limited information available on the experiences of WAVES, Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, hospital corpsmen, who served exclusively in stateside hospitals.
Hospital corpsmen performed many diverse functions both in World War II and in the present day Navy. Hospital corpsmen provided front line battlefield medicine, evacuation services, assisted in surgeries, served in all areas of hospital care, and served independently on submarines. Because of the vast numbers of corpsmen in the navy and their diverse duties, navy corpsmen were an integral part of the medical service in World War II. Without the services of corpsmen, many more soldiers and sailors would have died from the injuries they sustained during the war. I will argue that navy corpsmen have been undeservedly ignored by the historian, given the vast amount of medical service provided by the over 132,500 men that served as corpsmen in the United States Navy during World War II. Using oral histories, I will show that the corpsman experience was unique, diverse, and an integral part of the medical service of the United States Navy in World War II.
I intend to structure my paper into the following main sections. The first section will be on life on the hospital ship. My next section will be on the experience of the hospital corpsmen on ships of the fleet. This will be followed by the experience of hospital corpsmen in shore stations. Next, I will focus on the experience of hospital corpsmen that serviced the front lines with the Marine Corps, providing battlefield medical care. Finally, I will conclude with a brief section on the experiences of women and African American sailors in the hospital cops. At all stages of the paper, I will rely on oral histories as the backbone of my research. Secondary literature will be used primarily to highlight the lack of information about hospital corpsmen available in the secondary literature. While inferences can be made about hospital corpsmen from the secondary literature, the wealth of primary source material available allows for a clear picture of the true experience of the hospital corpsman in the World War II United States Navy. While the hospital corpsman lacks the cachet of the medical doctor and the glamour of the military nurse, the vast numbers of hospital corpsmen beg to be studied in a meaningful way that reflects their great contribution to naval medicine.
Hospital Ships and the Duties of the Hospital Corpsman
Although the United States Nay had fifteen ships that functioned as Naval hospital ships during World War II, only one ship during the war was designed and built from the keel up as a hospital ship, the U.S.S. Relief.[10] The U.S.S. Relief, like all ships used as hospital ships, had both a sailing crew and a medical crew. The medical crew of the U.S.S. Relief during World War II consisted of twelve medical officers, four dental officers, twelve nurses, and 180 hospital corpsman or, as they were also called during World War II, pharmacist’s mates.[11] It contained one main operating room with three tables and hospital corpsmen trained as operating room technicians who often assisted the doctors during surgery.[12] While such an operating room might appear primitive by today’s standards, for the time the operating room was thought to be thoroughly modern, “equipped as good or better than any hospital in the States with all the equipment they had at the time.”[13] The U.S.S Relief’s theater of operation was the Pacific war areas from 1943 to 1945.[14]
Finding oral histories for one particular ship presented a challenge, but one Pharmacist’s Mate First Class, John Carver, served aboard the U.S.S. relief during World War II and shared his story. Carver served aboard the U.S.S. Relief during several of its evacuations and invasions. Carver and his shipmates provided not only critical invasion and evacuation services during operations but also attended to the daily medical needs of the fleet between major operations. This included treatment for everyday accidents and illnesses of the many thousands of sailors of the U.S.S. Relief’s fleet.[15]
But how many sailors did the U.S.S. Relief treat during World War II? Using oral histories as a source, John Carver would have us believe that about 75,000 patients were treated on his ship during World War II.[16] This astounding figure, however, is also supported by the U.S.S. Relief’s own records. In “The United States Navy Hospital Ship Relief (Ah 1) a Chronicle of Her Wartime Overseas Movements and Activities,” a chronicle of the operations of the ship during World War II, different numbers are given. Only 14,802 patients were admitted to the ship’s sick list.[17] This number may seem small, but it does not include all those patients served by the different department onboard, such as dental and x-ray. In just those two departments alone over 30,000 more patients were served, bringing the total number of documented patients to 45,162.[18] There is no complete record of all the other patients served, but it is easy to imagine that another 30,000 men circulated through the U.S.S. Relief in her various departments over the course of the war.
Despite the Geneva Conventions, which prohibited direct attack on hospital ships, the U.S.S. Relief was attacked during the invasion of Okinawa on April 2, 1945.[19] The hospital ship, lit up to identify itself as a hospital ship, was still attacked, bombed, and strafed, and Carver even claimed that Kamikaze pilots attempted to attack the U.S.S. Relief.[20] Kamikaze attacks made for dramatic retelling, and although Carver glosses over this point, accounts of Kamikaze attacks we often reprinted, and one in particular highlighted the death of corpsman that was attempting to save another shipmate’s life.[21]
During the invasion of Okinawa, Carver recalled that three or four loads of patients were rotated through the U.S.S. Relief, for a total of approximately three or four thousand patients, taking soldiers, sailors, and marines to hospitals outside the combat zone.[22] During such operations, hospital corpsmen would perform a wide variety of functions, not only would they help with every aspect of patient care, but Carver also recalled that they “ made our own bandages. We made — we made our own pills, like APC tablets, which would be Tylenol. We made them ourselves. Any for wound — for broken legs, for casts, we made our own plaster casts material. We — our own needles to give shots for morphine. The old-fashioned way to make morphine was with a candle and a spoon and you had to heat it and crush up the pill and put water with it and then boil it within a fire, then put it in the syringe with a needle and then give the patient a shot.”[23] Creating medical supplies from whole cloth was not the only duty hospital corpsmen performed. The U.S.S. Relief also transported an entire load of shell-shocked patients back to the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. During a journey of thirty to thirty-five days, the corpsmen would be in charge of the various mental patients and would often subdue violent patients with wet towels that the hospital corpsmen carried around for their own protection.[24]
The designated hospital ship was an extremely rare site during World War II , but the hospital ship U.S.S. Relief and the hospital’s 180 hospital corpsmen served on her and served over 75,000 patients. Just by looking at the numbers this means that each corpsman on the U.S.S. Relief touched the lives of over 400 wounded men. This heroic effort on the part of the hospital corpsmen and the entire small medical and nursing staff ensured that many men made it to be discharged in a rear-area hospital, something unheard of in previous wars.[25] While hospital ships were rare, there was another naval vessel that was much more common which served to evacuate many men from the front lines to the relative safety of a rear-area hospital.
Hospital Corpsmen on LST(H)’s and Other Ships of the Fleet
The converted Landing Ship, Tank (Hospital), or LST(H) was used extensively to evacuate military personnel. Although there were only fifteen hospital ships, the LST(H) was another kind of ship used exclusively to move men from the forward lines to rear-area hospital ships and ground hospitals as needed. Each LST(H) had one medical officer and numerous corpsmen assigned to provide medical care to the wounded, which could number between one and twelve patients for the evacuation at Guadalcanal.[26] The experience of the hospital corpsmen serving aboard the LST(H) share some common characteristics.
First the LST(H) that assisted with the evacuation of Guadalcanal typically performed duties that started first thing in the morning with the arrival of the boat on the beachhead, the loading of patients, sailing into the rear, and unload patients, only to begin the return journey by 6 p.m. that same evening so that they could begin again the next day. Despite this rapid turnaround of patients and the limited time spent on an LST(H), less than 20 hours, many wounded were not treated by a rearward hospital until 72 to 84 hours after sustaining their injuries.[27] Sometimes this delay resulted in gangrene or death, but hospital corpsmen also saved lives. The Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, in his Commendation to the Hospital Corps after World War II, said, “The Hospital Corpsman saved lives on all the beaches that the Marines stormed… Their bravery was fortified by the knowledge that the Corpsman, the sailors of solace, were literally at their sides with the skills and the means to stanch wounds, allay pain and to carry them back, if need be, to safe shelter and the ministrations of the finest medical talent in the world.”[28]
Despite the assignment of a medical officer to the LST(H)’s assigned to Guadalcanal, J. E. Keeton, Pharmacist’s Mate, found himself working on an LST(H) without the benefit of a doctor or other member of the medical corps.[29] Keeton was assigned to LST(H) 118 and claimed primary responsibility for his patients as the other corpsman assigned to the LST(H) was seasick and unable to the assist with medical operations below deck.[30] Keeton also helped design and build an operating room for his ship but was not part of the operating team. Keeton later went on to serve at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, but remembered his time on the LST(H) as very dramatic. Keeton assisted with an appendectomy in the operating room he helped design, locating the needed equipment.[31] Other corpsmen, such as Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Ralph Brown, assisted in such highly skilled operations as the removal of the eyes.[32] Assisting in complex operations was a common duty performed by hospital corpsmen. Some had received specialized training in operating room techniques, but some did not. Other training opportunities could include training in specialized air evacuations, but such training did not begin until late in the war, 1943.[33]
Another hospital corpsman that served aboard an LST(H), Pharmacist’s Mate Damon Brown, remembers that LST(H)’s primarily served as transport for sick patients. However placing patients onto the LST(H) was not a simple matter. The ships could only pull so close to the beach before they hit ground, so numerous small boats had to be used to transport patients from the shore to the LST(H).[34] In addition to their medical training, some hospital corpsmen were trained in how to sail the small boats in the event of an emergency. Brown recalled his training in small boat sailing at Pearl Harbor but stated that in was unnecessary for him to utilize such training as there was always a coxswain, or person tasked with the charge of the boat.[35] LST(H)’s didn’t go out by themselves, however. Such a solo excursion would hardly have been an efficient evacuation of injured personnel. Brown recalled that during his time on LST(H) 118, his ship went out as a group of four LST(H)’s, each with four medical doctors onboard to treat wounded patients. Notheless, hospital corpsmen were still sent out by themselves and tasked with triaging patients and deciding who could be treated by a hospital corpsman with their limited training and who required the services of a medical doctor.[36] For those that required more serious care, the primary first aid given was the administration of morphine, and then patients would be evacuated to the rear and further medical treatment.
Corpsmen that were assigned to LST(H)’s had other duties when not on the small boats. One Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Charles M. Heath described his various duties during World War II. Heath’s work on the LST(H)’s included treating broken arms and legs, evaluating head injuries, and providing first aid to shrapnel and gunshot wounds. Heath estimated that close to twenty percent of the wounds he treated on the LST(H) were shrapnel or gunshot wounds. In addition to being routinely assigned to evacuate patients on the LST(H)’s, Heath many duties included spraying for mosquitoes to prevent malaria, giving vaccinations to Allied troops, and providing post-natal care to foreign nationals.[37] Corpsmen could also provide valuable liaison services between nurses and doctors. Heath reported that sometimes nurses would ask him to intercede with the doctors so that the nurse could receive more help. Heath perceived the doctors to be more receptive to the suggestions by himself, a 19-year old male, than the suggestions of a female nurse.[38]
The LST(H) was not the only other fleet ship that a hospital corpsman could find himself assigned to. Hospital corpsmen often served as the sole medical provider on smaller ships and submarines. This type of duty is referred to as “Independent Duty,” and as such, “Pharmacist’s Mates of the higher ratings are assigned to duty independent of a medical officer to care for men in the smaller commands which are too numerous to allow the assignment of medical officers to each unit.”[39] Independent duty corpsmen might be highly qualified for their position or could even have been nurses in civilian life. While women who possessed a civilian nurse’s license were inducted into the Navy Nurse Corps, this was a group of all female officers. “Men nurses” did not find themselves with commissions in the Navy, but rather were inducted into the enlisted hospital corps, typically at a rank of Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class because “professional qualification as a man nurse would not, per se, be considered adequate basis for promotion in any grade or rank” without the additional training in the general duties of a hospital corpsman.[40]
One such independent duty corpsman was Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Nicholas Lavinkevich who served aboard a converted fishing boat, “The Surge.”[41] His only regular communications with a medical officer were through the semaphore, a flag signaling system still used by United States Navy today.[42] While Lavnikevich’s described his primary duties as mundane he did have one case of appendicitis. While Pharmacist’s Mate First Class Wheeler B. Lipes may have performed an emergency appendectomy on his submarine, no such heroics were necessary for Lavnikevich. This appendicitis patient was in an area where he could be evacuated to shore, therefore, Lavnikevich was not required to perform the surgery.[43] Lavnikevich is not listed as one of the corpsmen to perform appendicitis surgery during World War II.[44] That does not mean, however, that Lavnikevich didn’t operate under adverse conditions. While there was plenty of morphine available for his patients, Lavnikevich lacked even a simple blood pressure cuff to check patient vital signs.[45] Medical services on regular ships of the fleet ship could be very primitive, compared to the state-of-the-art facilities provided aboard designated hospital ships, but medical service with the Marine Corps could be particularly harrowing.
Service with the Marines: Medical Heroes on the Front Lines
Since its founding in 1898, the Hospital Corps of the United States Navy has provided excellent medical care to the soldiers and sailors of the American Armed Forces.[46] The backbone of the hospital corps is the hospital corpsman. Variously called everything from hospital mates, hospital stewards, surgeon’s stewards, apothecaries, male nurse, bay men, and pharmacist’s mates of the hospital corps, they have bridged the gap between the unskilled worker and the skilled doctor and nurse in providing medical care in the Navy. These hospital corpsmen provide what we term today as “the paraprofessional medical services” that make medical care complete. For the period of World War II, hospital corpsmen enlisted in the regular navy for a period of six years, plus an agreement to serve for up to six months after the end of the war. Hospital corpsmen could range in age from 17 to 50 years old and would come into the service with a wide variety of skill levels and training in the medical professions, from the most untrained recruit to trained nurses, x-rays technicians, or any the many other paraprofessional fields.[47]
While pharmacist’s mates might be known by many names, such as chancre mechanic or pill roller, in the Marine Corps, the pharmacist’s mate is simply known as “Doc.”[48] The United States Marine Corps does not have its own medical department therefore, all its medical services are provided by the men and women of the Navy Medical Corps and the Navy Hospital Corps. Hospital corpsmen assigned to Marine Corps units were in particular danger. One thousand forty-six enlisted hospital corpsmen were killed in action during World War II, and 2,843 enlisted hospital corpsmen were wounded action.[49] Many of them served with the Marines. One hospital corpsman that was injured at Guadalcanal was Pharmacist’s Mate First Class R. Byron Crozier. Shot only six hours after landing on Guadalcanal, Crozier was treated just like many other injured soldiers and sailors. First another corpsman, Dick Scanlan, treated him with morphine, and then Crozier was evacuated to a place with many other injured where a doctor quickly removed the bullet from the wound he had received. From this grave injury, Crozier received a twenty-day convalescent leave and then was sent back to the front lines.[50] Unlike John Carver who estimated that 75,000 patients passed through his ship, Crozier did not keep careful track of the number of wounded he saved. When asked if he saved many lives, Crozier responded, “That I don’t know. I’m sure some of them died that I treated and would have died anyway perhaps. And I’m sure I saved some people too.”[51] The chaotic scenes on the front line most likely made keeping careful records difficult.
Another hospital corpsman that served at both Guadalcanal and Bougainvillea was Pharmacist’s Mate First Class John Ross. Ross drove a Jeep ambulance and was shot at during his time with the Marines.[52] The only thing that distinguished hospital corpsmen from the Marines they were serving with was the addition of a Red Cross armband over their Marine Corps uniform.[53] Navy hospital corpsmen that serve with the Marines are issued Marine Corps uniforms, even today.[54] While this uniform serves to provide the hospital corpsman with protective camouflage, it also makes them vulnerable to attack, just like the Marines they are serving with. John Ross’s experiences with the Marine Corps included treating men for evacuation to the hospital ships. Ross stated that there weren’t many causalities at Bougainvillea, and that was probably a good thing. He was one of only eight corpsmen and one medical officer assigned to provide first aid to the causalities of Bougainvillea.[55]
Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Philip Mongilo was another hospital corpsman injured while serving with the Marine Corps, but rather than evacuating to the rear, Mongilo merely bandaged up what he described as a superficial shrapnel wound with a battle dressing and continued on in his duties at Green Beach 1.[56] Mongilo provided immediate first aid to Marines during operations near Mount Suribachi. One incident he recalls is typical of those described by other hospital corpsmen. A man was wounded in the leg from shrapnel; he was treated with morphine, a tourniquet, and a battle dressing, and then the stretcher bearers took him back to the beach where he would be evacuated.[57] Morphine was the main treatment hospital corpsmen had at their disposal to injured men, and they applied it liberally. Such morphine could be a life saver when there were only forty corpsmen and two doctors readily available on the beach to care for approximately 1,000 Marines in four companies.[58]
Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Ralph Boose also landed with the Marines. He was in the eighth wave to land on Guam and treated Marines in the field. He, too, described giving morphine to men by melting a tablet in some sterile water inside a bent spoon before injecting it into an injured person.[59] Marines he treated in field, in addition to receiving bandages and morphine, also received plasma. Plasma was available in powdered form and could only be administered by being reconstituted in the field with a jug of saline, and only if the injured patient was close enough to a beach hospital to receive an IV in the field.[60] Harsh decisions, such as who was close enough to receive such treatment immediately and who need to wait for evacuation, were at the sole discretion of the hospital corpsman on site. There was no medical doctor to consult with in the field. Although some hospital corpsmen described wearing Red Cross armbands as part of their uniform, Boose went on at length about the dangers of wearing such a symbol in the field. He knew of one hospital corpsman wearing a red cross killed and described how officers would hide their rank bars to avoid being picked off by snipers. Service with the Marines was dangerous work.
Service at a Naval Hospital Overseas and At Home
While there is a certain sameness to the experiences of hospital corpsmen in the field with marines and aboard ship, the hospital corpsmen assigned to hospitals could find themselves in many varied circumstances. One expanding field for the pharmacist’s mate was the field of psychiatry. In May 1944, The American Journal of Nursing highlighted the twelve week training course that hospital corpsmen could receive in psychiatry. From the inception of the program to the publication of the article, forty-four enlisted men had received the specialized training program that was designed to “assist in the creating greater interest and understanding of the fundamental need for the general inclusion of psychiatry in the basic nursing education program.”[61] But not all men who worked in the psychiatric wards received such training. Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class Elwood Burton Gerrits went straight from basic hospital corps school training to Oak Knoll to work with psychiatric patients. While many were suffering from shell shock, Gerrits also related that a fair number of psychiatric patients had been referred to the ward for homosexuality in preparation for their discharge from the service.[62] Patients referred to psychiatric wards for homosexuality were not treated for homosexuality, rather this placement merely served as a way station prior to discharge from the service. Hospital corpsmen did not work on the psychiatric wards alone, they worked in conjunction with doctors and nurses. One nurse, Lucille Spooner Votta, explained how heavily she relied on the hospital corpsmen to treat psychiatric patients. Votta was hand-picked to serve as the lone nurse on a psychiatric ward, but had limited experience working in psychiatric nursing. She claimed that the ten hospital corpsmen under her command could run the hospital without her.[63] Given the limited number of men that received formal psychiatric training, it is doubtful that all ten of her assigned hospital corpsmen had received specialized training, yet she felt all of them more qualified than her to serve her patients. Not all nurses felt themselves unequal to corpsmen; the training of nurses exceeded that of most hospital corpsmen and was equivalent to the training received by other officers.[64] Indeed one navy nurse, Lieutenant Clyde Pennington, received a commendation for training a large number of corpsmen, but many nurses relied heavily on corpsmen to perform all manner of nursing duties.[65] Nursing officers’ duties were considered primarily executive in nature, with hospital corpsmen performing the bulk of the daily nursing tasks that might be performed by licensed nurses in a civilian hospital.[66]
Another place hospital corpsmen could serve in naval hospitals was on tuberculosis wards. Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Ralph Brown served on a tuberculosis ward at Oakland Naval Hospital and saw doctors attempt to treat tubercular patients with penicillin, a treatment no longer used today.[67] Pharmacist’s Mate Glenn Ray Sheridan also served on a tuberculosis ward at Philadelphia Naval Hospital. Sheridan was transferred to the tuberculosis ward after a mishap on another ward. On his original ward, he mishandled the enema treatment of one patient. Sheridan related that on the tuberculosis ward, his inferior patient skills continued. Sheridan broke the needle off in a patient’s arm.[68] Of the many oral histories I read and listened to, Sheridan’s is the only one that relates patient mishaps, which were probably more common than those related in the available documentation. The only other signs of corpsmen acting outside the bounds of strict propriety seen in the available documentation include the trading of medicinal brandy in exchange for grading a road and the habit of some corpsmen of keeping morphine meant for their patients for themselves.[69] From the data provided by the oral histories, one can infer that this meant hospital corpsmen were using the morphine themselves to make the stresses of battle more bearable, but in no oral history did a hospital corpsman specifically state that his abused morphine.
Other ways corpsmen worked outside the strict regulations of military life was in the manipulation of paperwork. While Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Jimmy Wall performed unexceptional clerical work at the his duty station, other corpsmen report colorful occurrences with their paperwork needs.[70] Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Hanley Ose Van Hise recalled the day that an officer was needed to sign paperwork so that several wounded personnel could be shipped back to the United States from Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital. After searching for Mr. Reason, the officer tasked with releasing the men, Van Hise found Mr. Reason in a the officer’s bar to inebriated to sign his names to the necessary orders. Mr. Reason ordered Van Hise to sign the paperwork for him, which he did. Van Hise declared he was “probably breaking fourteen thousand laws.”[71] The hospital corpsman’s duty extended beyond the mere medical and into the practical tasks of getting the job done under less than ideal circumstances.
Women Accepted into Volunteer Emergency Service and Negroes in the Navy: Changing time for the Modern Navy.
Women Accepted in Volunteer Emergency Service or WAVES were enlisted women that held the same rank, received the same pay, and were subject to the same military discipline as their male navy counterparts. WAVES were distinct from the female nurses and doctors found in the United States Navy, as female nurses and doctors held officer commissions and were thus not considered part of the WAVES.[72] WAVES hospital corpsmen received different, separate training from male hospital corpsmen. While male corpsmen report training lasting two months, WAVES corpsmen were considered trained and ready “to replace an equal number of men in any of the medical department of the various naval hospitals within the continental limits of the United States,” after a course of consisting of only 85 hours of training, taking place over six hours a day.[73]
Since WAVES hospital corpsmen were limited to the continental United States, their experiences were necessarily more circumscribed than the experiences of male hospital corpsmen. WAVES could be assigned to any duty medical duty inside a hospital that a male pharmacist mate had filled. Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class Anna Henderson was assigned to work as a medical laboratory technician assigned first to a dispensary in Cleveland and later to the Naval Hospital at Great Lakes based on her civilian training. Henderson worked in a lab but also worked a various times dispensing medications in a pharmacy despite having not training in that responsibility. All hospital corpsmen were expected to fill jobs ranging from the running of sick bay to minor surgery.[74] Henderson felt overwhelmed by her medical responsibilities and asked to be removed from them, but other WAVES did not feel the same way. Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Elizabeth Virginia Davis Wayland was also stationed at both the Cleveland Dispensary and Naval Hospital Great Lakes. Her duties as a hospital corpsmen began with giving shots, but eventually she began assisting in the operating room.[75] A hospital corpsman could find themselves anywhere in the hospital with very little training; many skills were learned on the job.
Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class Judy La Turno worked on a psychiatric ward similar to the ones described by Pharmacist’s Mate Gerrits and Nurse Votta, but she had a much more intensive education process before she began her work. While some male hospital corpsmen went to a short course to train in the emerging field of psychiatry, La Turno sat with a class of three WAVES and the rest male officers for six months to become a psychiatric clerical technician. La Turno who claimed that this was the same training physicians received to practice as psychiatrists, only ever worked on a locked ward as an unlicensed hospital corpsman.[76] Training for WAVES did not end with their service in the navy. Like their male counterparts, WAVES went on to utilize the education benefits of the G. I. Bill to further their medical training. Pharmacist’s Mates Doris McKersie and Mary Silverman both went on to receive advanced degrees in pharmacy and medicine as a direct result of their military service.[77]
Women weren’t the only group breaking new ground in the Armed Forces during World War II. While the Library of Congress Veterans History Project does allow for one to search for veterans according to race, it is possible to tease out some details of how African American hospital corpsmen were received during World War II. The first African American hospital corpsman was Pharmacist’s Mate Horace James McMillian for the Coast Guard.[78] Horace McMillian went onto become a physician after the war and was very active as a community leader and a civil rights advocate. How would Horace McMillian have been treated by the white hospital corpsmen during World War II?
Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Joseph Alan Robbins remarked on an incident of racism during hospital corps school. Racism didn’t come from fellow servicemen. When Robbins and his classmates would go down to the railroad station for drinks, their black shipmates would be refused service. Robbins found this unfair and claimed he refused to patronize the coffee shop that denied service to African American service members. Robbins said he didn’t understand how black men came to be at hospital corps school, but he noted that they trained alongside white recruits in the same classes.[79] So while the most of the Navy remained segregated, apparently hospital corps school was not, something quite unusual for the time.
Conclusion
Since the founding of the United States Navy Hospital Corps over 100 years ago, the men and women that have served in its ranks have been dedicated to providing superb medical care under adverse conditions, sometimes with very little training. The vast numbers of the hospital corps attest to the level of support provided by pharmacist’s mates during World War II. Without their dedicated service,e many men would have died from the wound inflicted by war. Hospital corpsmen have served and continue to serve the United States Navy in providing medical care throughout the Navy and Marine Corps.
Hospital corpsmen provide medical services aboard ships, in submarines, and ashore. They provide medical care in all branches of ancillary medical care and practice in the pharmacy, the laboratory, radiology, psychiatry, and most notably, in emergency medicine. Additionally, hospital corpsmen often serve independently of trained medical doctors and can provide the only medical care for submarines and smaller naval commands. Such far reaching and dedicated medical work deserves to be studied in far greater detail by historians than the current historiography shows. While current research into the history of medicine in World War II focuses on the doctors and nurse of the medical corps, the vast work by the enlisted hospital corps should not continue to be over looked by future historians. The hospital corps has a rich, detailed history, and more waits to be discovered.
Primary Sources
Altvater, Aurthur. “The United States Navy Hospital Ship Relief (Ah 1) a Chronicle of Her Wartime Overseas Movements and Activities.” Adams.Patriot.Net. Last modified August 17, 2003. Accessed November 21, 2013. http://adams.patriot.net/~eastlnd2/rj/alt/rc/chronicle.htm.
Anna Mansfield Henderson Collection (AFC/2001/001/34309), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Carroll, Andrew. 2011. “An Uncensored Account of a Kamikaze’s Handiwork.” World War II 26, no. 2: 21-22. Military & Government Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed September 12, 2013).
Craig, Le Roy. “Psychiatric Nursing for Navy Hospital Corpsmen.” The American Journal of Nursing 44, no. 5 (May 1944): 459-60. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3456325..
Charles M. Heath Collection (AFC/2001/001/11392), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Damon Brown Collection (AFC/2001/001/577), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Donald Guy Martin Collection (AFC/2001/001/64364), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Donald Walls Collection (AFC/2001/001/4265), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Elizabeth Virginia Wayland Collection (AFC/2001/001/57521), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Elwood Burton Gerrits Collection (AFC/2001/001/43256), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Ernest Patrick Zimmerman Collection (AFC/2001/001/66737), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Glenn Ray Sheridan Collection (AFC/2001/001/4709), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Hanley Ose Van Hise Collection (AFC/2001/001/57417), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Independent Duty. Hospital Corps Quarterly. (Supplement to the United States Naval Medical Bulletin.)
- E. Keeton Collection (AFC/2001/001/69514), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Jimmy Maurice Wall Collection (AFC/2001/001/69541), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
John A. Carver Collection (AFC/2001/001/10882), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
John E. Ross Collection (AFC/2001/001/48900), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Joseph Alan Robbins Collection (AFC/2001/001/43192), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Judith LaTurno Collection (AFC/2001/001/24097), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Main, Dorothy Lucille. “Sailors and Marines Come Back: To the U. S. Naval Hospital, Mare Island, California.” The American Journal of Nursing 44, no. 4 (April 1944): 355-57. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3456242.
[McIntire, Ross] United States Surgeon General of the Navy. “Men Nurses and the U. S. Navy.” The American Journal of Nursing 42, no. 11 (November 1942): 1282. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3415559.
Mueller, William “The Negro in the Navy.” Social Forces 24, no. 1 (October 1945): 110-15. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571531.
“News About Nursing.” The American Journal of Nursing 45, no. 5 (May 1945): 406-18. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3417065.
Nicholas J. Lavnikevich Collection (AFC/2001/001/31036), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Philip E. Bettendorf Collection (AFC/2001/001/4768), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Philip J. Mongillo, Jr. Collection (AFC/2001/001/79404), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Ralph Brown Collection (AFC/2001/001/273), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
- Byron Crozier Collection (AFC/2001/001/10520), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Ralph Thomas Boose Collection (AFC/2001/001/20410), Transcript, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Riordan, John Lancaster. “American Naval ‘Slanguage’ in the Pacific in 1945.” California Folklore Quarterly 5, no. 4 (October 1946): 375-90. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1495930.
United States Navy. Hospital Corpsman: United States Navy. Occupation Information and Guidance Services, Vocational Division, U. S. Office of Education Federal Security Agency, by the Hospital Corps Section, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, United States Navy, December 1, 1943. Accessed September 29, 2013. http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/hgp/id/489.
Secondary Sources
Bellafaire, Judith, and Mercedes Graf. “Join the Navy and See the World.” In Women Doctors in War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009.
Campbell, D’Ann. 1990. “Servicewomen of World War II.” Armed Forces & Society (0095327X) 16, no. 2: 251-270. World History Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed September 14, 2013).
Cherpak, Evelyn. “An Oral History Project: Rhode Island Waves in the Second World War.” Minvera Jounral of Women and War 1, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 91-96.
Godson, Susan H. Serving Proudly: A History of Women in the U.S. Navy. Washington, D.C.: US Naval Institute Press, 120, 2002.
“Guide to the Horace James Mcmillan Papers.” UC Santa Barbara Library. November 22, 2013. Accessed November 22, 2013. http://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections/cema/mcmillan.
Herman, Jan K. Battle Station Sick Bay: Navy Medicine in World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031.
The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. II. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; reprint 1989. NAVMED P-5031.
Jones, Charles. “For One Iwo Surgeon, the Fight Was for Brandy.” Navy Times, March 12, 2007.
Littleton, Mark R., and Charles Wright. Doc: Heroic Stories of Medics, Corpsmen, and Surgeons in Combat. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2005.
Marghella, Pietro D. 2004. “World War II Submarine “Surgeon.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 130, no. 12: 93. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 6, 2013).
Massman, Emory A. Hospital Ships of World War II: an Illustrated Reference to 39 United States Military Vessels. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007.
Schmidt, Esther. “Training of Waves for Hospitals.” The American Journal of Nursing 43, no. 8 (August 1943): 717-18. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3456276.
Silverstein, Christine M. 2008. “From the Front Lines to the Home Front: A History of the Development of Psychiatric Nursing in the U.S. During the World War II Era.” Issues In Mental Health Nursing 29, no. 7: 719-737. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 11, 2013).
Smith, Arthur M. 2005. “Has the Red Cross-Adorned Hospital Ship Become Obsolete?.” Naval War College Review 58, no. 3: 121-131. Military & Government Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed November 21, 2013).
[1] Jan K. Herman, Battle Station Sick Bay: Navy Medicine in World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 120 – 123; Mark R. Littleton and Charles Wright, Doc: Heroic Stories of Medics, Corpsmen, and Surgeons in Combat (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2005), 28 – 33; Pietro D. Marghella. 2004. “World War II Submarine “Surgeon.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 130, no. 12: 93. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 6, 2013).
[2] Herman, 121 – 122.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Herman, 121; Littleton and Wright, 33.
[5] Emory A. Massman, Hospital Ships of World War II: an Illustrated Reference to 39 United States Military Vessels (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007), 300.
[6] Ibid., 316
[7] Ibid., 337.
[8] The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031, 19.
[9] Ibid., 1.
[10] Emory A. Massman, Hospital Ships of World War Ii: an Illustrated Reference to 39 United States Military Vessels (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007), 283; John A. Carver Collection, (AFC/2001/001/10882), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[11] Emory A. Massman, Hospital Ships of World War Ii: an Illustrated Reference to 39 United States Military Vessels (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007), 300.
[12] Ibid.
[13] John A. Carver Collection, (AFC/2001/001/10882), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress; Ernest Patrick Zimmerman Collection (AFC/2001/001/66737), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[14] Aurthur Altvater “The United States Navy Hospital Ship Relief (Ah 1) a Chronicle of Her Wartime Overseas Movements and Activities,” Adams.Patriot.Net, last modified August 17, 2003, accessed November 21, 2013,http://adams.patriot.net/~eastlnd2/rj/alt/rc/chronicle.htm.
[15] John A. Carver Collection, (AFC/2001/001/10882), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Aurthur Altvater “The United States Navy Hospital Ship Relief (Ah 1) a Chronicle of Her Wartime Overseas Movements and Activities,” Adams.Patriot.Net, last modified August 17, 2003, accessed November 21, 2013,http://adams.patriot.net/~eastlnd2/rj/alt/rc/chronicle.htm.
[18] Ibid.
[19]Arthur M. Smith.. 2005. “HAS THE RED CROSS-ADORNED HOSPITAL SHIP BECOME OBSOLETE?.” Naval War College Review 58, no. 3: 121-131. Military & Government Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed November 21, 2013); The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031, 129.
[20] John A. Carver Collection, (AFC/2001/001/10882), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[21] Andrew Carroll. 2011. “An Uncensored Account of a Kamikaze’s Handiwork.” World War II 26, no. 2: 21-22. Military & Government Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed September 12, 2013), 22.
[22] John A. Carver Collection, (AFC/2001/001/10882), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031, 78.
[27] Ibid., 78.
[28] James Forrestal’s Commendation to the Hospital Corps as quoted in Mark R. Littleton and Charles Wright, Doc: Heroic Stories of Medics, Corpsmen, and Surgeons in Combat (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2005), 4.
[29] J. E. Keeton Collection, (AFC/2001/001/69514), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ralph Brown Collection (AFC/2001/001/273), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[33] Susan H. Godson, Serving Proudly: A History of Women in the U.s. Navy (Washington, D.C.: US Naval Institute Press, 2002), 141.
[34] Damon Brown Collection, (AFC/2001/001/577), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Charles M. Heath Collection, (AFC/2001/001/11392), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Independent Duty. Hospital Corps Quarterly. Supplement to the United States Naval Medical Bulletin.
[40] Ross McIntire, “Men Nurses and the U. S. Navy”, The American Journal of Nursing 42, no. 11 (November 1942): 1282, accessed September 12, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3415559.
[41] Nicholas J. Lavnikevich Collection (AFC/2001/001/31036), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Mark R. Littleton and Charles Wright, Doc: Heroic Stories of Medics, Corpsmen, and Surgeons in Combat (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2005), 28 – 33.
[45] Nicholas J. Lavnikevich Collection (AFC/2001/001/31036), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[46] United States Navy, Hospital Corpsman: United States Navy (Occupation Information and Guidance Services, Vocational Division, U. S. Office of Education Federal Security Agency, by the Hospital Corps Section, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, United States Navy, December 1, 1943), accessed September 29, 2013, http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/hgp/id/489.
[47] Ibid.
[48] John Lancaster Riordan, “American Naval ‘Slanguage’ in the Pacific in 1945”, California Folklore Quarterly 5, no. 4 (October 1946): 375-90, accessed September 12, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1495930, 383 – 384.
[49] The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. II. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031, 1 – 34.
[50] R. Byron Crozier Collection (AFC/2001/001/10520), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[51] Ibid.
[52] John E. Ross Collection (AFC/2001/001/48900), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Philip J. Mongillo, Jr. Collection (AFC/2001/001/79404), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[55] The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031, 78.
[56] Philip J. Mongillo, Jr. Collection (AFC/2001/001/79404), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress; The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II. Vol. I. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 1953. NAVMED P-5031, 101.
[57] Philip J. Mongillo, Jr. Collection (AFC/2001/001/79404), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[58] Ibid.
[59] Ralph Thomas Boose Collection (AFC/2001/001/20410), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Le Roy Craig, “Psychiatric Nursing for Navy Hospital Corpsmen”, The American Journal of Nursing 44, no. 5 (May 1944): 459-60, accessed September 12, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3456325, 460.
[62] Elwood Burton Gerrits Collection (AFC/2001/001/43256), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[63] Christine M. Silverstein. “From the Front Lines to the Home Front: A History of the Development of Psychiatric Nursing in the U.S. During the World War II Era.” Issues In Mental Health Nursing 29, no. 7 (July 2008): 719-737. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 21, 2013, 723.
[64] D’Ann Campbell. 1990. “Servicewomen of World War II.” Armed Forces & Society (0095327X) 16, no. 2: 251-270. World History Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed September 14, 2013). 254.
[65] “News About Nursing.” The American Journal of Nursing 45, no. 5 (May 1945): 406-18. Accessed September 12, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3417065, 407.
[66] Dorothy Lucille Main, “Sailors and Marines Come Back: To the U. S. Naval Hospital, Mare Island, California”, The American Journal of Nursing 44, no. 4 (April 1944): 355-57, accessed September 12, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3456242, 356.
[67] Ralph Brown Collection (AFC/2001/001/273), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[68] Glenn Ray Sheridan Collection (AFC/2001/001/4709), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[69] Charles Jones. “For One Iwo Surgeon, the Fight Was for Brandy.” Navy Times, March 12, 2007; Ralph Thomas Boose Collection (AFC/2001/001/20410), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[70] Jimmy Maurice Wall Collection (AFC/2001/001/69541), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[71] Hanley Ose Van Hise Collection (AFC/2001/001/57417), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[72] Judith Bellafaire and Mercedes Graf, “Join the Navy and See the World,” in Women Doctors in War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009), 97.
[73] Damon Brown Collection (AFC/2001/001/577), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress; Esther Schmidt, “Training of Waves for Hospitals”, The American Journal of Nursing 43, no. 8 (August 1943): 717-18, accessed September 12, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3456276, 717 – 718.
[74] Anna Mansfield Henderson Collection (AFC/2001/001/34309), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[75] Elizabeth Virginia Wayland Collection (AFC/2001/001/57521), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[76] Judith LaTurno Collection (AFC/2001/001/24097), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
[77] Evelyn Cherpak. “An Oral History Project: Rhode Island Waves in the Second World War.” Minvera Jounral of Women and War 1, no. 2 Fall 2007: 95.
[78] William Mueller, “The Negro in the Navy”, Social Forces 24, no. 1 (October 1945): 110-15, accessed September 12, 2013,http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571531, 113; “Guide to the Horace James Mcmillan Papers,” UC Santa Barbara Library, November 22, 2013, accessed November 22, 2013, http://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections/cema/mcmillan.
[79] Joseph Alan Robbins Collection (AFC/2001/001/43192), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
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