Wartime Wednesday: Hospitals

Wartime Wednesday: Hospitals

The logistics of caring for wounded soldiers, sailors, and airmen were lengthy, and various types of hospitals were involved in the process. Patients had to be moved where they could be best treated from the time first treated by a medic until the injured party was returned to duty or evacuated further to the rear.

About a mile from the front (and remember this line often moved), physicians and medics worked in battalion aid stations, adjusting splints and dressings or administering plasma or pharmaceuticals. Collecting stations were located about two miles from the front and handled further adjustment of splints and dressings, administration of plasma and drugs, as well as treatment of shock.

After treating minor wounds and shock, clearing stations (4-10 miles from the front) grouped patients for transport for field hospitals that were located about thirty miles away. This is where surgery occurred. Evacuation hospital treated illnesses and less urgent surgical cases. From here, patients could return to the front.

“Fixed hospitals” were either located a safe distance from combat or stateside, and they typically remained in one location. Three types of fixed hospitals treated the wounded:

Station hospitals: often attached to a military base, they treated illnesses and injuries among to those stationed on the base.

General hospitals: These administered long-term treatment. Sometimes these facilities specialized in certain types of illnesses or injures.

Convalescent hospitals: Created during WWII, these facilities focused on rehabilitation of the severely wounded patient who would receive a medical discharge.

Check out this short video about the 74th General Hospital (U.S.) in Bristol, England: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-gloucestershire-35745059/ww2-film-offers-rare-glimpse-of-life-at-us-hospital-in-england

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All’s fair in love and war. Or so they say.

High school and college were a nightmare for Doris Strealer and being an adult isn’t much better. Men won’t date a woman of her height, and they don’t understand her desire to repair car engines rather than work as a nurse or a teacher. When her father’s garage closes, and no one will hire a female mechanic, she joins the Red Cross Motor Corps, finally feeling at home. Until she comes face to face with her past in the form of Ronald McCann, the most popular boy in school.

On the brink of a successful career as a surgeon, Ron’s plans crumble when he’s drafted and assigned to an evacuation hospital in England, the last place he expects to run into a former schoolmate. The gangly tomboy who was four years behind him in high school has transformed into a statuesque beauty, but a broken engagement in college leaves him with no desire to risk his heart ever again.

Will the hazards of war make or break this unlikely couple?

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