Medical staff – History of Sorts

Medical Care World War II

During World War II, many medical advances were made. Surgery techniques such as removing dead tissue resulted in fewer amputations than at any time. The treatment of bacterial infections with penicillin or streptomycin was administered for the first time in large-scale combat. In the beginning, plasma was available as a substitute for blood. By 1945, serum albumin had been developed, which is whole blood, rich in the red blood cells that carry oxygen and is considerably more effective than plasma alone.

The photographs above and below: Wounded American soldiers receiving blood plasma alongside a road in Normandy while awaiting transport to hospitals behind the lines. Major General H.W. Kenner, Chief Medical Officer at Allied Supreme Headquarters, disclosed on 5 August 1944 that 97 out of every 100 Allied soldiers wounded in France survived because of the speedy handling of injuries.

Allied casualties in Normandy were 30 per cent less than expected. Blood transfusions are credited with saving thousands of lives, with blood plasma being carried in each soldier’s kit and whole blood being administered at field hospitals. U.S. service men and women stationed in Great Britain set up a blood donors’ centre at a U.S. Army hospital to donate blood to the wounded in France. With a speedy process of handling—blood flowed into the veins of an injured soldier in France within a few hours after it was taken from the arm of a buddy in England.

Sources

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2115192/medical-improvements-saved-many-lives-during-world-war-ii/#:~:text=During%20the%20war%2C%20surgery%20techniques,time%20in%20large%2Dscale%20combat.

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=august%205&rows=1&page=1

The Journey Home

One thing about World War II I often wondered about was the transporting of injured troops back to the United States.

The photo above shows the first American casualties from the Battle of Normandy arriving in the Eastern U.S. on 29 June 1944, after a 19-hour plane trip from the British Isles. The wounded—a U.S. Army officer, 12 enlisted men and one U.S. Navy Seabee—were flown across the Atlantic to their homeland on a C-54 transport plane. Waiting ambulances carried them to hospitals. Several men were part of the first Allied assault wave to strike the northern French beaches with overwhelming force on 6 June. One was a paratrooper who broke his leg when he hit the ground behind German lines in the successful Allied thrust to cut off the German forces in Cherbourg, the strategic deep-water French port liberated on 26 June 1944.

Above is a photograph of ambulances backing up to a specifically designed ramp to transfer wounded men. That ramp guaranteed minimal discomfort for the wounded as they boarded the Air Transport Command C-54 Skymaster. The ramp would quickly move aside as the plane was warming up. Once loaded, it taxied down the field for take off for the flight across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States.

An American Red Cross aid distributes books and magazines for wounded American soldiers before boarding the C-54. The photo shows the Skymaster hospital plane at an Air Transport Command base in the United Kingdom. The soldiers were flown to a U.S. military airport and then to hospitals near their homes.

Above is a photo of a wounded soldier on a stretcher on the gangplank of an Allied landing craft which had brought military supplies and men for the fighting fronts in France. The wounded were brought to the beaches in ambulances and jeeps and transferred to ships for transportation to hospitals in England. More seriously injured were flown back in hospital planes.

source

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=Transport%20gewonden&rows=1&page=4

Gejus van der Meulen—From Sporting Hero to Nazi Villain

The Netherlands has produced some of the greatest football players in the world. The Dutch are proud of their footballing history. My hometown of Geleen is where Dutch professional football originated.

However, there are some football stars we are not proud of.

Gejus van der Meulen was a goalkeeper of HFC and the Dutch national team. In 1940 he became a member of the NSB and joined the SS-Feldlazarett Freiwilligen (Medical Volunteers) Legion Niederlande, after which he went to the Eastern Front in 1942.

Van der Meulen played 54 matches for the Netherlands national football team, which was the Dutch record for goalkeepers from 3 March 1928 (when he equalled the total of Just Göbel) until 21 June 1990 (when his total was surpassed by Hans van Breukelen). He made his debut on 27 April 1924 against Belgium. He played in the 1934 FIFA World Cup, where the Netherlands was eliminated in the first round against Switzerland. He also took part in two Olympic Games, in 1924 and 1928. He was a club player of HFC in Haarlem, the oldest club in the Netherlands.

Van der Meulen’s popularity in the Netherlands was such that his wedding made the Polygoon newsreel. Footage also exists of a celebration ceremony for Van der Meulen on 5 March 1933, the day he gained his 50th cap.

In 1935, Van der Meulen retired from competitions and opened a pediatric clinic in Haarlem. He joined the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and openly supported Hitler’s compulsory sterilization laws. His views were strongly opposed by the parents of the children he treated, forcing him to close his clinic.

A friend of Gejus said that the once-Dutch goalkeeper had proclaimed the beauty of the Nazis’ sterilization laws. “We, doctors, are fighting for a healthy human race. Now Hitler says we have to intervene in the risk of unhealthy children.”

Gejus, however, wanted more than just being a member of the NSB, and in 1941 he joined the SS Vrijwilligers Legioen Nederland (Dutch Volunteer Legion). The SS oath read as follows:

“I vow to you Adolf Hitler, as Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I vow to you and to the leaders you set me, absolute allegiance until death. So help me God.”

He was arrested four days after the liberation of the Netherlands and tried in June 1947. He showed no remorse and stated that he did not know that the Netherlands was at war with Germany when he joined the SS. Van der Meulen was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was pardoned in August 1949. He tried to get his medical practice back off the ground, but no patients wanted to be treated by a known Nazi collaborator. In the end, he ended up exclusively treating former members of the NSB. Later he contacted his former club HFC to see if he could get a place for his son in the academy. His request was ignored.

I know some people will say “He wasn’t the worst of them. he was only a medic” and they might be from the opinion that he was treated harshly. But, he was an educated man who had pledged a vow and allegiance—not only to the enemy—but, also to the most evil man on the planet. Technically he committed treason which was punishable by death.

sources

https://geschiedenislokaal023.nl/bronnen/gejus-van-der-meulen

https://www.thesoccerworldcups.com/players/gejus_van_der_meulen.php

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/detail/4aff40c6-025a-11e7-904b-d89d6717b464/media/55b8e793-6729-27b1-5e97-f6f94e1545ec?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=Gejus%20van%20der%20Meulen&rows=1&page=4

From hero to villain: the Gejus van der Meulen story

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The Nurses of WWII -the forgotten Heroes

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The myth that men are the stronger sex has already been dispersed many times, Women have more stamina, a higher pain level and sometimes are physically even stronger. However they never have to suffer the Manflu though, but that is about it.

It was never more true then during WWII. Physically they may not necessarily have been stronger but mentally they were and especially the Nurses who not only have to deal with horrific injuries, they also had to be comforters to those whose lives had been turned upside down, often in a split second. This blog is a tribute to the forgotten heroes, the angels of WWII.

A nurse wraps a bandage around the hand of a Chinese soldier as another wounded soldier limps up for first aid treatment during fighting on the Salween River front in Yunnan Province, China, on June 22, 1943.

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With some of New York’s skyscrapers looming through clouds of gas, some U.S. army nurses at the hospital post at Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York, wear gas masks as they drill on defense precautions, on November 27, 1941.

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As they await assignment to their permanent field installations, these Army nurses go through gas mask drill as part of the many refresher courses being given them at a provisional headquarters hospital training area somewhere in Wales, on May 26, 1944.

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The first contingent of U.S. Army nurses to be sent to an Allied advanced base in New Guinea carry their equipment as they march single file to their quarter on November 12, 1942. The first four in line from right are: Edith Whittaker, Pawtucket, Rhode Island,; Ruth Baucher, Wooster, O.; Helen Lawson, Athens, Tennessee,; and Juanita Hamilton, of Hendersonville, North Carolina.

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U.S. nurses walk along a beach in Normandy, France on July 4, 1944, after they had waded through the surf from their landing craft. They are on their way to field hospitals to care for the wounded allied soldiers.

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Miss Jean Pitcaithy, a nurse with a New Zealand Hospital Unit stationed in Libya, wears goggles to protect her against whipping sands, on June 18, 1942.

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Group of Army Nurses of the 10th Field Hospital (400-bed capacity) posing in front of a 1/4-Ton Truck. The 10th Fld Hosp arrived in the MTO March 19, 1943, .

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