A Day in the Life of a Regimental Surgeon 3 episodes, 5/5/45 Philippines and evacuation of casualties from Kibawe Episode 1, 29 February 1992 From Olden Times by Thomas M. Deas, M.D. I have hesitated writing about any war experiences because since my war (WW II), there have been two more tragic conflicts and three short military excursions, all just as tragic on those involved and the families. I won't go into the "gory" or "heroic" scenes, but I thought it might be of interest to tell what happened in one 24 hours of a WW II Regimental Surgeon of an Infantry Unit, along with the thoughts, some of the activities, fears, joys, decisions, and commitments of that 24 hours. This day might be classed as a routine day, of a sort. It was mid afternoon of 5 May, 1945. We were in Mindanao, P.I. and my Infantry Regiment had been advancing and fighting the Japanese as we progressed north in the middle of the Island on a 12 foot wide dirt road called the Sayre Highway. We had been in contact with the enemy daily for about a week and had advanced some 60 or more miles, all on foot except for 4-5 jeeps and 1 weapons carrier, with trailers, used for medical supplies and other very needed items. We had left all other vehicles at the south side of a gorge that was 100 feet wide and 50 feet deep. The bridge had been blown and large vehicles couldn't come across. The Engineers had strung a cable and had transported these vehicles over by pulley. We could have used more vehicles but we didn't have time to fool with them. The road was very muddy and practically all the bridges had been blown out. We had "jerry rigged" the blown bridges over the narrower creeks and had built a "sometimes bridge" over the Melita River (which was shallow) using 55 gallon drums and 75 mm artillery ammo that we found in an enemy supply dump. Filling the drums with rock and using plank from the destroyed bridge, we made a 2 track contraption so that we could drive our vehicles over it. This bridge was about 100 feet long and shaped like a "lazy S." We were right proud of it, for HQ Company and the Medics built it. Now we had reached our objective of Kibawe Airstrip. We had a whole bunch of casualties and were evacuating them from a collection point at the end of the strip. The Cub Planes used for evacuation were able to take only 1 litter at a time. The round trip back to the Evac Hospital took an hour. Being that slow, we had a group of about 25 wounded, mostly on litters, who needed to be treated pretty soon. We had NO surgical facilities in our unit. Our job was to get to the wounded, do dire emergency work, remove them from danger and then do what we could to prevent shock and blood loss, relieve pain, and give comfort until we could have them removed to a surgical facility. The type of moving and fighting that we did didn't allow us to carry out any further treatment or to carry needed instruments and equipment for such. That was ONE of the FRUSTRATIONS of a physician in this particular kind of combat. With things as they were, it looked like a long night ahead, unless we could speed up our evacuations. However, this wasn't as bad as the jungles of New Guinea where we carried some by litter (about 30) from 3-10 days and NO possibilities of evacuation at all, with NO stopping, except during a fight or at night when we had to observe complete blackout. There, our supplies had to be dropped into the jungle, sometimes never to be found. We lost one out of every four wounded that we treated. Well, we were to have a ration drop, medical supply drop and ammo drop from a C47 at about 4 PM and they were on time. the field was too short for a C47 to land, especially one that was loaded, so they dropped the supplies along the edge of the airstrip that the landing of the Cubs wouldn't be interrupted. It took 20-30 minutes to get the rations, supplies and ammo "kicked out" of the side of that old warhorse. Meanwhile, my 1st Sgt. and I asked the Air Ground Liaison Officer if he thought that plane could land after it was unloaded. He thought and said, "A good pilot could possibly do it." Well, he got the idea, knowing we needed to get those men back to an Evac Hospital before dark. He began to talk to the pilot about it. The pilot answered, "Ya think I'm nuts?" Meanwhile, evidently a seed had been planted, so with a little bragging on the pilot and lots of coaxing about our need he finally said, "Well I'll try!" He circled a couple of times, slowing each time, and coming in against a faint breeze he dropped his wheels, barely scraped the trees at the end of the strip as he landed. We thought he wasn't going to stop before crashing into the forest at the other end, but he stopped at the tree line. He had us pull the tail as far back as we could without fouling the propellers. Then we loaded the 20 odd litter patients and 4-5 "walking wounded," at his direction. He told us to "chock" the front wheels so that we could pull them out on his signal. After we had done all he asked, he cussed us for "talking him down" and began to rev the two engines faster and faster. The sound was deafening, the wind from the props was blowing limbs off trees, the plane was "straining" against the chocks and the tail was almost lifted off the ground when he signaled to pull the "chocks." that old bird shot out of there like a bull out of a rodeo chute! He was picking up speed, but it didn't look as if he could get her to leave the ground. All the time he was calling us on the radio in language unprintable. We were everything but "saints" as time slowed and he was nearing the other end of the field. Then, all of a sudden the front reared in a rather steep climb and the tail wheel pulled branches from the trees on the other end of the strip. We breathed a sigh of great relief but he didn't let up on telling us what he thought of us until he was out of range flying to Zamboanga. Our joy was short lived. We were told that 2nd Battalion had a number of casualties in a fight down 4 miles on the road from Kibawe toward Davao. I scrounged a jeep (I also used mine) and a weapons carrier. We started down that dirt lane called a road. I remember that we passed a couple of abandoned 1940 Ford sedans along the side of that road. One of the cars looked pretty good. But we didn't pass anything else and were a little concerned as to whether we were on the right road. We didn't want to run into any Japs! After a little while we came upon the group of casualties. There were 4 litters and 11 walking wounded. Now, I really had a problem about "HOW" to get these boys back for surgical treatment. This will be continued next week. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas M. Deas, M.D. This was written by Dr. Thomas M. Deas in 1992, and was published in the Homer, Louisiana, Guardian Journal in three episodes on 29 February, 5 March, and 12 March 1992. Transcribed by Paul M. Webber on 11 January 2002 Home Page: http://home.pcisys.net/~pwebber/31_id/rtw.htm