later to become the first and only "Air Evacuation Officer" in the Office of the Air Surgeon.2 In 1940 Headquarters AAF seriously reviewed the use of the airplane for evacuation of casualties and proposed the organization of an ambulance battalion to consist of an Air Transport Group together with medical personnel. The basic medical unit of this battalion, the Medical Air Ambulance Squadron, was authorized in T. O. 8-455, dated 19 November 1941, and called for a group composed of four squadrons, one headquarters squadron, and three airplane ambulance medical squadrons. Two of the ambulance squadrons were to contain twelve bimotor ambulance planes similar to the DC-3 commercial transport. The other ambulance squadron was to have eighteen single engine ambulance planes, similar to the newly developed liaison plane (the L-1 type plane). The unit was to be placed under the control of General Headquarters in a theater, being attached to subordinate commands as dictated by the situation, and was to augment surface transportation. Lt. Col. David N. W. Grant (MC), Chief, Medical Division, Office, Chief of Air Corps, pointed out at this time that the proposed organization "would lighten and speed the task (of transporting casualties), due to its extreme mobility, and would be able to render service at a time and place where other means of transportation are relatively at a minimum." 3 It was in the prewar Air Force Combat Command, however, that the logistical value of air evacuation to a tactical Air Force took on practical meaning. The Army Medical Department did not at this time envisage the airplane as a substitute for field ambulances and as a result during the Carolina and Louisiana Maneuvers the lines of evacuation over the long, isolated stretches became over-extended with proper medical care not always immediately available. This was exactly the situation that Maj. I. B. March had foreseen back in the middle 1920's when he had written that if a separate Air Corps were to be established it should provide its own air evacuation system. Now, as Surgeon for the Air Force Combat Command, it was apparent to him that the aerial paths of a tactical Air Force could not be fully supported by motor vehicles which could not cover the wild and uninhabited terrain over which a plane could fly. He reaffirmed his basic views to Lt. Col. Malcolm C. Grow, the Surgeon, Third Air Force, who was in position to watch the maneuvers first hand. In reply Colonel Grow wrote: * 4 I will push the idea of having hospital units with Air Forces and also do what I can to promote air-ambulances evacuation. I agree that the use of transport and cargo planes is not at all satisfactory and due to the wide dispersion of the Air Forces, ground ambulances present many difficulties as an agency in evacuation. I believe our chief stumbling block in the way of ambulances has been the lack of interest on the part of the Surgeon General. After all, the evacuation not only of the ground troops, but also the Air Corps casualties are the problem of the Surgeon General and until he accepts the airplane as a vehicle I doubt if very much can be done about it. Within 3 months the country was at war and it had become a matter of military expediency to evacuate patients by air even though it was not an accepted practice. The first occasion for mass movement of patients occurred in January 1942, during the construction of the Alcan Route in Alaska. In this case, transportation of casualties by air became necessary due to the fact that surface transportation was not available, and C-47 type aircraft were utilized in evacuating these patients over long distances to fixed medical installations. The medical personnel involved in this operation were largely untrained and on a voluntary basis. No records were kept as to how many patients were evacuated during this operation. The second mass evacuation of personnel by air, utilizing Army Air Forces planes, occurred in Burma in April 1942. Ten C-47 aircraft evacuated 1,900 individuals, some of whom were sick and wounded, from Myitkyina, Burma, to Dinjan, India, in a 10-day period. In May 1942 the Buna-Gona Campaign marked the beginning of a counterattack against the Japanese in New Guinea. In that mountainous and jungle terrain, using surface means, many days of travel would be required to evacuate patients to Port Moresby; but by air, it was a flight of approximately 1 hour over the Owen-Stanley Range. A total of 1,300 sick and wounded Allied troops were flown over this route during the first 70 days of the campaign. In June 1942 the 804th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron arrived in New Guinea to aid in the air evacuation operations. In late August 1942 Marine Air Transport and in September 1942 the AAF Troop Carrier Transport units began to evacuate patients from Guadalcanal to rear bases in New Caledonia and the New Hebrides; 12,000 casualties had been evacuated by air by the end of 1942. |