TABLE 46.-Flight Surgeons and Aviation Medical Examiners Assigned to Units of US Strategic Air Forces in Europe at Close of Period Covered by Report

Source: Report, Medical Department Activities, USSTAF, January Through March 1945, p. 1.

TABLE 48.-Flight Surgeons and Aviation Medical Examiners Assigned to Units of US Strategic Air Forces in Europe at Close of Period Covered by Report

Source: Report, Medical Department Activities, USSTAF, January Through March 1945,

164

P. 1.

Air Support of Ground Forces: Ninth Air Force In the Western Desert Campaign the Ninth had provided close support for the British Eighth Army and had gained valuable experiences which were to be of considerable value in OVERLORD planning. Lessons learned were to be particularly valuable in planning for the air evacuation mission.

Due to the distances involved and the lack of adequate surface transportation, air evacuation was begun in the Middle East Theater in December 1941 by individual plane on call using borrowed RAF aircraft. Following activation of the Ninth Air Force in May 1942, the 315th Troop Carrier Group was utilized in the movement of sick and wounded between American military hospitals throughout the Middle East. By the time of the surrender of the Axis forces in Tunisia in May 1943, the 315th Troop Carrier Group was evacuating sick and wounded from American military hospitals of the Middle East Theater located in Southern Tunisia at Sfax, Zarvia, Tripoli, and Bengasi to the 38th General Hospital in Heliopolis, Egypt. Sick and wounded were also moved by ambulance and hospital train in the Persian Gulf line of communication to the 113th General Hospital in Ahwaz and evacuated by air to Egypt.

Patients having been concentrated by ambulance diesel car from Massawa and Miahabar at Gura were evacuated by air to Egypt. Air evacuation was

Nurses of an evacuation hospital unit of the Ninth Air Force on duty near the front lines in France take cover in a slit trench during a daylight raid in this area.