and often impossible. Dental identifications could be used only occasionally because of destruction wrought on the body by high velocity of impact. Less than 2 percent of bodies could be identified by identification tags, and these usually were in pants pockets and less than 5 percent of bodies could be identified by wrist bands. Wrist watches were not found. All remains were carried by hand from the mountains, and coffins purchased in the nearest towns. Occasionally the natives would have cremated the bodies which simplified long distance transportation by mule and donkey.

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A typical example of rescue operations occurred in the fall of 1944. At 1100 on 22 October, word was received that a C-46 had crashed at San-Tai, China, and three crew members were seriously injured. Major Liu, the Chinese Air Force Liaison Officer, alerted San-Tai that planes would arrive there about 1300. Lt. Col. F. R. Wilson and a Lt. Brown took charge of the flight, while Colonel Hammond, a Major Ubank, Lt. Ross M. Taylor, Sgt. Orgle E. Myers, and an air evacuation technician accompanied the flight in C-47 number 770. Numerous observers were taken along so that the gain in experience would be spread to a maximum number of personnel at Field A-1. The mission was set up so that an element of training could be accomplished. One dropping kit containing medical supplies was prepared. Major Ubank was equipped to jump if necessary. The weather was not expected to be favorable for landing. Two mountain artillery field jackets with built-in haversacks were worn by Hammond and Taylor. The haversacks were filled with 30 pounds each of medical supplies including three units of blood plasma.

The C-47 took off from field A-1 at 1300 and landed at San-Tai about 1400, where the field was soft and the aircraft had to be unloaded almost while taxiing to keep it from becoming stuck fast. After 45 minutes of sign language conversation it was learned that the injured men had departed the village of Suan-Lee-Cha about 1100 for the airship and should be half way there. A party was quickly organized to meet the injured crew members. A dozen soldiers carried 3 steel litters and 6 blankets with all other medical supplies carried in the field jacket haversacks.

Lt. Colonel Wilson led the hike for about 4 miles along the Wpo Hoa River to a ferry crossing. At this spot the injured arrived by sampan and were unloaded. They were being transported and cared for by a Chinese Air Force major and a lieutenant with six soldiers. The injured included 2nd Lt. Harold Lambert (AC), pilot, who was being carried by Chinese litter, 2nd Lt. Lawrence Thalken, co-pilot, who was walking, and Pfc. David H. Neilson, radio operator, who also walked. The co-pilot was placed on a litter and first aid was administered to all three.

The C-47 was reached about 1630 and the injured loaded in webbing litter strap supports. At 1705 the plane took off for Fung-Wan-Shan. The take-off from the south end of the air strip was hazardous and the clearance margin was a matter of inches. The two more seriously injured patients were delivered to Station Hospital, APO 210, by 1800, 22 October 1944. Their general condition was excellent.

An interesting sidelight was encountered while administering morphine sulfate grains to Lambert by pectoralis injection with a standard syrette. Alert and still cheerful after 20 hours, he stated that he was having no pain; yet he had received no treatment since the accident except the application of sulfa powder, one Carlisle dressing to his scalp wound and the administration of a dozen sulfadiazine tablets. Four minutes after injection he opened his eyes in an expression of amazed surprise and said, "By God! this is wonderful. It's like going to Heaven." Within 15 minutes he was sleeping soundly and did not awaken during the entire trip except when he was being transferred from the Chinese litter to the still litter at the airplane.

This rescue mission was, however, but a small part of the activities that day at AAF Field No. A-1. As at other forward bases, the base surgeon was responsible for all crashes of aircraft up to and including a radius of 20 miles around his field. The responsibility had become a very active and difficult one. At AAF Field No. A-1, the surrounding terrain consisted mostly of flooded paddies, with few roads over which to travel, and with many roads having no bridges. Crash and local ground rescue activities had eventually become a major activity at the base dispensary, and its activities in the 24-hour period, which included. the rescue mission just described, were summarized in a later report. On a rainy Saturday night, 21 October 1944, at approximately 1905, a B-29 crashed across the river from the south end of the runway. Eight members of the crew were killed and 4 injured. All medical personnel were busy until well past midnight giving first aid and supervising the hospitalization of the injured. Before daylight and following morning (Sunday, 22 October) at 0430, another B-29 crashed on take-off from the north end of the runway. This time 9 of the crewmen were killed and 5 seriously injured. In addition, 56 Chinese were killed. and 5 seriously injured. This kept the medical personnel busy until noon, but to add to their difficulties, a C-46 crashed 100 miles northeast of the base at 1100. This made it necessary to dispatch a rescue team which was able to deliver the two surviving, but seriously injured, crew members to the hospital by 1800 the same day. "Thus," noted the report, "within a period of 24 hours, the medical

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personnel of this Medical Dispensary, Aviation, assisted by the Surgeon, Forward Echelon Detachment, XX Bomber Command, serviced three major aircraft accidents-without sleep or rest."

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Aircraft accidents were no respecters of person or rank. On 17 September 1944 Brig. Gen. Laverne G. Saunders, Commanding General of the 58th Bombardment Wing, was critically injured in a B-25 aircraft shortly after take-off from the base at Piardoba. The crash occurred at approximately midnight in a jungle area and, because of darkness and inaccessibility due to terrain, he was not reached until 0800 the following morning. Immediately hospitalized at the Provisional Station Hospital, his condition remained critical with infected wounds for several weeks. Penicillin and plasma together with the best possible nursing and medical care made it possible for him to be returned to Walter Reed Hospital by a special C-54 aircraft. The flight from Piardoba to Washington was made in 74 hours.36

While rescue activities such as those of Colonel Flickinger and others did, in the words of the Command Surgeon, "constitute the most glamorous chapter in our history" they did not represent the total picture. By the end of July 1944 all bombardment group and squadron surgeons had been designated as flight surgeons and each was authorized to participate in aerial flight. On 3 of the first 5 combat missions a flight surgeon went along as an observer. Summing up the activities of the flight surgeon, the Command Surgeon wrote in December 1944:

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Our Flight Surgeons are doing a great deal of flying. Approximately 50 percent of the Flight Surgeons "go forward" each time a mission is flown off our forward bases. Several have been on combat missions. They have been doing an excellent job . . . Several Squadron Commanders and Group Commanders have told me at one time or another that they believe they have the best "doc" or "Group of docs" they have run into in the Army Air Forces.

Not only were medical officers active participants in tactical and rescue missions, but they maintained an active interest in the medical aspects of ditching. The early history of B-29 crashes resulting from mechanical failures presaged added danger to that of enemy action, and on 5 June 1944, when the Bangkok Raid was flown, two planes ditched in the Bay of Bengal. The AAF history describes the rescue of one crew in these words:

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During the return another B-29 of the 40th Group experienced continued malfunctioning of its fuel-transfer system, a common ailment of the Superfort at that period. The pilot and radio operator were killed when the plane was set down in a rugged job of ditching, but ten men (there was a deadhead passenger aboard) crawled out or were blown free by an explosion, suffering injuries of varying degrees of severity. Eight of these rode out the

night in two rafts and near noon picked up their two fellows, still afloat with no more aid than their Mae Wests and an empty oxygen bottle. Both were badly wounded, one incredibly so, and badly chewed by crabs. One, Sgt. W. W. Wiseman, had kept his weakened and delirious comrade, who could not swim, alive through a night of squalls only by most heroic and unselfish action. After another day and night of suffering the ten men were washed ashore near the mouth of the Hooghly River before dawn on the 7th. Two crewmen eventually contacted natives and through them the British, and an Air Sea Rescue PBY picked up the whole party. All hands credited the recovery of the wounded to a home-made survival vest designed by Lt. Louis M. Jones, squadron S-2, and worn by the flight engineer. Carrying essential supplies and drugs (the latter safely waterproofed in rubber contraceptives), the experimental vest had proved more practical than the standard E-3 kits.

The historian notes that the whole story as it appeared in interrogations had "much of the tone of a Nordoff and Hall sea saga.

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" 39

At the bases, the surgeon was continuously concerned with the problem of health and morale of the crews. A Central Medical Examining Board for the XX Bomber Command was established on 30 November 1944, with the membership consisting of each group surgeon and one representative from the Surgeon's Office, XX Bomber Command. In November a staff study was prepared within the command to recommend a rotation policy for combat crews of such a type that would insure the maintenance of physical efficiency and morale. On the basis of missions completed and attrition rate, it was determined that combat crews should be rotated when they had completed a minimum of 25 combat missions or 1,000 operational hours."1 In late December it was announced that the length of combat duty for B-29 combat crews would be determined by the recommendation of the Commanding General of the Bomber Command concerned. It was expected, generally, that a tour would be completed somewhere between 400 and 600 combat flying hours, which would normally require a period of 8 to 11 months, rather than 1,000 hours.

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The XX Bomber Command Surgeon reported in February 1945, 9 months after the first tactical mission was run, that thus far there had been very little difficulty in maintaining the morale of the combat crews. He did note, however, that as more operations were carried out and further losses sustained, crew members were beginning to ask about definite rotation policy. While he had the authority to transfer members in need of rehabilitation to the United States under the provisions of paragraph 4, section III, War Department Circular 372, he hesitated to use it promiscuously as means of rotation of combat crews because of its detrimental effects on the organization.13