When the US entered the war, the US Medical Department had only 1,200 doctors, by D-Day it had 50,000, including 83 women. It also ended up with 15,000 dentists and 2,000 veterinarians. Nurses rose from 1,000 to 52,000. Some drafted and enlisted men became medics (known to the troops as “band-aid bandits”). Many were conscientious objectors due to religious beliefs or pacifism. They were trained to do first aid, apply tourniquets, and administer morphine and sulfa powder. Stretcher bearers carried the wounded to the battalion aid station. From there they were sent to a clearing station and then to a Portable Surgical Hospital (which were called MASH units after WWII) or a clearing station. Those that needed more advanced treatment were sent to an evacuation hospital which was usually located 12-15 miles behind the line. The efficiency of medical care caused the mortality rate of wounded to go from 25% in the Civil War to 8.1% in WWI to 3% in WWII. This drop in mortality was due to excellent doctors, speed in treatment, and miracle drugs like penicillin and sulfa. Treatment for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) improved with awareness that some soldiers were wounded mentally. A surgeon general explained: “There is nothing mysterious about psychoneurosis. It does not mean insanity. It is a medical term used for nervous disorders. It manifests itself by tenseness, worry, irritability, sleeplessness, loss of self-confidence or by fears or over-concern about one’s health.” Battle fatigue was especially acute during the Battle of the Bulge because many of the American soldiers were either already exhausted from previous combat, were in units that had not experienced battle yet, or soldiers who were replacements for the wounded from previous campaigns.
In the Battle of the Bulge, the medics, nurses, and doctors faced a very difficult situation. The surprise of the German attack put the medical personnel in danger of being overrun. The 326th Airborne Medical Company suffered that fate while caring for the wounded outside of Bastogne. The medical tent was shot up by German tanks and all the surviving personnel and the wounded were taken captive. In Bastogne itself, a hospital was set up in a church. It was overwhelmed with the number of wounded sent to it. From Dec. 19 (the Battle of the Bulge began on Dec. 16) until Dec. 26, the hospital treated 943 Americans and 125 German prisoners. Two female nurses worked at the hospital – Renee Lemaire (the Angel of Bastogne) and Augusta Chiwy. Lemaire was killed when the hospital was bombed.
Those wounded were first treated by very brave medics, carried to the rear by stretcher-bearers, and loaded on ambulances. The below freezing conditions resulted in a large number of trench foot cases. And the temperatures froze plasma and made morphine syrettes unusable. Technically, medics were noncombatants and they wore a red cross on their helmets, but they were sometimes shot by Germans accidentally or on purpose.
Katherine M. Nolan of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps described her experiences: “The field hospitals were the closest to the front lines, so we moved all the time, [every] five to seven days. Every time an outfit went on the line, we’d move up right behind them, because we were with the clearing stations where they would bring the wounded from the battlefield. We got mostly chest and belly wounds. The [Ardennes] forest is so heavily wooded, the trees are so close together, it’s almost like you’re walled in. The Germans would fire their artillery up into the branches, and it would explode up there and then the GIs would have all the shrapnel and everything falling down on them, but the branches and everything else were coming down and burying them. When first brought in, almost all patients were in deep shock. Sometimes, there weren’t even any vital signs obtainable. We’d have to cut down through the tissues to find a vein to put blood and plasma in. We’d get them stabilized. First, they cut off all their clothes and just have a blanket under them and over them, because we had to check and make sure that we found all their wounds. If it was a bullet wound, we’d have to try and find the exit wound, because if there wasn’t an exit wound … it was still in the body. As soon as we got them stabilized, they’d go quickly to X-ray and then right into surgery, and they operated on them right on the litters. They weren’t moving them from one position to another. They’d just take the litter off the ambulance, set it up on sawhorses—that’s where we’d do the shock treatment—and then carry them on that [litter to] X-ray, then right into surgery. We’d keep them maybe five to seven days, [until] as soon as they were able to be transported … Then, we’d send them back to an evac hospital.”
https://www.health.mil/News/Dvids-Articles/2024/12/13/news487350
https://www.military.com/history/december-1944-medics-who-saved-thousands-battle-of-bulge.html
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-u-s-army-medical-corps-caring-for-the-casualties-in-world-war-ii/
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