APO World War II-hospital

This link: APOs (showing the numerical listing of APO's) indicates that on October 11, 1944 APO 758 was near Epinal France which is near Bruyeres.

The 442nd was attached to the 36th ID as this point, he is wounded shortly before the rescue of the Lost Bn which starts in late October 1944.

APO's moved with the units. 

Lisa

Hi Lisa! Thanks for your reply. Maybe I'm confused about this - I initially read the date for Epinal as Oct 11, 1944, as you did. But if you look at Toulon... isn't it August 27, 1944? Day-Month-Year? Odd, I know. So would that make Epinal November 10, 1944 instead?

My real goal is to find out if the hospital that Takeo Kaneichi was in when he died was near the APO address... or maybe that's just where his mail was delivered in France, and then it was forwarded to his hospital, no matter where it was?

So whether he was in Epinal or Marseille, was it common for wounded to be near the town where the APO address was at? My fault if that was unclear. Thanks again.

Brad

Have you requested his IDPF, Brad?

The IDPF for my Uncle Nick identified the hospital in which he died after he was seriously WIA in late March 1945.

Dave 

No, Dave, not specifically. I didn't know about the IDPF until your post. Unfortunately, my uncle's records burned up in the 1973 fire. I went to NARA's page on the 7000 digiitized IDPFs but it wasn't there. I don't suppose there is a way to specifically ask for this document from NARA? I've already done the typical request for a vet's files and there wasn't much available.

Not sure if that means they just haven't gotten to scanning my uncle's IDPF, or it was also destroyed in the fire. Much thanks for your response.

Brad

Brad,

Here is the info for requesting his IDPF:

"Individual Deceased Personnel Files (IDPFs) for the U.S. Army for the period 1940-1976 for U.S. Army personnel with surnames that begin with the letters A-L are in the custody of the National Archives at St. Louis (RL-SL), 1 Archives Drive, Room 340, St. Louis, MO 63138; Phone: 314-801-0850; Fax: 314-801-9187; email: stl.archives@nara.gov. "

The turn-around has become very quick.  My last request for an IDPF was sent to me in one day.

Let us know of your results.

Dave

Brad Shirakawa 

Thank you for posting your question to History Hub!

Appreciate the work you put in to find the Hospital card. I went to a local library with Ancestry but could not find the card. I might try the NARA office near San Francisco. Thanks!

Brad,

Here is the HAC from Ancestry.

Hi Dave

Wasn't expecting this, sure appreciate it. Thanks again for your help!

Brad

He may have been moved two, or even three times, based on the severity of his injuries. Unlike today, when we bypass facilities to get patients to the best facility to treat them as fast as possible, in World War II we would stop several times along the way to stabilize a severely wounded patient, as it could take as long as ten hours to get a patient from the point of injury to the hospital where he'd be treated.

At the point of injury, he'd be treated by a company aidman and moved to a casualty collection point--often nothing more than a shady spot along the side of a road.

He and any other casualties would then be moved to the battalion aid station--there they'd see a physician for the first time. There wasn't much the battalion surgeon could do, except control bleeding and shock in a more effective manner, possibly administer plasma, and make sure the patient was stabilized enough to be moved further to the rear.

At that point, the medical battalion of the division they were attached to would send ambulances forward from one of their collecting companies to pick the patients up from the battalion aid station and move them to the collecting company, located to the rear of the regiment.

At the collecting company, they would again have their wounds checked, and a physician would make a determination as to their status--could they be returned to duty within about 96 hours? If so, they'd be moved to the division's clearing company (also part of the medical battalion).

If they couldn't be returned to duty within that time period--and he obviously wasn't--they'd have to make a determination of the best hospital to send him to.

Behind the division there were two types of field hospitals--Field Hospitals and Evacuation Hospitals (there were two different types of Evacuation Hospitals, and further to the rear were General Hospitals and Station Hospitals, but we're going to ignore them).

An Evacuation Hospital was very capable--it had 400 beds, several operating tables, lots of nurses, and many of the surgical and medical specialties--orthopedics, cardiothoracic, neurosurgical, etc.--but it wasn't very mobile. In fact, its official designation was Evacuation Hospital (Semimobile).

A Field Hospital was 100% mobile, but not very capable. It could operate three 100-bed "hospital units," or when they all were set up together, a single, 400-bed hospital. But it lacked any of the surgical specialties, had limited operating room capability, and only had 4 nurses for each 100-bed hospital unit.

But . . . both the Field and Evacuation Hospitals could be augmented by surgical teams from the Auxiliary Surgical Group that was attached to each field army. They could increase operating room capability of the Field Hospital or provide additional specialty augmentation for the Evacuation Hospitals. The Auxiliary Surgical Group had about 30 teams, equally split between general surgical teams and specialty teams.

So depending on the tactical situation, he could have been moved to a Field Hospital (whether augmented with a surgical team or not) for additional stabilization, then to an Evacuation Hospital further to the rear, or he could have been moved directly to the Evacuation Hospital.

In either case, he would have been picked up at the collecting company by ambulances assigned to the field army's medical assets for further movement, because "higher always evacuates from lower."

And, had he survived, he probably would have been moved to a General Hospital and, if he could have been returned to duty with six months, held in the ETO until he was well. If they determined he couldn't have been, he would have been shipped back to the United States as soon as he was well enough to travel, to free up beds for other patients. In the United States he would have gone to an Army hospital or a VA hospital depending on his ultimate prognosis.

Unfortunately, he never survived long enough to get out of the Evacuation Hospital.

You can download the history of the Army Medical Department in the European Theater of Operations here:

https://www.history.army.mil/html/books/010/10-23/CMH_Pub_10-23-1.pdf