APO World War II-hospital

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 

Truly appreciate your detailed response, Donald. Just can't find your kind of knowledge. Question: "higher always evacuates from lower." - I'm a little confused by this. Thank you!

That means that the battalion aid station's litter bearer section would go forward and pick up casualties from the company casualty collection points, the division's medical battalion sends ambulances forward to the battalion or regimental aid stations to pick up patients and moved them to the rear, the field army's ambulance companies (the corps was strictly a tactical organization, and had minimal medical support, primarily for units in the corps rear area) would go forward to the division's medical companies to pick up patients and move them to the hospitals in the army area, and the COMMZ would send assets forward (could be aircraft, trains, or ground ambulances) to pick up patients from the field army's hospitals and move them back to the COMMZ. So the higher echelon always goes forward to pick up patients.

Medical support in World War II was Echeloned (today they call them Roles, because of the non-linear battlefield)

Echelon I--Unit level (Regiment/Battalion) The regimental aid station and the battalion aid stations had the same capability

Echelon II--Division Level (Divisional medical battalion)

Echelon III--Field Army (Field and Evacuation Hospitals) Today it's Corps level

Echelon IV--COMMZ (General Hospitals)

Echelon V--CONUS--Fixed hospitals in the US, and the VA

Thanks again Don, for all the details. Appreciate it, will help me fill in a few blanks in my family's history during the war.

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Glad to help. Drop a note if anything else comes up.

Glad to help. Drop a note if anything else comes up.