Navy Medicine

The book chronicles the Navy Medical Department’s participation in Vietnam, beginning with the Navy’s rescue of the French survivors of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and ending with the Navy’s rescue of Vietnamese refugees fleeing the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. When American involvement reached its peak in 1968, the 750-bed Naval Support Activity Hospital Danang (NSAH) was in full operation, and two hospital ships—the USS Repose and the USS Sanctuary—cruised offshore. Whether the situation called for saving the lives of injured sailors aboard a burning aircraft carrier or treating a critically wounded Marine for shock in the rubble-strewn streets of Hue, Navy medical personnel were in Vietnam from the beginning of American involvement to the very end, saving thousands of lives. This book tells the story of the Navy Medical Department’s involvement through stark and gripping first-person accounts by patients and the Navy physicians, dentists, nurses, and hospital corpsmen who treated them. More than 50 historic photos document their work.

In this compelling oral history, Navy medical personnel from World War II recall their experiences and the role Navy medicine played in the great crusade. Physicians, nurses, and corpsmen report the way it was, matter-of-factly, with pride and pathos, but not without humor. These are the veterans whose skills were tested at Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Normandy, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Readers will appreciate as never before the single-minded purpose to which the men and women of Navy medicine dedicated themselves as they healed the wounded aboard vessels under kamikaze attack, in POW camps, and still other appalling circumstances. Former pharmacist's mate Wheeler Lipes describes the time, mythologized by Hollywood and the press, when he removed a shipmate's appendix while his submarine cruised submerged in enemy waters. Dr. Henry Heimlich reveals how a failed chest surgery performed on a wounded Chinese soldier later inspired the lifesaving maneuver that has made his name a household word throughout the world. Cardiologist Dr. Howard Bruenn remembers Franklin D. Roosevelt's last moments at Warm Springs. Stanley Dabrowski recalls the confusion and terror at Iwo Jima as he, a pharmacist's mate, treated his first sucking chest wound under fire. Dr. Ferdinand Berley tells about hearing, while a POW, the Japanese emperor announce the war's end over the radio.