Battle Station Sick Bay

History of Navy Medicine in World War II

Navy medical personnel recall the major role Navy Medicine played in World War II. Physicians, dentists, nurses, and hospital corpsmen report their gripping testimonies in both the European and Pacific theaters. Their courage and skills were both tested and sharpened at Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Normandy, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Whether on the beaches, aboard warships and hospital ships at sea, or held captive in POW camps throughout the Philippines and Japan, these veterans experienced the war up close.

Corpsman Wheeler Lipes vividly describes the events, mythologized by Hollywood and the press, of how he removed a shipmate's appendix while his submarine cruised submerged in enemy waters. Flight surgeon Joseph Pollard recalls witnessing the Battle of Midway from the deck of the ill-fated aircraft carrier USS Yorktown. Corpsman Richard Borden remembers the terrifying reality of Omaha Beach on D-Day. This first-of-its-kind book, now expanded and revised with additional first-person accounts, provides a valuable perspective on historic events, as well as giving voice to the uncelebrated players in the most pivotal drama of the 20th century.