.
. . was another PT Boat officer, Lt. Robert J. Bulkley, Jr. USNR,
of New York City. They are not related, and spell their names differently.
The other Bulkely is from San Antonio, Texas. Had a long talk with them.
Have certainly met a lot of interesting people since I left Oahu. My three
autograph books contain the autographs of most of them.
Jan. 23. Went to 27th Hospital again today.
Capt. Shapiro gave me 100 sulfadiazine tablets. In Honolulu, I have
paid as high as $20 for that number, though they have since dropped to
10 cents apiece. Correspondents are entitled to the same medical services
as an officer. Infact, have all the privileges of an officer. According
to an order signed by the Secretary of War in January 1942, these privileges
specifically included transportation. It is a little difficult to under
stand on what authority an admiral countermands the orders of the Secretary
of War.
While at the hospital, a major doctor game me permission
to interview casualties. He even let me examine the records of admission,
showing the causes of disability. Malaria topped everything else. I picked
out several shrapnel and bullet wound cases and talked with them.
Tales of courage, of loyalty, of miracles. Tales of the
cunning, the ruthlessness, the fanaticism of the Japs. These I heard that
day from men recently wounded by gunfire or shrapnel on the jungle front,
as I sat beside their hospital beds.
When they found that I was a correspondent, I was soon
surrounded. Men with bandaged arms, or legs, or chests gathered about me,
all talking a once, eager to tell me their experiences. Dominant was the
pride of each in his particular outfit. But without exception they gave
the "Pill Rollers" credit for the highest courage and indefatigable performance
of duty under fire.
Pill Rollers is the soldier's name for the men
of the Medical Corps. Some of those bandaged boys waxed almost inarticulate
in attempting to express their admiration and gratitude for the officers
and men of the M.C. Under the fire of Jap snipers and machine gunners,
where the wounded receive first aid; in dressing station and Base Hospital
gallant men minister to gallant men.
One man told me of seeing a seventeen year old soldier
lying in the open under Jap fire with a ghastly abdominal wound. Entirely
unarmed and defenseless, a man of the Medical Corps crawled to him to administer
first aid and attempt to bring him out. He was shot. Unhesitatingly, another
followed. He, too, was shot.
A 2nd lieutenant, on the edge of whose bed I was sitting,
had received a present from Hirohito on January 12th, his twenty-fourth
birthday. It was a bullet that had passed entirely through his body, missing
his heart by half an inch. He was a handsome, clean-cut fellow with a most
engaging smile. After being wounded, he had lain on his back under the
hot, equatorial sun for four hours before they found him around noon. The
litter bearers carried him up and down one hill after another until dark
before they got him in. He was Champ Jones of Davisville (?), So. Car.
When the Japs cut off a patrol, they take the arms and
ammunition from the bodies of our men and use them against us. A single
bullet from one of our own rifles in the hands of a Jap inflicted three
wounds on a twenty-two year old enlisted man with whom I talked. It hit
him in the right hand, chest, and shoulder. A sniper got him from a Jap
foxhole, but after he was hit he got the sniper -- his third. Then a Marine
crawled. . .
OFF-SITE REFERENCES
Veteran’s
Testimony – Lena R. Gelott 48th Station Hospital
World
War 2 Casualties and Caring for the Wounded
Pacific
Theatre WWII Military Hospitals
WWII US Medical
Research
When
I got back to the hotel, wet, muddy, and looking forward to a shower, I
found that the water had been turned off -- a common occurrence. So I did
the best I could with pitcher and washbowl, and put on my last clean uniform.
Five
hundred and twenty-one casualties had arrived that morning from Guadalcanal.
A lot of them were hanging over the fence as I left the hospital, and I
stopped to talk with some of them. There were a number from the 27th and
35th Inf., both recently from Honolulu. The five hundred and twenty-one
had been removed from the ship that brought them in one hour and thirty-five
minutes by small boats. Demonstrating excellent planning and efficient
execution. Much more than can be said for the sentence in which I described
it.
