Blood Brothers | Page 5

me!
These patients are all bleeding. We've got to stop the bleeding quickly -
right now! Elevate extremities! Use anything you can get to stop the
bleeding! Tourniquets! Compression bandages! Hemostats! Even your
fingers, if they are clean! Bring all bad cases to the operating room!"
During the next thirty-two hours, our medical staff worked around the
clock, applying tourniquets and compression bandages, amputating
arms and legs (many dangling by only a few shreds of skin or tendons),
tying off bleeders, giving tetanus shots, laying the dead in the garage
for identification. As soon as we could get each patient through his
emergency, we sent him by ambulance to one of the civilian hospitals
in Baguio for definitive care, and a few miles distant from any future
bombing.
I was very fortunate in obtaining Dr. Beulah Allen (the wife of our Post
Quartermaster, Lt. Col. Henderson Allen), a retired surgeon, to assist
me. She was a tower of strength. While Dr. Allen and I were operating,
Civil War General Sherman's remarks that "War is hell!" kept haunting
me.
I was extremely proud of my medics; we took care of wounds, the likes
of which none of us had ever seen before! Periodically, a Jap plane
would drop a bomb or two-to let us know the war
was still on. They did little damage. After we had our wounded taken
care of to the best of our ability, we dared to look outside to see the
thirty-foot craters and damaged buildings near the hospital.

For the first time, I realized that I was frightened. I could have been in
one of those buildings, or walking across the areas where the craters
were.
Dee. 9, 1941: At night our medical teams returned to their individual
quarters for their first rest since the bombing exhausted and giddy. I
turned on my little radio. Although the signal was badly jammed by the
Japanese as it had been for several months, I was able to make out that
Congress had declared war on Japan at 1610 hours on December 8,
1941, (0500 hours, Dec. 9 Philippine time). Now it was OK for us to
shoot back at the Japs! But with what? I also learned that the Japs had
landed large forces in French Indochina.
I was quite sure that all commercial communications with the States
had been cut off, but I called the radio station to send a message to my
wife, Judy, a teacher at Holton Arms School in Washington, D.C., that
I was OK.
Judy and I had arrived in Manila on July 20, 1940, after a delightful trip
from New York City through the Panama Canal on the U. S. Army
Transport Republic bound for San Francisco, and on the U.S.A.T.
Grant via Hawaii, Guam and Manila. We got to see two World's Fairs
(New York and San Francisco). It was really our honeymoon, as we
had previously been too poor to afford one.
During the six weeks we were on the high seas, history had been taking
place. Hitler's armies had blitzkrieged through Holland, Belgium and
France; the British Army had a forced evacuation from Dunkirk in an
armada of small boats. Mussolini had declared war on Britain and
France (actually stabbing France in the back while she was on her
knees). Hitler's bombers were causing havoc in England, and his
submarines were sinking many Allied ships in the Atlantic. Tojo was
vigorously continuing his "undeclared wars" in Manchuria and China.
Churchill said, "We shall seek no terms; we shall ask no mercy."
Roosevelt, preoccupied by presidential elections, was finally becoming
aware of Hitler's threat to democracy. He called up volunteers for the
Army; he further prepared for war by agreeing to transfer many planes,

tanks and some sixty reconditioned
destroyers to Britain.
Our ships bound for the Philippines had large U.S. flags painted on
each side lighted at night. We were wary of subs as they had been busy
in the Atlantic. We were beginning to get the feeling that maybe this
would not be the "happy honeymoon" that we had planned. And yet,
war seemed so very "far away."
December 10, 1941: Several bombings with little damage, a few
wounded. We did our best to make them comfortable. We learned that
President Quezon had departed from Camp Hay soon after the first
bombing for the Malacanong Palace in Manila. The Japanese would
probably spare the palace for their own use.
During free moments, of which there were very few, I instructed our
medics in first aid, litter drill over mountain trails, etc. I did all of the
things that I could think of in preparation for war: drew money out of
the bank; got some new field boots and field uniforms from the
clothing store, packed my bedding roll with