This episode commences our look at the considerations for medical care during the Kokoda Track campaign. Soldiers required medical and surgical care in austere conditions, with parlous logistics support and sometimes under fire. The neglect of the medical care planning process can have a disastrous effect on a fighting force. Despite all of the difficulties the medical staff from the 14th, 2/4th and 2/6th Field Ambulances did sterling work, with incredible bravery.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Importance of Medical Care: Effective medical support drastically improved troop morale, reduced disease rates, and increased the return of soldiers to duty, directly enhancing combat effectiveness.
- Severe Medical Challenges: Providing medical care is very difficult, requiring resilience, improvisation and endurance. The conditions on the track were exacerbated by the distance from Port Moresby, the difficult terrain, the weather and the parlous logistics support that medical units had.
- Historical Context from Burma: General Slim provides a vivid example of how medical issues were slowly attriting his Army and how he went about stabilising and then improving the dire situation.
- Terrain Difficulty: Colonel Kingsley Norris, the 7th Div ADMS (Assist Director Medical Services) vividly described the Kokoda Track’s formidable terrain, emphasizing the extreme challenges posed to medevac and medical logistics.
- Medical Evacuation Methods: Due to limited resources, evacuation methods included improvised stretchers carried by Papuan carriers. How different would this be today when operating in jungle terrain in an environment that was not permissive of rotary wing evacuation?
- Casualty Management Challenges: The tactical challenges of the withdrawal are exacerbated by the resources required for casualty evacuation. We look at how compounding issues of increasing casualties and decreasing resources for management and evacuation made the withdrawal from Isurava so difficulty.
- Medical Support Limitations: The severe shortage of medical personnel and equipment, highlighted by the stories of regimental medical officers and ANGUA officers like Doc Vernon, highlights the critical planning and logistics gaps.
- Tourniquet Usage Evolution: Tourniquets were seen as a last-resort method during WWII but it has since evolved into primary tools for managing battlefield hemorrhage.
- Medevac vs. CASAVAC: We look at the doctrine around dedicated medical evacuation (Medevac) and casualty evacuation (CASAVAC), and the planning and resources required for both.
- Operational-Level Consequences: At the operational level, poor planning had drastic consequences for the nurses of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital. This culminated in the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke and the subsequent Bangka Island massacre. We look at the story of LTCOL Vivian Bullwinkel and the nurses of the AGH.
These are just the show notes for the episode. Be sure to listen to the episode to get the full story of the difficulties of providing medical care in combat.
