Military Medical Reminiscences of Three Wars: "The Two Terrible Nights of the 23rd": Saturday Evening Post article, May 19, 1951

Thursday, October 28, 2010

"The Two Terrible Nights of the 23rd": Saturday Evening Post article, May 19, 1951

Harold H. Martin wrote an article about the Battle of Chipyong-ni, for the Saturday Evening Post, which was published May 19, 1951.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=1Ka7mP9HeWEqfj1MaFtPBGlXnDezlY-1iSOolNdl2_1zTubsZyEidV1RL2D8u&hl=en&authkey=CKm65d4K

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Why I Started This Blog

This blog was started in order to place on the record the truth about the treatment of the wounded casualties at the battle of Chipyong-ni, during the KoreanWar.

The first post, “Treatment of the UN Wounded at Chipiyong-ni” tells how and by whom the US, French, Korean and some Chinese wounded casualties were treated during this battle.

The 23d Regimental Combat Team of the 2d Infantry Division, with its attached French UN Battalion was surrounded and under attack by a much larger Chinese Force for three days and two nights at Chipyong-ni, many miles in advance of the main UN Forces.

An Armor-Infantry Task Force eventually broke through the enemy lines from the south, and the Chinese withdrew. The battle has been called the “turning point” of the Korean War. The US and French units at Chipyong-ni were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, and the battle was chosen to represent the Korean War in the “US Army In Action” series of paintings.

This battle was a medical milestone also, for as best as it has been possible to determine, this was the first time that transfusions of whole blood were given to the wounded this far forward in the combat zone. As is noted later, these transfusions apparently were effective in saving lives.

The wounded at Chipyong-ni were cared for by eight US and French Medical Corps officers, five Medical Service Corps officers, and more than 160 other medical personnel of both armies. These were the medical aid men who first treated the wounded, and the litter-bearers and litter-jeep drivers who carried the wounded to the five battalion aid stations and the regimental collecting station. They were the battalion surgeons and other medical personnel in the battalion aid stations, and the medical officers and other medical personnel in the regimental collecting station.

These medical installations had no overhead cover or other protection from the enemy’s fire. They were located, of necessity, near such obvious enemy targets as command posts, and the artillery and mortars. These medical personnel carried out their duties, whatever their role and wherever they were located, in the open, without defilade in what were artillery impact areas while the 23d RCT was hit by some of the heaviest artillery and mortar fire that was received by a UN unit during the entire Korean War.

Another physician, Captain Herman R. Hansen, and I gave the transfusions of whole blood to the most seriously wounded of the casualties who had been evacuated to the regimental collecting station. Two of the wounded casualties died in the collecting station during the first night of the battle. There were no more deaths among the more than 300 casualties who were cared for in the collecting station until they could be evacuated to hospitals. This was on the fourth day, after the enemy had withdrawn. As was borne out later, in Vietnam, that there was an apparent causal association between this provision of whole blood and the fact that there were no more deaths.

The medical personnel at Chipyong-ni had every right to be proud of what they had accomplished. The United States Army’s Center of Military History published a book, however, that states that one Master Sergeant had cared for all of the casualties at Chipyong-ni as a result of a “deficiency in the number of doctors and in the quality of their training.”

The Center of Military History has refused to honor repeated requests by individuals and organizations that it acknowledge that these statements in this book, The Medics’ War are untrue.

This blog was started, therefore to present the true story of how the wounded were treated at Chipyong-ni.

Now that it has been started, I will add other reminiscences to the blog.

My son, Mike and daughter, Sue are making this possible. Mike edits the items; Sue places them on the blog.