March 19, 1945
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| Boats in Dagupan harbor |
Yesterday I operated [on] a severe chest wound - 4, 5 and 6 ribs fract. [three of the middle ribs were fractured] by a tangential bullet wound [the bullet did not penetrate the chest], and a 4" rent in the pleura [the membrane surrounding the lungs]. Wired the ribs, sutured about half the pleura, closed 2 layers of muscle and fascia [fibrous tissue] to make it air tight.
March 20, 1945 Chest case fine.
March 21, 1945
The guerrillas took San Fernando. We are getting a few more casualties. They are pushing the Japs in toward Baguio. I wish we'd set up there - after it is safe!
March 22, 1945
An ammo dump between Damortis and San Fabian was hit by Jap bombs and burned from 4 P.M. until morning. [According to a newspaper article, a Tokyo broadcast claimed Japanese planes had started 11 fires in the area]. We saw the planes.
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| Modified Rand McNally map showing Agoo (92nd Evac stationed) Dagupan (Gene visited), Damortis and San Fabian (ammo dump bombed) and Galiano (heavy fighting) |
March 24, 1945 O.D. [officer of the day in charge of the hospital] last night. Patton across the Rhine!
March 26, 1945 Palm Sunday - quiet day. My chest case of a week ago up and walking around today!
March 29, 1945 More casualties. The fighting for Baguio is no cinch! Most casualties taken care of by clearing co.'s [clearing companies were sometimes links between the first aid stations and the evacuation hospitals, but they weren't set up for surgery].
30 March '45
Dear Folks [Beth's sister and brother-in-law, Mary X and John],
My correspondence has been piling up on me, for I've been quite busy. Things are a bit tough on the front we're near. We haven't had so many fresh casualties as we have those who have been taken care of at the clearing stations, and then sent to us. And we've had more of the fool Filipinos - kids and adults - who insist on monkeying with dud shells and fuses!
Your [Christmas] Bulletin is most interesting and clever, though you make me blush! I'll be darned if I see how all of you can keep up such a whirl of activities - it leaves me dizzy to think of it. I'm certainly proud of Jim [the brother of Beth and Mary X] and his Bronze Star [awarded for meritorious service, the fourth-highest combat award in the armed services]! The way things sound, he may get home for a while this year [Jim was in the Quartermaster Corp, which dealt in supplies for the whole army, in the European Theater]. I'm very much afraid I won't. Probably I'll see China and maybe even Japan before this thing is over. Except for a cold (the second in 6 weeks) I'm doing O.K. Our food is good, for army life. Food and mail are certainly better this war.
Love, Eugene
Gene continues to briefly catalog his days in his diary:
March 31, 1945 [Holy Saturday] Fiesta day in Agoo! I saw the feeble parade. Received a birthday card mailed Sept. 20 [Gene's birthday was October 15th].
April 1, 1945 [Easter] Removed a fragment the size of a corn kernel from the Rt. temporal region - just thru the dura [the tough membrane surrounding the brain] into the brain.
April 2, 1945 Very busy. Census 750. Many casualties from 123 Reg. near Galiano.
April 3, 1945 Brain case rational and doing well. I have 75 patients! Not many casualties today. Heavy rain last night.
April 4, 1945 Some Christmas packages - 6 months on the way! Census 812
Gene continues to catalog some of his cases: a lieutenant had a clip of cartridges explode against his left thigh; a guerrilla had a sucking wound in his chest; a little girl was full of grenade holes, probably from unwisely picking it up; a hole deflated his air mattress. He fixes them all up.
April 11, 1945 Hot rumor. We start closing this A.M., out of a clear sky. Our census is 805! But we received 115, evacuated 400!
April 12, 1945 Up at 1:45 to do a laparotomy [incision through the abdominal wall] - one hole in ileum [last part of the small intestine], couldn't find one in the rectum though blood by proctoscopic [exam] [looking up the rectum using an instrument like a hollow tube]. To bed at 5:30.
Pretty worthless "hot rumor"! The 92nd continues to receive casualties - 108 on April 15th, 182 on April 16th. In the five weeks they have been in Agoo, 2501 patients have been admitted. Two days later they worked on 46 cases between 5 P.M. and 2 A.M.
None of the doctors from the 92nd Evac are alive, and not many of the nurses and ward men. One outstanding exception is nurse "Little Willie", Althea Williams. Her memories and some of the memories from the 92nd Evac Reunions will make up my next post, which will be on Memorial Day.
