A DOCTOR IN THE PACIFIC WAR
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1/19/44 - We are living in a barracks much like the one I described at the last place except that this one is not screened. We are sleeping on cots and using our mosquito nets. Water is scarce here too, but being a hospital, we are getting more than the civilians. The officers’ rec. hall and mess is in one building. The food is fair, but we have to pay extra in order to get fresh fruits and eggs. My mess bill here will amount to about $37 per month. There is a bar in the mess which is open from 5 to 10 p.m. Liquor is rationed, and each officer gets two quarts per month. The bar draws our ration and we pay by the drink. The same is true for cigarettes. One carton per week. The weather is very hot. I perspire all the time and we have to take salt every day. We lose quarts of water in the operating room and one comes out feeling like a dish rag. We heard today that there are 18 sacks of mail and packages waiting at the place we were supposed to go. That is all October and November mail. I think we will get it here soon. I think we may set up our general hospital here but if that is so, we will have to build it. That seems to be the way it is done in foreign service. 2/7/44 – We have been much busier yesterday and today since we started to function as a unit. I can’t give you the detail of the number and type of patients but if this has been any indicator we will be busy enough. I expect to have three nurses and one enlisted man in anesthesia. Only one nurse has had any training, so I will have to train the others. 3/20/44 - I have been out to the new area all of the last three days. It is coming along fine but there are so many changes that one has to fight for. Whoever designed the thing had never worked in a hospital for long, for in some respects it is completely out of order. 7/20/44 –The past two days have been quite trying. I have a total of nine nurses working for me, and I have known for some time that they did not get along very well with each other. However, I ignored it, thinking it probably would all work out in time. However, it does not seem so, for recently I have been hearing more and more reverberations of their remarks. I have spent almost all of the last two days and evenings finding out just where the trouble was and what to do about it. This weekend, there will be a general housecleaning and a separation of one department from another, discharging two of the nurses and getting two more. I sure hope it works better in the future. 10/8/44 – This is Sunday evening and the end of a hectic 24 hours. In the midst of all the confusion, I received, at noon yesterday, the orders sending me to Melbourne to see Kaye. At first the colonel said I couldn’t go, then said I could, so I started to pack and get plane reservations for tomorrow a.m. I not only had to pack for the trip south, but also pack everything here so it could be sent on. By noon today, I was pretty well fixed with the valpack all ready, the foot locker ready, barracks bag packed and everything in order for the bedding roll. Just after lunch, the colonel came to my tent and said because of new developments I should not go. Everything is just as it was – in the middle of the floor. I just had a good big drink and went to bed for a nap. Monday, 11/20/44 – In the Philippines – The 18th continues to be the date in history. We landed here on that day. Conditions are unbelievable. We were bombed on landing but everybody safe. Mud is knee deep and rain all the time. We are in our area and at present in small tents but fairly dry. It is now 7:30 a.m. The artillery, ack-ack, etc. are in action. If the rain stops, we will have breakfast. Sincerely, there is no need to worry as the island is almost all ours. 12/10/44 – Situation is very different now. With a new offensive and the road situation, we have had to take some patients. Consequently, we had to set up a temporary surgery and some wards. It was quite a job, for we have so little of our equipment. Many of us have had to work 24 to 36 hours at a stretch. My longest period so far has been 36 hours, and then only three hours sleep. 12/10/44 – Got a lot of new patients yesterday from the front. We are now up to capacity and making plans how we can enlarge the place. The last few lots have had a higher proportion of surgical cases, so we are a little busier now. 2/11/45 - The question of writing you about the attack was a hard one to decide. The fact that you do not get my mail for two or three weeks makes it very confusing, since conditions are probably entirely different at the end of that time. Also, had I written you about it and then something happened to later mail, you would have been beside yourself with worry. In spite of all this reasoning, you have this definite fact to rely on. In case of something happening to me, either accident or serious illness, you would receive an official notification from the War Department long before a letter could reach you.
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In August 1942, Malcolm Henry Hawk left a promising post-graduate medical residency in Wisconsin to begin serving his country in the Pacific Theater during World War II. In the Pacific, he served as an anesthesiologist with the 44th General Army Hospital, first in Australia and then in the Philippines. The work was essential and often hard; the medical staff treated frontline casualties and also kept the support troops healthy. Malcolm was fortunate to be seldom in danger, although he mentions being uncomfortably close to a few Japanese attacks in the Philippines. But the hazards of his military life included the frustrations of trying to obtain the equipment and operating facilities that his unit needed, the rigors of tent life, searing heat and monsoon rains, the loneliness of missing his family, endless hours of boredom, and worries about what he would do after the war was over and he came home to resume his career. His letters home paint a vivid picture of what daily life was actually like for one medical doctor during the war.