Battle Field Angels (20 page)

Corpsmen on Tarawa treated thousands of wounded Marines while exposed to enemy fire after the U.S. Navy’s pre-invasion bombardment stripped the atoll of nearly all vegetation.
(USMC)

Tarawa’s narrow strip of sand along the lagoon became clogged with hundreds of wounded Marines who were treated by corpsmen prior to evacuation by amphibious landing craft.
(USMC)

Corpsmen were exposed to enemy fire when they dragged wounded Marines over a coconut-log wall near the water’s edge on Tarawa that provided their only protection. The Marines’ invasion force was pinned down on the narrow beach after enduring brutal enemy fire as they crossed the lagoon in exposed landing craft.
(Ray Duffee Collection)

War heroes like Ray Duffee often were pulled off the battlefield to make speeches at home, urging civilians to buy war bonds to support the war effort.
(Ray Duffee Collection)

In World War I, the medical corps became fully integrated with the front line troops. They provided prompt care that stabilized thousands of badly wounded patients so they could be transported by ambulance and rail to field and evacuation hospitals in rear areas.
(National Archives)

Marines paid a steep price in World War II’s Pacific island assaults. Many amphibious landings resulted in so many wounded Marines that some had to wait more than a day until an amphibious landing craft was available to evacuate them to hospital ships offshore.
(USMC)

Makeshift aid stations sometimes were established in river beds, abandoned vehicles, or behind natural cover.
(U.S. Army)

Thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps in the months following the Pearl Harbor attack. Later, many volunteered for a segregated Japanese-American army battalion that became one of the most decorated units in World War II.
(U.S. Army)

Medic James Okubo was one of twenty-two Asian Americans who were awarded the nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, more than fifty-five years after the end of World War II. Okubo’s award was posthumous. He had died in an auto accident more than thirty years earlier.
(U.S. Army)

Few planned to become heroes when they enlisted. Most, like Joe Marquez, felt an obligation to serve their country and leave their childhood home behind as they stood at the edge of adulthood.
(Joe Marquez)

Barren coral ridges, called the Umurbrogols, on Peleliu were honeycombed with caves used by Japanese snipers to ambush exposed American troops and medical personnel.
(USMC)

A corpsman on Iwo Jima shook an injured man’s hand. A soldier wounded in battle rarely had the opportunity to thank the corpsman or medic who may have saved his life on the battlefield.
(USMC)