Every December 7, Americans and the U.S. military commemorate the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and recognize that "day of infamy" as the one that officially brought the United States into World War II.
For the Navy medical corps, Pearl Harbor offered the first large scale medical emergency in decades, according to André Sobocinski, a historian and publications manager for the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Falls Church, Virginia.
"The attacks on Pearl Harbor opened up a new era of surgical therapy and provided the first exposure to wartime issues of flash burns, compound fractures and shock," Sobocinski said.
On the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on America, we still honor the service men and women of the medical corps, who selflessly aided the hundreds of injured and burned causalities that day at military hospitals and triage sites around the harbor.
"From their first realization of an enemy attack, the doctors, dentists, nurses, and corpsmen were unexcelled in personal bravery, in determination, in resourcefulness, and in their capacity to put into practice previously formulated plans," the Naval History and Heritage Command wrote in its account of the attack.
"There was an overwhelming need to go into immediate action, retrieve the casualties, and provide medical services - to do what we were trained to do," said Sobocinski.
"They did this not knowing if a third attack was imminent."
The Attack and Its Aftermath
The surprise attack began at 7:55 a.m. in Hawaii and lasted one hour and 15 minutes. A total of 2,403 U.S. personnel died in the attack, including 68 civilians; another 1,178 were wounded; 159 U.S. aircraft were damaged; 169 were destroyed; 16 ships were damaged and three were destroyed, according to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
Half of all the casualties were from the crew of the USS Arizona, a battleship that sank in Pearl Harbor with most its crew onboard.
The medical crews worked around the clock treating second- and third-degree burns, shock as well as shrapnel and machinegun wounds, and other injuries, Sobocinski said.
The medical teams worked in a patchwork of locations, including the "battle dressing stations and sick bays of the war ships; aboard the hospital ship Solace; at first-aid stations; at the dispensaries of the two naval air stations; the Marine Corps Air Station at Ewa; the Defense Battalions of the Fleet Marine Force; the Navy Yard, and the Section Base at Bishop's Point; at a 'field hospital' which was set up in the Officers' Club of the Navy Yard; and at the Mobile Base Hospital and the U.S. Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor," according to the Naval History and Heritage Command's account.
"Nurses, physicians, and medical corpsmen triaged, stabilized, and transported those likely to survive, while staging the dead behind the building," according to a historical account from the Army Medical Department.
"The emergency room at Tripler Hospital was quickly flooded with patients from the battlefield, but the staff was able to sort patients appropriately to the wards, to the operating room, or provide comfort care as they died," according to the Army Medical Department's account.
And "at Schofield [Barracks] Hospital, collaboration between tireless doctors, nurses, and corpsmen was key to providing life-saving surgery and care."
Army nurse Myrtle M. Watson was the only nurse in the orthopedic ward at Schofield Hospital during the attack. As the bombing started, "she helped protect patients by piling mattresses around them for cover," according to an account from the Department of Veterans Affairs. "For three days, Watson continued working around the clock, with only a skeleton crew to assist" her and only a dim flashlight at night.
Heroes Rise
Despite the chaos and shock, medical personnel rose to the challenge and several later received valor awards to honor acts of personal courage and bravery.
As the Japanese bombs started raining down on the U.S. Navy's fleet at Pearl Harbor, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Hugh Alexander, the senior dentist aboard the USS Oklahoma, became trapped below deck in a compartment where the only means of escape were several portholes.
The ship, struck by several torpedoes, began to capsize. Alexander knew he could not fit through the portholes, but he looked around and found the thinnest men from among those trapped and helped them squeeze through the narrow openings to relative safety.
Alexander died in the Pearl Harbor attack and was honored posthumously with a Silver Star for valor in combat.