Desperate Surgery in the Pacific War: Doctors and Damage Control for American Wounded, 1941-1945

Caring for the wounded in the World War II Pacific Theater posed serious challenges to doctors and surgeons. The thick jungles, remote atolls and heavily defended Japanese islands of the Pacific presented dangers to medical personnel never before encountered in modern warfare, as did the devastating new kamikaze attacks.

Sophisticated treatments, including complex surgery, were by necessity far removed from the fighting, requiring front line doctors to do the minimum—often under fire—to sta...