Excerpts from the Secretary of the Navy's 1943-44 annual report to President Franklin D. Roosevelt concluded that for
99 of 100 men wounded during the Normandy landings, the road to recovery began on the beachhead. Expertly trained and
equipped Army and Navy medical personnel
gave first-aid treatment of life-saving proportions to the initial assault
troops during the amphibious attack. Medical care was exacting because of the nature and the severity of the wounds.
By the use of plasma, control of hemorrhage and proper splinting, personnel of the ESBs and the USN Beach Battalions
were able to evacuate those injured whose lives might otherwise have been lost. Definitive life-saving surgery was
practiced aboard LSTs and the majority of the 41,035 wounded reaching England for hospitalization were in excellent
condition. The mortality rate of the wounded evacuated from the invasion beaches of France was 3/10 of 1 percent.
Fifty-seven years after the USN evacuation miracle, 6th Naval Beach Battalion veterans "spearheaded" a Department of
Defense documentary - Navy Medicine at Normandy D-Day June 6, 1944 - produced by the Naval School of Health Sciences
in cooperation with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Dr. Lee Parker and medical historian and author Jan Herman
returned to Normandy, France for on-location filming and identification of USN "far-shore" evacuation sites. Dr.
Parker and Herman are pictured above on the May-June 1999 cover of Navy Medicine magazine.
In the masterful re-creation of the cross-Channel assault, Director Jack Lewin combines on-screen interviews of D-Day
veterans with 1944 invasion film. The Surgeon General of the Navy, VADM Richard A. Nelson and the Association of
Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS) invited military guests, veterans and their families for the 21 May
2001 premiere of the documentary at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, DC.
|
|
| |
| Left to right, Historian Jan Herman, Corpsman Vince Kordack,
Beachmaster Joseph Vaghi, Dr. Richard Borden, Dr. Joseph Brennan, Dr. Lee Parker and Director Jack Lewin at the U.S. Navy Memorial premiere of Navy Medicine
at Normandy D-Day June 6, 1944. After WWII, having "received their calling" on bloody Omaha Beach, both Dr.
Brennan and Dr. Borden
entered medical school.
|
The Lone Sailor
The U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation: www.lonesailor.org
Reprint from the Fall 2001 issue
"Normandy Allies"
Nearly 60 years after the fact, high school students are learning about the Sailors of the largest armada in history.
On July 10, the Navy Memorial Foundation's Education Institute explained the Navy's role in the 1944 D-Day invasion
to student participants of the Normandy Allies international Experience 2001.
"Your presentation assisted us greatly in attempting to visualize an event which is now so hard to imagine when
standing on those shores," said Normandy Allies, Inc. President Marsha Smith.
Few histories of the 1944 Allied assault on Normandy discuss the role of the sea services in-depth. The Education
Institute's presentation explained the roles of the many ships involved in the attack, from battleships to
transports to assault craft. Contributions of the Sailors on the beach, the beachmasters, signalmen, and medical
personnel of the 6th and 7th Navy Beach Battalions, also received special attention in the presentation.
The program's 12 student participants, selected from across the U.S., visit sites in Washington, the D-Day Museum in
New Orleans, pre-invasion sites in England, and the beaches of France. Normandy Allies, Inc., a non-profit
organization, conducts the program, which is now in its third year.
By seeing slide presentations, photographs, and artifacts - including an original set of coxswain's invasion maps -
students learned of the invasion force's naval organization, the specific missions of individual ships and units, and
the impact of the tens of thousands of Sailors who participated at Normandy.
"The lesson carried over very well as we stood on Omaha and Utah beaches," Smith said.
Students also saw a new Navy video production, "Navy Medicine at Normandy: June 6, 1944." The video presents
interviews of doctors, hospital corpsmen, and other Sailors and Coast Guardsmen who assisted casualties on the
French beaches.
"The medical aspect is often overlooked," said Smith. "I feel the significance of studying this - or at least
opening the door to students' understanding of the medical components - is vital to our program and our mission."
www.normandyallies.org
The History Channel produced MAIL CALL, a 60th anniversary of D-Day special hosted by R. Lee Ermey. Normandy D-Day
"is arguably the single most important event of the 20th century." The Allied invasion of "Fortress Europe," which
commenced with the massive D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. On that
day, some 170,000 troops, including the 6th Naval Beach Battalion in the "spearhead" of the attack, and a flotilla
of 4,000 ships steamed toward France for a battle that would forever change the world. This great DVD includes 1944
training footage of the 2nd, 6th and 7th NBBs in the UK and 2004 interviews with Beachmaster Joe Vaghi and Corpsman
Vince Kordack.
A Tribute to My Father, filmed by Joseph Vaghi III, is not available for purchase, but at a future date, excerpts will
be showcased on this website. The DVD covers the National World War II Memorial Dedication and includes personal
comments by Ed Marriott, Ken Davey, Tom Brokaw, Tom Hanks, Postmaster General Jack Potter, Master Chief Petty
Officer of the Navy Terry Scott, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dick Myers, Don Rumsfeld, Archbishop Philip Hannon,
who was a chaplain with the 82nd Airborne in Normandy, Bob Dole and President George H. Bush.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recently produced Legacy of Heroes: Wounded in Action,
an outstanding documentary covering the World War II combat physicians with a big emphasis on the Allied invasion of Europe. The
DVD honors the dedication, sacrifice, and heroism of the 600,000 medical men and women who served in World War II.
BuMed Historian Jan Herman, who made Navy Medicine at Normandy, was a contributor. A Legacy of Heroes book is
available with the documentary.
Back to Top
