A Surgeon with Stilwell by Alan K. Lathrop

Author:Alan K. Lathrop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2018-09-19T16:00:00+00:00

Grindlay and a small party of officers left New Delhi in a Packard automobile to drive to Agra, arriving in the rain at 5:00 in the afternoon. Their Indian driver killed three dogs and four doves en route, Grindlay noted with some amazement. Grindlay and his companions toured the Taj Mahal that evening and departed the next day for Allahabad, and then on to Ramgarh, arriving at 6:30 in the evening. They stayed in the officers’ quarters, where Grindlay was informed that he would be head of surgery with Seagrave, which must have come as a relief to him, although he made no note of it in his diary. The next day, Grindlay rode a borrowed bicycle to the hospital.

Ramgarh was a complex of four camps situated on a plateau about 1,500–2,000 feet in altitude, surrounded by hills (some of them densely jungled). Part of the compound was a former British prisoner-of-war camp in which German and Italians POWs were kept. It was turned over to the Americans to use in rehabilitating and training Chinese soldiers who had walked out of Burma or were flown in from China. Their training took place under the direction of Colonel (later Brigadier General) Frederick McCabe, one of the officers who had accompanied Stilwell on the walkout. Colonel Henry Holcombe (Services of Supply and another walkout veteran) was the post commander. McCabe had served as Stilwell’s G-3 at the latter’s headquarters in Maymyo and as a liaison officer with the Chinese Fifth Army along with Colonel Harry Aldrich; a white-haired officer with a friendly disposition who wore tortoise shell-rimmed glasses. He was a very good friend of Seagrave, Grindlay, O’Hara, and Chesley.7 Holcombe had charge of the facilities, including the hospital, which brought the Seagrave unit into closer daily contact with him than it had with McCabe.

The Seagrave unit was housed in the former Italian prison hospital, constructed of brick with a tile roof and concrete floor, surrounded by barbed wire. It held five wards, an operating room, a dental clinic, and an orderly room; living quarters for the doctors and nurses were nearby. The wards had 22 beds each, with verandas on all four sides. Seagrave and his staff were given the task of caring for all the patients sent to Ramgarh until the hospital was full, after which an American station hospital unit would be sent in to help with the overflow. Colonel Williams thought the likelihood that the entire hospital would be filled was remote.8 Events soon demonstrated that he had greatly underestimated the situation.

When Grindlay bicycled into the hospital compound on 28 July, he was joyously welcomed by everyone: “Tears & shouting,” he wrote in his diary. Seagrave assigned some of the nurses to make up living quarters for Grindlay and that evening held a special party for him, where he was reunited with everyone, including all the nurses (now increased to 31, Grindlay noted), Bill Cummings, O’Hara, and Chesley.9 Grindlay assumed supervision of the five patient wards and the

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