Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor by Scott James M

Author:Scott, James M. [Scott, James M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2015-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

TED LAWSON’S CONDITION continued to deteriorate. He suffered a terrible night on April 25, forcing Doc White to give him a blood transfusion. The doctor recruited Griffith Williams to serve as the donor, since he and Lawson shared type A blood. “I had no means of doing a proper crossmatching so had to take the chance of sub-groups and a reaction,” White later wrote in his unpublished memoir. “We had the expected trouble with clogging needles and syringes, but managed to get in 150 cc the first try and later after cleaning and boiling the outfit, 200 cc on the second try. Ted seemed stronger afterward.”

Missionary Frank England held a prayer service at the hospital the next morning for the aviators, and then White accompanied England to his home, where he built a modified Rodger Anderson splint to help Lawson’s leg. “Installing the splint was a painful process,” White wrote, “but immobolizing the knee joint and elevating the leg made him more comfortable and I hoped would improve drainage.”

The magistrate brought the aviators a large basket of oranges, while other municipal and military officials arrived with gifts of raisins, grapefruit, wine, and canned butter. A group of children came from a town forty miles away to deliver 450 eggs.

On April 27 Smith, Williams, Sessler, Saylor, and Thatcher departed via sedan chair for Chuchow, leaving behind White and the injured airmen. “We all sent letters out with them,” White wrote. “We felt pretty lonesome after they had gone.”

Lawson continued to struggle, prompting White the next day to give him chloroform and operate on his leg to enlarge his wounds and improve drainage. The procedure almost proved too much for Lawson. “Ted stopped breathing,” White wrote. “I had some anxious moments before we could get him going properly again.”

The surgery appeared to help. The next day White dressed his wounds, which he noted in his diary looked much better. Afterward he went into town, where he bought a thermos for $120 and twenty tablets of sulfanilamide for $40. Lawson’s reprieve proved short-lived. By May 1 his leg again looked bad, leading White to grind up his entire supply of sulfanilamide tablets into power, which he applied to his wounds.

A local doctor from the Plague Prevention Unit and Public Health Hospital at Kinwah arrived with morphine, more sulfanilamide, and a blood transfusion kit. White went to work immediately. Both Clever and McClure were still weak, so rather than take a full pint from either, he took just enough from both to give Lawson 500 cubic centimeters. “Lawson no better,” White wrote in diary on May 3. “I’m afraid he’ll lose that leg.”

White wired Chunking the next day after the Sunday service to see whether it might be possible to dispatch a seaplane that could land on the river, but he received no response. “By Monday Lawson was in such poor shape that it was evident that both his leg and his neck could not be saved,” White later wrote. “So we decided to amputate.

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