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On March 24, 1943, I talked to Dr. William H. Wynn. Dr. Wynn stated that he was making rounds early on the morning of December 7, 1941, and had been told at Kapiolani Hospital that the city was under attack, but like many discounted it. He went to St. Francis and then to Children's Hospital, and while he was there three badly wounded children were brought into the hospital. He then proceeded to Queen's Hospital, where he was told on the steps of Queen's Hospital, by someone that had talked to Dr. Hodgins, about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He proceeded to his office and awaited call to a point of need. However, no call came, and about 1:00 o'clock he gathered together the assistants at his office, namely Mrs. Hazel Matson, Mrs. Peggy Haglund, Miss Truslow and a male nurse, Jerry Owens, who had formerly been a medical corps man in the Army. With these four people he drove to Tripler General Hospital, where he reported for duty.
He was assigned to surgery and worked in the major surgery until 11:00 p.m., at which time they had just about cleared up all the major cases. So far as he knows, the minor work was done on the wards. He stated that they had to borrow scissors back and forth from one table to another; that there was an inadequate and improper type of suture material; that about all the suture material they had was No. 2 chromic catgut. He worked in the bottoms of a pajama suit without any top., and the last two or three hours there were no gloves. He threw alcohol over himself and was fortunate to have a rag tied around his head as a mask. The former hospital corps man, who was an anesthetist, helped him at the surgical table. He saw no Army surgeons in surgery [this was in accordance with plans already made.--Ed.] and he stated that all patients who came up were tagged, and X-rays came with them--but this system broke down towards the last. He stated that there was some Major in charge of sorting the patients as they came into the hospital, and that the regular Army doctors were out doing field care, and that the wounded had received proper field care.
He said the operating rooms and the equipment were inadequate to take care of a hundred men, let alone the number of patients that were dropped on Tripler that day. He said that the instruments they had were about the equivalent of the dissecting sets which they had when in medical school.
When he went out he took with him about 5 lbs. of sulfathiazole, but the drug ran out. The Army usually uses iodine for the preparation of the wounds, and this stains the dead tissues very well. About half of the patients that he needed plasma on were able to obtain either plasma or blood, and there was not enough help at the hospital. He stated there were three men working in each surgery; that when he first went out Dr. Benz and Dr. Batten were working in the same room with him, and after they had finished someone else took it up, and there was Dr. Cooper and himself and the third party working in their room. He said there were no plaster supplies and no splints obtainable.
" I have read the above report of my conversation, and it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief."
Wm. H. Wynn, M.D.
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On March 9, 1943, I interviewed Dr. Frederick F. Alsup. Dr. Alsup stated that on the morning of December 7, 1941, about 7:30 in the morning, he went to his new home in Woodlawn from their beach place. The first that he was aware of the attack was when he saw the burst of anti-aircraft shells. He then went to the home of a friend, Mr. Henry Davis, on Spencer Street, where he met Mr. Davis and Mr. Davis' son-in-law, who was a military officer (he does not remember the service). Dr. Alsup asked the officer what was going on, and he stated that it was a practice raid, and then remarked, "They're making it pretty real." Shortly thereafter they saw some strange planes come in over the mountains from Waimanalo direction, pass over Diamond Head and turn toward Pearl Harbor (he believes they were yellowish in color) which the officer identified as not belonging to the American forces. The officer insisted that it was a practice affair well camouflaged, for, said he, "If it was a real attack they would have sent for me." Just at that moment two soldiers drove up in a car and called for him.
About that time a friend of his, Allan Davis, called up and told them that Pearl Harbor was being bombed. He immediately proceeded to Queen's Hospital and met Dr. Jesse Smith in front of the Hospital, who told him that he was wanted at Tripler General Hospital. He got in Dr. Smith's car and they drove to Tripler General. They were directed to the operating rooms by a Major, where they found some Army doctors already working on the wounded. The corridors were filled. He was assisted by a Lieutenant whose name he does not remember. He stated that he had good anesthetists throughout the day, and that they had an anesthetist who was very good at intravenous anesthesia. He stated that he always had two nurses, and that he ran short of no equipment except when he asked for Thomas splints to transfer the compound fractures to the ward. He states that he took care of all types of cases except head injuries.
He remembers one man whose hip was blasted by shrapnel [ i.e., shell fragments.--Ed.] which finally lodged on the other side. One man had his leg shot off at the hip; they were able to stop the hemorrhage and give him a transfusion, but the man died. He recalls one officer who had his thigh badly mangled, and he worked on this case while Dr. R.O. Brown worked on wounds on the same case. When he called for a Thomas splint there was none, and two of them had to hold the leg in place until they got him to the ward. At one stage he ran across a case in which the ureter had been shot in two, and Dr. Brown took over the case and he went to take care of a wounded leg. He remembers a number of smaller wounds - one was a penetrating wound of the calf; he drew a strip of iodoform gauze through the wound and rubbed it back and forth, and then put iodine on the gauze and again rubbed it back and forth. One man who had a flesh wound of his arm whom he cleaned up and sewed up, asked him for his name and was profuse in his thanks to doctors and nurses for the very nice way he had been treated. This man was the only instance of this sort. The men generally said nothing. One Lieutenant remarked that he, "sure would hate to lose that leg." He stated that no patients complained of having to wait, but there was one with a shattered shoulder being operated on on the table next to him without anesthetic, and the patient screamed with pain. At the same time he was taking care of a more seriously wounded man, and this patient said, "I don't mind all these things but that gets me"--referring to the screaming.
He stated that the Army men downstairs and upstairs in the corridor handled things extremely well. All cases were brought in by Army personnel, and he did not have to move any of the patients himself. He said he probably didn't need as many instruments as many men seemed to think they needed--probably because of the fact that he had had war experience during the last war and had become accustomed to using few tools. He doesn't know how many cases he handled, but feels in looking back that he, in common with all the other men, tended to overestimate the number of cases which he did. He does not believe that he took care of over ten or fifteen more or less major cases, and perhaps and equal number of minor cases.
He remained at the hospital until about 7:00 p.m., when he returned home. He remained there until about 9:00 p.m., when he was called and asked to come back. He started back at about the time the of the second air raid alarm and was detained at Waikiki for some time, so that he did not reach Tripler until about 11:00 o'clock. He then took care of three cases, and left Tripler General Hospital about 3:00 a.m. on the 8th, and then returned home, taking Dr. Jesse Smith with him in his car. They were stopped and investigated on the way home from the hospital, particularly since they had no pass to be out at that time of night.
He stated that Dr. Jesse Smith had been at Tripler Hospital most of the day, and did him a very good turn by going to find out whether or not his family at Diamond Head had been injured. This was probably about the middle of the afternoon, and of course Dr. Alsup had not heard what had happened in other sections of Honolulu. When he left the Hospital that first time about 7:00 p.m. Dr. Smith introduced him to Colonel King. He had not met him before, and stated his greeting was very cordial. He was on duty when Dr. Alsup left the Hospital the second time about 3:00 a.m.
" I have read the above report of my conversation, and it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief."
F.F. Alsup, M.D.
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On February 19, 1943, I talked to Dr. S. Clifton Culpepper. Dr. Culpepper stated that on the morning of December 7, 1941, he was at home, and that his office called him about 9:30 and told him that he was being called by the radio to go to Tripler General Hospital.
He proceeded to Tripler General Hospital and reported to the surgeon in charge, name unknown. He was informed that they had enough surgeons and for him to go to one of the wards and help clean things up, and to select the proper men to go to surgery and to x-ray. He stated that he had nothing to work with on the ward; that Dr. Eugene W. Mitchell came down to his office and got some instruments and a certain amount of drugs, as the only thing they had at Tripler General Hospital was iodine, morphine and tetanus anti-toxin. There were no dressings on the ward, and the ward boys [corps men?] and outsiders were tearing up sheets and rolling bandages. When Dr. Mitchell returned he and Dr. Culpepper fixed up a surgery in a small room near their word. They blanketed the windows and hung a blanket around the light in order to reduce any light that might get through. They were left entirely on their own. He stated that an occasional Army surgeon came by and asked if there was anything he could do.
He stated that they had no plasma at any time, and none was given on his ward while he was there. He stated that most all of the surgery that was done on the ward was the removal of pieces of shrapnel. They had a few compound fractures, and these they arranged to have x-rays. The compound fractures were then sent on to surgery. He took care of no penetrating abdominal wounds. He recalled one man who stated that he had been standing about twenty feet from a two or three foot brick wall, when a small Japanese bomb exploded just on the other side of the wall. The man was completely deaf, complained of pain in his chest, was in shock, and had all his hair blown off. There was no otoscope so Dr. Culpepper could not determine if his ear drums were ruptured. He could not find the cause of the man's complaints. He stated that he put in probably about twenty sutures during the day and took out about fifty; that someone, he didn't know who, had taken of a compound fracture of the arm and had the skin nicely sewed up. He opened up the wound and cleaned it out, implanted some one of the sulfa drugs, and ordered sulfa drugs on this man and every other man on his ward for the first twenty-four hours.
They continued to do this work until about 7:30, when five or six doctors went down to the supply depot where they were able to get knives, scissors, basins, dressings, bolts of gauze, etc. At 8:00 p.m. he was asked to relieve in the surgery, and he remained in surgery doing the routine work until about 2:30 a.m., when he returned to his ward where he remained till about 7:30 or 8:00 o'clock on the morning of the 8th.
He stated that three or four chest wounds were brought to the surgery while he was working in surgery, all of which had been well handled, and it was his feeling that they should not have been sent back to surgery. They apparently had been taken care of in the wards. Most of the chest wounds had been caused by machine gun bullets rather than shrapnel. He mentioned his feeling that it was unnecessary to change these dressings to some Army officers, but they stated that they felt it was better to have them looked at by the surgery and let the surgery take the responsibility.
In the morning when he went down to go home he found one of his tires flat and was rather provoked, feeling that somebody had let the air out in order to be sure to keep the civilian doctors at the hospital. He was informed that the flat tire was caused by an American machine gun bullet, and when he examined his car he found it had seven holes in it caused by other bullets. This made him feel a bit better. He went home in the morning and returned some time thereafter, asking about the dressings, and was told that the patients were all in good shape, and he never saw them again. Monday evening he came back to stand watch as requested, but was sent home about 11:00 o'clock in the evening in a truck, as he would not drive.
" I have read the above report of my conversation, and it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief."
S. CLIFTON CULPEPPER, M.D.
Medicine in Hawaii: The World War II Experience
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