General Bradley attached to each assault battalion a platoon from one of the collecting companies of the 96th Division Medical Battalion. These platoons landed with the assault waves, collected the casualties on the beach, gave them the necessary treatment, and then evacuated them to designated ships by landing craft. After the Navy beach parties had established aid stations the medical units cleared casualties through them.[34]
ROAD CONDITIONS. Disintegration of the roads greatly increased the supply problem. Filipino carriers unload an amphibious LVT(4) (above); carriers for the 1st Cavalry Division near Carigara (below).
As the battle moved on beyond the beaches, the remaining medical units came ashore and hospitals were put into operation. For the first few days, however, the medical units evacuated all casualties to naval vessels in the harbor, whereupon the vessels sailed for a rear area base. It frequently happened that a man with a minor wound or illness, or a nonbattle injury, would be well and fit for further duty by the time the vessel reached the rear area.[35]
After the campaign had progressed beyond the beaches, both the corps evacuated to rear areas only those casualties who required prolonged hospitalization. The Filipino civilian employees of the Army and members of the Filipino armed forces received treatment but were not evacuated from the island without approval from Sixth Army headquarters. Wounded or sick Japanese prisoners were segregated in the hospitals but, otherwise, they received the same treatment as other patients.[36] Within three days after landing, the XXIV Corps set up a field hospital which was ready to receive patients on the following day. Consequently, all casualties who had already been evacuated to the ships but who required hospitalization for less than fifteen days were brought ashore and held in the shore party medical section or admitted to the hospital.[37]
Co-operation between the medical services of the Sixth Army and those of the Seventh Fleet was excellent. Col. William A. Hagins, Sixth Army Surgeon, praised the medical service of the Seventh Fleet in unstinting terms: “The LST’s equipped to provide surgical service conformed to the highest professional standards and they, together with the APH’s (transports for wounded) and the small PCE(R)’s (patrol craft, escort (rescue)) formed a floating hospital reserve that varied between 3,000 and 5,000 beds. Without this service, which relieved the hard pressed hospitals of many cases, the level of medical and surgical care on Leyte would certainly have been sub-standard.”[38]
After the action had progressed beyond the beaches, the evacuation of troops became more difficult. Each medical collecting company of the 96th Division was furnished nine ¼-ton trucks and three other cargo carriers. The swamps and steep hills precluded the use of trucks, however, and the number of cargo carriers was insufficient for the task. The latter were most useful in evacuating casualties across swamps and rice paddies. It was necessary to use litter bearers in the mountains, but the narrow trails permitted the use of only two men to carry each litter. For some unexplained reason, attempts to use Filipinos as litter bearers were not successful.[39] The 24th Division, unlike the 96th, found the Filipinos to be excellent litter bearers and recommended their use whenever possible, since they were willing workers who conserved the efficiency of a combat unit by replacing the combat soldiers.[40]
Medical Treatment
With very few exceptions, all casualties were treated within one hour after the wound had been inflicted. At the forward aid stations the wounded soldier received only initial treatment necessary before evacuation to the collecting station. When the casualty arrived at that point, he was bathed and prepared for further evacuation to a clearing station. There the necessary surgery was performed to make the patient safe for further evacuation, and he was then taken to a rear area. Because of the swamps and steep hills in the 96th Division sector, the time lag in evacuation from the forward aid station to the clearing station varied from one hour to thirty hours.[41] In the 24th Division zone, the clearing stations remained mobile. Only in rare instances, where it was impossible to remove patients because of heavy fighting, was a casualty more than four hours in reaching the clearing station.[42]