forerunner of the Independent Duty Hospital Corpsman School. Hospital Corpsmen were assigned to the multitude of duty types and locations needed to support a Navy involved in a world war. Naval hospitals were opened and staffed. Ships and aircraft squadrons were given medical support. At sea, the dangers of the new war were ever present. Naval training facilities and shore establishments needed Hospital Corpsmen, as did occupation forces in Haiti and other bases around the world. But World War I provided the Hospital Corps a role that would afford it some of the most dangerous challenges it would ever face: duty with the Marine Corps. Assignment to Marine Corps units was not completely new. Hospital Corpsmen were serving with Marine occupational forces in Cuba, Haiti, and Santo Domingo at the outbreak of the war, and they had seen other similar service. It was the change of the Marine Corps’ role to one of expeditionary forces in a large-scale ground war that changed what Hospital Corpsmen would do. Sick call and preventive medicine were continuous roles that remained unchanged. Facing artillery, mustard gas, and machine gunfire were new experiences. A heritage of valorous service with the Marines was born, as evidenced by two Hospital Corpsmen receiving the Medal of Honor. Other decorations to Hospital Corpsmen included 55 Navy Crosses, 31 Army Distinguished Service Crosses, 2 Navy Distinguished Service Medals, and 237 Silver Stars. A hundred foreign personal decorations were granted to Navy Hospital Corpsmen, and 202 earned the right to wear the French Fourragère shoulder aiguillette permanently. Their 684 personal awards make the Hospital Corps, by one account, the most decorated American unit of World War I. PHARMACIST’S MATES IN WORLD WAR II World War II became the period of Hospital Corps’ greatest manpower, diversity of duty, and instance of sacrifice. Between 1941 and 1945, the ranks of this small organization swelled from its prewar levels of near 4,000 to more than 132,000 personnel. This increase came to fulfill new responsibilities with new technologies at new duty stations. In the face of great adversity, the Hospital Corps would cement its reputation for effectiveness and bravery. The Navy’s fleet expanded to thousands of ships, and the Marine Corps grew from a few regiments to six divisions. A two-ocean war produced horrific numbers of casualties, and the Hospital Corps grew to meet the needs of casualty collection, treatment, and convalescence. To educate the influx of new Sailors, Hospital Corps Training School at Portsmouth, Virginia, was augmented by a temporary school at Naval Hospital Brooklyn, New York. The school at Great Lakes was recreated in 1942, and others were started at Farragut, Idaho, and at Bainbridge, Maryland, in 1943. A separate Hospital Corps Training School was established for women (fig. APP-I-3) at Bethesda, Maryland, in January 1944. Specialized schools were opened to train pharmacist’s mates for independent duty and for service with the Marines. Additionally, courses were established to instruct personnel on new equipment and techniques in dozens of developing medical fields. Shore-based duty sent Hospital Corps personnel to hospitals and dispensaries in the United States and abroad. Advance-base hospitals on newly captured Pacific islands formed a crucial link in the chain of evacuation from battle sites. Those facilities in Hawaii or England received casualties from their respective fronts, and wounded service personnel recuperated in Stateside hospitals. Hospital Corpsmen made the treatment of American casualties possible at each of these by providing technical support and direct patient care. Duty on surface ships afforded Hospital Corpsmen numerous challenges and abundant environments in which to face them. Hospital ships required the services of personnel in much the same way as shore-based hospitals, except that those on ship were afloat and subject to attack. Other classes of vessels, such as landing ships and patrol craft (LSTs and PCERs), became large floating clinics/ambulances which required additional Hospital Corps personnel. Additionally, combatant ships and transports in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean theaters took casualties from ships, aircraft, and submarines throughout the war, necessitating the service of well-trained Hospital Corpsmen. Approximately 300 Hospital Corpsmen sat out all but the early days of the war when they were captured in the Philippines by the invading Japanese. In prisoner-of-war camps and huddled in POW “hell ships,” they endured malnutrition, disease, torture, and brutality. One hundred thirty-two Hospital Corpsmen died as prisoners during World War II, a death rate almost 20 percent higher than among other American POWs. AI-5