As stories are told about World War II one group is sometimes forgotten, but according to many veterans, they were the real heroes of the war: the medical units. Doctors, surgeons, dentists, nurses, all risked their own lives to save the lives of others. The survival rate during World War I was about 8%; during World War II it dropped to 4%; and one unit did even better - the 21st Evacuation Hospital from the University of Oklahoma.
Dr. Daniel Pearson was one of those doctors, having graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School in June, 1941. I met Dr. Pearson on August 24, 2007 at his office in south Dallas. Pearson told me that he had always planned on joining the Army if the U.S. went into war, but his draft board said they were going to take him as soon as he got through his internship (because of his low draft number), so he joined the 21st Evacuation Hospital.
“The Army had asked most medical schools to organize an affiliated hospital that could serve in the war and treat casualties,” said Dr. Pearson, ” so Oklahoma organized their’s as the 21st Evac Hospital. It probably started out with a dozen or more doctors from Oklahoma City, then it gradually grew from there.”
Dr. Pearson trained in the desert of California, expecting to go to North Africa, where General George Patton and his tank corps were operating, but the 21st was sent to the South Pacific, instead. Dr. Pearson set up a medical unit at Guadalcanal, several months after the invasion. “We took care of casualties that came in from the field,” said the soft-spoken Pearson. “About 2,000-3,000 patients. We were there (Guadalcanal) about 40 days. By that time we had finally pretty well filled up our quota and I think we rose to 46 doctors and about 60 administrators.”
Despite their training, the members of the 21st were not totally prepared for what they saw. “Everything we saw was trauma. Gunshots wounds and fragment wounds. In civilian life you don’t see too many casualties like that. When we got to Bougainville, especially, we had more destructive trauma.”
The 21st worked in tents, with 3 general surgical teams of 3 men to a team. In Bougainville, they worked on 12 tables, doing surgery underground to stay out of the line of fire. The operating room wasn’t actually dug into the ground, but was built up with walls, logs laid across and covered up with soil to make an “underground” room.
Dr. Pearson describes the conditions at Bougainville with one word: wet. “At Bougainville, on the side of the island where we were, average rainfall was 274 inches a year, so it rained every day. It would get up to 90, but not bad. We would sweat a lot, humid, and there were mosquitoes, lots of them, so we slept under nets,” Pearson said.
The unit was only 200-400 yards from the front lines at Bougainville, so the 21st got fresh battle casualties. Pearson remembers that the casualties came in so heavy that the surgical teams worked day and night for about three weeks, operating on all 12 tables.
After a little more than a year, the 21st went to Luzon, in the Phillipines. Once in the Phillipines, Pearson was sent to a small town named San Carlos, about 15 miles inland. There, he set up a hospital in a Catholic cathedral that was built in 1585, but not before giving the cathedral a thorough cleaning. “It was in good condition, and it looked like people had been kneeling on a ground floor, but actually it was bat manure (on the floor). There were bats all over the ceiling, live bats, so we drove about 7 vehicles, trucks and other vehicles, in there and left them running until they burned out all of their gas, hoping the fumes would drive the bats out. We scooped up the bat manure, raked it up and put in the trucks. We got seven truck tons of that bat manure out and hauled it off. Under the manure we found a beautiful tile floor,” Pearson said.
In San Carlos, there were about 400 cots in the cathedral and another 400-500 beds outside in tents. The 21st stayed in San Carlos for about 40 days before heading to the New Bilibid Prison, where they cared for survivors of Bataan. Pearson figures if he hadn’t joined the 21st he would have been among the Army soldiers sent to Bataan. He says many in his advanced officer training class at OU wound up there. “Close call. Yeah, close call,” Pearson told me.
Pearson stayed in touch with his family through mail and pictures. He left one daughter (Maureen) and his wife behind when he left for the South Pacific. Another daughter (Diana) was born while he was gone. He didn’t see her until she was nearly 3 years old.
Pearson says those sacrifices were just part of the job. “You have to accept it - just like life. You may not like it, but there is nothing you can do about it, so you just have to accept it. It’s an adjustment you make in your life.”
After the war, Pearson went into general practice in Perryton, Texas and later began practicing psychiatry, with an office in Dallas. Now, at the age of 93, Dr. Pearson still practices psychiatry 3 days a week. He says the worst part of war was being away from home for three years. The best part was taking care of people. “The best part,” Pearson recalled, “was that we could be a doctor.”
(above) Dr. Daniel B. Pearson with three of his children in his Dallas, Texas office. (l-r) Maureen, Daniel, Diana.
Thanks to Judy Kelley of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and Editor of OU Medicine for her invaluable assistance in the preparation of the story of Dr. Pearson and the “Fighting 21st.”
Until next time, Dick Pryor
(Dr. Daniel B. Pearson was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on November 14, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)
June 11th, 2008 at 10:02 am
My father fought on Bougainville, Charles Golightly,he was only 19 when the invasion took place. He was in the Americal Division of the Army; carried the wounded back to surgery. I wonder if he ever carried wounded men to Dr. Daniel Pearson for surgery. Very interesting story. I heard a few stories of the jungle, Hill 260, the million-dollar tree (the Navy shelled the area with large number of shells); hand-to-hand combat; because of the dense jungle. Japanese could be within 15 feet and fire a weapon and not be detected as to their location.