Armored Division – Page 2 – Patton’s Best Medics

Recollections of a Liberator: the liberation of Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. Part 1: Ohrdruf.

In 1992, Frederick B. Lea recorded his experiences of April 1945. During this month, men of the 4th Armored Division witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand when they overran two concentration camps: Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. Lea was a Captain during the War. He served as company commander of the Headquarters Company, 46th AMB; as […]

Recollections of a Liberator: the liberation of Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. Part 1: Ohrdruf. Read More »

Medical Evacuation and Treatment Series. Part 5: Medical Battalion.

Armored Division, Casualties, Evacuation, Medical Department, Treatment

When a casualty’s injury warranted evacuation from the battalion aid station/casualty collecting point, and the treatment he had received had stabilized his situation enough for him to be transportable, he would enter the second echelon of the Chain of Evacuation. The second echelon was the responsibility of the medical battalion. Just as all the medical

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Silence

Armored Division, Casualties

This July I visited the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial at St. Avold, France. I drove there, from my family’s vacation house in the Belgian Ardennes, to visit the graves of the 17 members of the 4th Armored Division’s medical units buried there. I had planned to write about my visit to the cemetery soon

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Medical Evacuation and Treatment Series. Part 3: First echelon evacuation.

Armored Division, Evacuation, Medical Department, Treatment

After being wounded, a casualty received first aid (Part I). Emergency medical treatment was then started by a company aid man (Part II). Now it was time to get the casualty away from the front as quickly as possible. This evacuation followed the links of the Evacuation Chain. In this part, I will take a

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Medical Evacuation and Treatment Series. Part 2: company aid man.

Armored Division, Evacuation, Medical Department, Treatment

How do you train men to prepare them for war? How do you train them when you have to expend your armed forces roughly one hundredfold? And how do you do this when you have to do it while you are fighting a global conflict? I believe the answer inevitably will contain “compromises” and even

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Logistics Series. Part III: Medical supplies and the 46th Armored Medical Battalion

Armored Division, Logistics, Medical Department

Let’s talk about the logistics of the medical service. From complete medical chests and bottles of whole blood to every first-aid kit and can of foot powder ever used, all the medical items needed to be brought towards the front before any medic could use them to treat casualties. So having a medical supply system

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Logistics Series. Part II: Fuel

Armored Division, Logistics

“My men can eat their belts, but my tanks got to have gas” – General George S. Patton Jr. Patton spoke these words on 2 September 1944. With the breakout of Normandy and the race across France during August 1944, the allied armies had outrun the transport capabilities of their logistical support. The quote shows

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Logistics Series. Part I: Basic logistics in an armored division.

Armored Division, Logistics

“Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics”. There are several variations of this quote (do amateurs talk strategy or tactics? And do professionals talk or study logistics?) It is also attributed to more than one man. Whoever may have spoken (a variation of) these words, he understood a key point in military operations: without a solid

Logistics Series. Part I: Basic logistics in an armored division. Read More »

4th Armored Division “By their deeds alone”: a brief overview of the division’s actions.

Armored Division

To understand the story of the medical service of the 4th Armored Division it can be very helpful to have a brief overview of the division’s actions. I will present you with a timeline, showing the main dates of interest in the division’s history. I would like to start, however, by giving you an idea

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Fixing the weakest link in the chain

Armored Division, Evacuation, Medical Department

On paper the system of evacuation worked well. It did however not accommodate to the incredible speed of advance sometimes made by units like the 4th AD. The biggest problem was the lack of transport equipment of the third echelon hospital units.

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