AERIAL AMBULANCES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 30 June 1943, Page 5

AERIAL AMBULANCES

TRANSPORT OF SICK AND WOUNDED Rugby, June 28. A total of 18,000 sick and wounded members of the British, American and French forces were evacuated from the African war theatre by air, BrigadierGeneral David Grant, air surgeon of the United States Army, revealed tonight. General Grant said the use of aerial ambulances would be greatly increased in the future. This was mobile warfare and to keep wounded in immobile hospitals would render them liable to capture. Cargo planes had been converted into ambulances. Pilots flew cargoes into combat zones and returned with wounded, each plane having a flight surgeon or army nurse, also a non-commissioned officer of the medical staff. Evacuation of wounded in New Guinea had been reduced from three weeks to one hour, and critically wounded troops on the Indo-China front had been evacuated to the United States in six days against three months by sea and land. In addition whole hospital units had been flown to where required at the front. Air transport had reduced casualties to an extent that United States dead in the army and navy totalled 15,000, while the total casualties were about 91,000. —8.0. W.