Embarrassing Wounds

TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod, who witnessed the Attu action, tells in a letter received last week what U.S. Army doctors did for Attu wounded:

One field hospital on Attu, with a staff of three surgeons, has treated 529 men wounded in battle since U.S. troops landed a month ago. Only three casualties have died. Not one case of infection has turned up in the muddy little hospital area. Doctors credit this record to debridement (cutting out of dead tissues) and sulfanilamide.

When a soldier is wounded he takes, or is given, the eight sulfathiazole tablets which all men carry. Said a wounded major: "I don't know how much good the stuff does, but it is the greatest morale builder in the world. After my men took their sulfa they brightened up immediately. That's how much confidence they have in it."

During the first few days of the fighting on Attu, belly wounds were predominant. The reason: green troops had not learned to hug the ground closely. During the later phases of Attu's fierce fight more men were wounded in the buttocks than anywhere else. This prompted the hospital's senior surgeon, Major Merriwell T. Shelton, of Augusta, Me., to observe: "A lot of soldiers wearing Purple Heart ribbons are going to have a hard time explaining how they got wounded."

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