To Henry, (formerly known as Hank)
--- Those waves are really scary. Even worse than Cherokee Lake,I
believe. When I was going across the Pacific in a little troop ship for the
Korean war we had a storm, but nothing like those waves. Our ship would
rise up in a wave, then go crashing down, sideslipping a bit. Practically
all the troops became seasick. The lower decks had to be hosed down each
day to get rid of what came up. It was in mid-winter, and the troops were made
to go up to the main deck in the cold spray while the lower decks were
cleaned. They soon learned that in order to get out of the cold they
could come to sick call, and I was helping the two young ship’s doctors handle
the load, though I was a passenger myself. One soldier complained of
lower right quadrant pain, and it was decided to operate on him for
appendicitis. I volunteered to give the anaesthesia – open drop ether was
what we had. So the two Navy docs strapped the patient down on a Guerney
and proceeded to take out what was a normal appendix after some difficulty as
neither had ever done an appendectomy before. The patient survived,
but when the next soldier came in with right lower quadrant pain they decided
they had learned their lesson and did not operate. His appendix ruptured
and he was put ashore in Honolulu with
peritonitis.
Before going over to Korea to a MASH Unit, I was in Tokyo for a while, and who
should pop up from Korea on R & R but your Pop. I had not seen him
since Medical School.
My father was named Henry, and my brother, and one of my grandsons, and my
wife’s father, and my great grandfather, so that is a very familiar name in the
family. Will
Meriwether
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