Pearl Harbor Oral Histories of Medical Personnel
Bottom Line Up Front: The attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II. Read on to hear more about the amazing video I am posting below, containing the oral histories of medical personnel, corpsmen, nurses, and doctors who were at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
One of the unexpected pleasures I’ve discovered while researching my book on USS Franklin is the relationships I’ve formed with the ship’s crew members, family members, historians, and others.
My newest is with Jan Herman, who is rewriting and updating his 1997 Book, Battle Station Sick Bay: Navy Medicine in World War II. He is a retired historian from the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. A family member is a neighbor of his and reached out to Andy Clark, who is working on a documentary about the ship’s families. Andy shared the information with me, and I reached out directly to Jan.
Pearl Harbor’s Relationship to USS Franklin
I spoke with Jan because I want to learn more about the medical treatment given during the attacks on Franklin. Fifty-six men died and 60 were wounded on 30 October 1944 when a kamikaze struck the ship. The Navy reported 807 men died and 487 were wounded in the more famous attack on 19 March 1945.
Jan shared some fascinating videos of oral history interviews he produced in 2010 for the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. More people and historians should be aware of these; therefore, I am starting a series of blog posts about them. I have already blogged about Dr. Samuel Sherman, the flight surgeon aboard USS Franklin.
The runtime is 26:55. The video features footage from director John Ford’s 1943 film about Pearl Harbor, as well as reenactments (no, that’s not Dorris Miller shooting the machine gun), and some of the exploding ships are models. Don’t let that stop you. The oral histories are compelling, and the reenactments and models help set the stage.
Did you arrive here via a search engine? I am the author of the forthcoming book Heroes By The Hundreds: The Story of the USS Franklin (CV-13). In addition to writing about the bravery of the crews that saved her, I will discuss the lessons we can learn in leadership and decision-making, and the changes the US Navy made because of those lessons.
Feel free to follow me on Facebook. There, I am M. Glenn Ross, Author. I also write a monthly newsletter, Glenn’s Action Report, about subjects I find interesting in my research. You can sign up for it below. Feel free to leave a comment or ask a question. Thanks for reading.
-Glenn
