Combat Team Medics Especially Talented

Japanese American soldiers serving in the medical detachment of the Combat Team at Camp Shelby show a greater natural aptitude for their work than any other soldiers he has encountered as a group, according to Regimental Surgeon Capt. C. H. Buckley who commands the detachment.

“Assignment here brought my first extensive contact with Japanese Americans,” said Capt. Buckley, “and I have been highly pleased with the personnel of the medical detachment. An exceptional number of these have had pre-medic, pharmaceutical or hospital experience and their zeal for continuing their studies and gaining further practical experience goes beyond any obvious degree. To some of them, off-duty means only more time to work at self-improvement and to widen their scope of army learning.”

The medical detachment has six battalion surgeons, four of them Japanese American officers, and two dental officers, one of whom is Japanese American. Capt. Melvin E. Smith of Newman, Ga., is executive officer. In the basic training period, these officers instruct the enlisted men of the detachment in first aid, splitting and bandaging, transfer of patients, materia medica, pharmacy, medical and surgical nursing, and field sanitation.

Specialized training for the most efficient and detailed care of the wounded and sick will follow the basic training period. All of this training is supplemented, of course, with physical training, map-reading, litter drills, marching and bivouacking for the hospital corpsmen. So far, in basic training, the men have made above-average progress, according to Capt. Buckley, and their marching and drilling have been particularly commended.

Capt. Buckley is a graduate of the University of Minnesota medical school. He interned at Grant hospital in Chicago and Eitel hospital in Minneapolis. He served in the Army Medical Corps from 1933 to 1935 as a first Lieutenant and then resigned to take up general practice in his hometown, Menominee, Wis. Rejoining the army in 1942, he was with the 38th division during four months maneuvers in the Louisiana-Florida area, and came to the Japanese American combat team in February, 1943.

The battalion surgeons in the detachment are 1st Lt. Robert Y. Katsuki of Honolulu, 1st Lt. Wallace S. Kawaoka of Lihea, Hawaii, Capt. William Belinken of New York, 1st Lt. California S. Ushiro of Los Altos, Cal., 1st Lt. Irving R. Ohrenstein of Chicago, and 1st Lt. Katsumi Nadadate of East Chicago, In. The dental officers are Capt. Wayland F. Hogan, of Ocala, Fla., and 1st Lt. George S. Takahashi of Topaz, Utah.