IU Medical Center "MASH" Unit's 50TH Reunion To Include Archive Dedication

INDIANAPOLIS-- Officers and enlisted men from the only American Army medical unit to establish a general hospital on German soil during World War II will return to their home base for a 50th reunion gathering in Indianapolis Sept. 18-20.

The 32nd General Hospital Medical Corps will be honored Sept. 19 with a reception during the dedication of an archival collection of photographs, film footage, scrapbooks, personal letters, historical materials and other memorabilia about the unit in the Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives at the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis Library.

Reunion organizer, Travis Winfrey of Hempstad, Texas, said about 80 people are expected to attend the 32nd's golden reunion. Winfrey, at 72, said in a droll southern drawl that because he was the youngest enlisted man in the unit, he was charged with organizing the reunion.

The 32nd General Hospital Medical Corps was organized at the Indiana University Medical Center in 1942. More than 50 doctors and dentists and 100 nurses from IU, and 400 enlisted men from across the country formed the unit. The unit was named in honor of a World War I medical unit also organized at the IU Medical Center.

In February 1945, the 32nd set up its 1,000-bed hospital just eight miles short of the front lines at Aachen, Germany. The unit also had the distinction of being the first American medical corps to set up a general hospital on French soil following the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion at Normandy.

IU School of Medicine faculty, Cyrus Clark, M.D., and Charles F. Thompson, M.D., were charged with organizing the medical unit after the U.S. entered the war. Col. Clark served as commanding officer.

Members of the medical, dental and nursing staffs who joined the 32nd were sworn into the Army on May 13, 1942. The hospital unit was officially activated at Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas, on Christmas Eve, 1942, where training began. In September 1943, the nurses of the 32nd sailed for England on the RMS Queen Mary, while the men were aboard the S.S. Borinquin. When the corps arrived, it operated a hospital at Fairford, Gloucestershire, until May 1944.

Following the Allied invasion at Normandy, the unit was sent to France, arriving at Omaha Beach on July 30, 1944. The corps treated 5,350 casualties during their six months in France and Belgium. In February, the unit advanced to Germany, operating the hospital there until July 30, 1945. During that six-month period, the 32nd treated 41,797 war casualties.

According to William D. Gambill, M.D., the youngest medical officer in the unit and a retired member of the IU School of Medicine faculty, during one 24-hour period (River Roer Offensive) in Germany, the 32nd treated 1,800 casualties. Most, he said, were triaged and sent to other general hospitals farther from the fighting as fast as the medical team could work.

The hospital's personnel returned to the United States and were discharged at Camp Atterbury near Edinburgh, Ind., in October 1945.

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