"Our doctors were operating 36 hours at a time." (Video Interview, Part 2, 13:05)

Joseph Milton Hand

Joseph Hand, 2003. War: World War, 1939-1945; Korean War, 1950-1953 Branch: Army; Army Unit: Fitzsimons General Hospital; 81st Station Hospital; Army Reserve; Martin Army Hospital; 24th Evacuation Hospital; 6th Army Medical Depot; 829th Station Hospital Service Location: Fort McPherson, Georgia; Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyoming; Camp Barkeley, Texas; Aurora, Colorado; New Orleans, Louisiana; North Africa; Italy; United States; also: Fort Benning, Georgia; San Antonio, Texas; Chuncheon, Korea Rank: Staff Sergeant; Lieutenant Colonel Place of Birth: GA

For soldiers like Joseph Hand, working in medicine meant building and equipping station hospitals, sometimes from scratch. A station hospital was where a wounded soldier might recover enough to return to the front or move on to a general hospital for further care. Hand’s first hospital, a 500-bed facility in North Africa, took three months to erect and outfit. As American forces moved into Sicily and then up the boot of Italy, Hand kept building hospitals—or taking over existing buildings like an agriculture school in Naples. He joined the reserves after World War II and got called up for the Korean War. In Korea he faced a different kind of challenge: dishonest civilians stealing from the hospital he was managing.