WORLD WAR II South pacific
World War II swept people highly unqualified for soldiering into the army. Wallace Kelly was one of those people. He was 33 years old in basic training. He had just published a Knopf Fellowship prize-winning novel, Days are as Grass. He was a professional photographer and an artist. He had never held a gun.
Wallace Kelly, surgical technician fifth grade and a member of Company D, 6th Infantry Division found himself in the South Pacific. His Separation Papers
state that he:
Performed duties while serving with the 6th Medical Bn. in the Philippines. Worked in operating room of a clearing station assisting surgeons by setting up sterile field for operations. Prepared patients for surgery, frequently acted as anesthetist. Served over seas 19 mo.
In 1944 he was with a medical team in Sansapor, New Guinea. While he was there he filled his off hours carving small items in the native hardwoods. He also did the following drawings that he sent home to the family. Some of these drawings are on a paper similar to newsprint. Some are airmail paper and some are on the back side of lined pages from a Big Chief tablet.
Probably the paper was originally white and the ink was black, but they’ve aged in different ways.
The descriptions are his own, typewritten and numbered on a single sheet of paper, undoubtedly after the war.
As soon as we’d sloshed our way ashore, we ran up the beach and proceeded in orderly file toward an abandoned native garden reconnaissance maps had shown nearby. After the palms of our last area, the trees here seemed fantastically tall and weirdly proportioned. Snipers might easily be hidden high in the forked branches and tangled vines, and we were wary and watchful.
While we were digging a pill box, we saw our first native in this area. They are diminutive and friendly, forever smiling. But when they abruptly turn sober and inquisitive you remember that head-hunting was not a remote diversion. This one practically scared the hell out of us when he suddenly appeared in the undergrowth.
We set to work at once clearing the jungles for our camp. It’s remarkable what can be done with a machete, but some of the trees (especially these with the “armor plated” roots) gave even a G.I. with a sharp machete some pause.
The great trees, breadfruit and black palm and strangler fig, pressed close upon the tents – dignified, aloof, almost disdainful in their mystery and strangeness. We let the larger ones stand.
At first there was only one road into our area, a curving road, swerving in from the beach several hundred yards and ending abruptly at our orderly room. But in a short while the road was well used, because an epidemic of scrub typhus spread through certain outfits of the division.
The patients came in quantities, and we continued to clear ground and set up wards. There was little policing up of the surroundings at that time, because there were no men who could be spared for the task. Felled trees and underbrush were piled high around the wards.
Pharmacists were busy in the dispensary day and night. In the middle distance a litter is set up for an examination table; in the rear is the pharmacy, and in the foreground another litter serves as a medication and supply shelf. The bedpan is to make the whole thing “true medic.”
Ward boys were on duty all through the night, since the patients were not supposed to move at all unless absolutely necessary. Here, the mosquito bars are tucked in, most of the patients sleeping, and a ward boy sits at his “desk,” He appears to be marking up pulse and TPR charts; in reality he is reading the spiciest feelthy story available and circulating at the moment. He will be on the job to black-out the ward when the first air raid alert sounds, which often occurred during our siege.
Ward Supply was extremely important, and most of the basic equipment was handled through it. If you look carefully you will notice several very busy men in various reclining positions scattered in the shadier portions of the tent. Behind is one of the huge, disemboweled giants which threatened our safety until time and circumstances made it possible to bring them down.
“C” Company’s shower was near the base of a strangler fig – a serviceable shower, but not pretentious like our own. Imagine hand-pumping your water; we have a large tank, a large well, and eight sprinklers….
The establishment of a ranking officer, framed and screened and as comfortable as quarters could be made under the circumstances.
When we first began hauling gravel from the beach to fill in the boggy spots of our area, the old Japanese barge, now beaten and torn and picked to the bone by pounding surf, was complete…On the beach we could work without shirts; everywhere else we wore them – no matter how hot – except during organized athletics.
Mortar emplacement on the beach, during target practice.
Another unsuccessful picture. These are ducks, one being loaded, another taking to the water. They ride very low to the ocean surface once submerged, and a ride in one is synonymous with a thorough wetting, especially through wind-tossed surf.
A poor, poor drawing, but that’s the ward in which I worked for a week and over which Death beat her wings ceaselessly.
This is my bunk and “lowboy” locker while I was on ward duty. The attempt here, was an unsuccessful one to show how one of the wards (not mine) practically pushed its patients into bed with me. Do you wonder that, keyed-up and distressed over the patients I’d been with for twelve hours each day, I awakened all through the nights whenever those in the adjacent tent called: “Ward boy,” or “Bed pan!”? Twice I actually jerked loose my mosquito bar and was struggling into my shoes in the dark before I realized that the patient calling his needs was not my responsibility.
As you know, the private has everything but privacy.
