New York Hospital, Ninth General Hospital Records

The Ninth General Hospital unit was formed by New York Hospital and Cornell University Medical College during World War II and served from 1943 through 1945 as a military hospital in the South Pacific. The majority of Ninth General Hospital doctors and nurses hailed from New York Hospital, though qualified medical professionals from other hospitals and medical colleges also joined the unit. Though the unit’s official formation followed a conversation in October 1940 between Henry Lewis Stimson, the United States Secretary of War, and Dr. George Heuer of New York Hospital regarding the possibility of providing qualified medical attendants for overseas action, it was not called to active duty until two years later on July 15, 1942.

Female members of the Ninth General Hospital, among whom were nurses, physical therapists, dieticians, and Red Cross workers, were sent to Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Male volunteers, primarily doctors and administrators, were sent to Fort Banks, Massachusetts and from there to Fort Andrews on Peddock’s Island in Boston Harbor. According to Dr. Stewart Wolf, Jr., a member of the Ninth General Hospital whose history of the unit provides a first person narrative account, during their time on the island the Ninth General Hospital personnel trained new recruits as hospital orderlies, nurses aides, and technicians.

On July 18, 1943, just over one year after their call to active duty, the Ninth General Hospital personnel on Peddock’s Island were transferred to Boston where they were met by the women of Fort Devens. By train, the Ninth General Hospital unit traveled to Camp Stoneman near San Francisco, California where they remained for less than a week before boarding the S.S. David Shanks, an army transport ship headed for the South Pacific. Within eighteen days they arrived in Brisbane, Australia.

The unit’s stay in Australia was short-lived. The newly erected hospital in Brisbane was soon transferred over from the Ninth General to the 42nd General Hospital, a similar unit formed by medical professionals from the University of Maryland who had been stationed in a nearby convent for over a year. On October 18, over 500 doctors, officers, and hospital administrators of the Ninth General Hospital unit boarded the “Black Dog,” a Dutch freighter bound for Goodenough Island off the southeastern coast of New Guinea. The nurses and female personnel remained in Brisbane. The freighter arrived ten days later, bringing with it the first general hospital unit stationed in the South Pacific’s combat zone. Few structures had yet been erected at the proposed site of the hospital, a grassy clearing in the midst of the jungle. With little outside help, the Ninth General Hospital personnel on the island completed the construction and outfitting of the hospital wards, secured fresh water by piping it in from a dam over a mile away, and erected telephone poles to facilitate communication.

Within six weeks of their arrival on Goodenough Island, the Ninth General Hospital began admitting its first patients, soldiers convalescing at an overcrowded station hospital in the area. However, an outbreak of scrub typhus or Japanese River Fever among the Ninth General personnel sent dozens of members of the unit to that same overcrowded station hospital for lack of sufficient supplies and help at their own hospital. Thirty members of the Ninth General unit were struck with the disease, among whom eight died. A handful of nurses were transferred from Brisbane to Goodenough Island to better aid the doctors there. While still combating and coping with the outbreak of typhus, a monsoon struck the island in January 1944, destroying some of the hospital wards and inundating the site with rain and mud.

Once the weather calmed and the outbreak of typhus disappeared, new wards were constructed and the hospital once again returned to patient care. However, changes in battle plans and a shift in military operations lessened the need for an army hospital on the island and the Ninth General Hospital personnel were once again transferred, this time to Biak, an island northwest of New Guinea. When they arrived at Biak in August 1944, the anticipated site of the hospital was then occupied by the Japanese. By the middle of September, the island was under Allied control. Ninth General personnel began the task of constructing the hospital and by October 20, the unit began admitting its first patients. Stationed closer to the combat zone than the site at Biak, the hospital often operated significantly over capacity, periodically treating upwards of 2500 patients when capacity capped at 1500. By July 1945, the Ninth General Hospital had treated roughly 23,000 patients.

As military operations shifted and an invasion of Japan was expected to occur soon, the Ninth General Hospital was called to duty at Luzon in the Philippine Islands near the town of San Fernando. The first group of Ninth General personnel arrived on August 14, coinciding with the Japanese surrender. Plans to set up a hospital in Luzon were discontinued. The rest of the unit still on Biak was then sent to Manila where the Ninth General Hospital was disbanded. Within sixty days all members of the Ninth General Hospital had either returned home or had joined other units and organizations. The Ninth General Hospital name was offered to an army unit in Okinawa and lived on, though no longer affiliated with New York Hospital or Cornell University Medical College. On October 6, 1945, the Ninth General Hospital received the Meritorious Service Unit Plaque.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wolf, Stewart Jr. The Completed Saga of the 9th General Hospital.