Although readily admitting the importance of combat service support forces, military students and historians alike tend to concentrate on combat and combat support units when studying operations, giving only passing attention to the vital work of the logisticians, signalmen, transport troops, and the rest. This is regrettable, for the operations of combat service support units-especially in a global conflict like World War II with its vast distances and varied terrains-have much to teach us about modern warfare, lessons that remain of surpassing importance to our profession. The Medical Department: Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations supports the proposition that the experience of medical personnel in war directly stimulates advances in medical science. More importantly, it demonstrates that the organization of health care in the combat zones, including evacuation of the wounded, control of disease among troops and civilian populations, and care of prisoners of war, contributed directly to the Allied victory. The exploits of the doctors, corpsmen, and medical support units provide a model for the planning and organization of medical support in today's Army. This volume continues a subseries begun in 1966 with the study of medical support of the Army in the Mediterranean Theater. The Center of Military History will soon complete this project with the publication of a similar study of the very different challenges faced by the Medical Department in the Pacific.
About the Author: Graham A. Cosmas was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, and received his education from the schools of Leonia, New Jersey, and from Columbia University, Oberlin College, and the University of Wisconsin. After teaching at the Universities of Texas (Austin) and of Guam he joined the staff of the U.S. Marine Corps' History and Museums Division and, since 1979, that of the U.S. Army Center of Military History, serving in 1984-85 as the Harold Keith Johnson Visiting Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Dr. Cosmas is the author of An Army for Empire: The U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War, 1898-1899, and coauthor of U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Vietnamization and Redeployment, 1970-71. He also has published numerous journal articles and book reviews. Albert E. Cowdrey was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and received his education from the schools of that city and from Tulane and Johns Hopkins Universities. He served in the Army as an enlisted man during the years 1957-59. After teaching at Tulane University and at Louisiana State University he entered the government historical programs, working for the Corps of Engineers historical office and, since 1978, for the U.S. Army Center of Military History. His continuing interest in southern history brought him the 1984 Herbert Feis Award of the American Historical Association for his book This Land, This South. His prizewinning history of Army medicine in the Korean War, The Medics' War, has been widely adopted as a text in military medical schools. He also has contributed articles on a variety of historical topics to American, British, Canadian, and international journals.