The Marine Corps does not have its own medical branch. Instead, specially trained Navy personnel are attached to each unit to provide medical care from the front line stretcher-bearers to the surgeons at the battalion aid station.
Corpsmen establish a forward aid station near a wrecked Japanese airplane on Roi Island. The faces of the wounded have been blurred out by a wartime censor.
Naval trainees selected for medical training attended one of the Hospital Corps schools; their classes lasted between ten and thirteen weeks. This initial training covered the basics of anatomy and physiology, hygene and sanitation, minor surgery, first aid, and pharmaceuticals. The men assigned to the Marines went on to Field Medical School, where they learned more advanced techniques such as treatment of shock, bandaging and splinting, and how to stabilize a casualty for evacuation. They were also introduced to life in the field and how to wear and operate Marine uniforms and equipment. Weapons training was introduced after Guadalcanal, where Japanese snipers targeted corpsmen in violation of the Geneva Convention; medical personnel were issued M1911 Colt sidearms, or carried carbines.
A stretcher case is carried back to a forward aid station, Pelelieu.
Corpsmen hold a special place of reverence in the hearts and memories of the Marines with whom they served. Stories abound of corpsmen defying staggering odds to reach wounded Marines, and all too often giving their lives in the process. This devotion and selflessness is best summed up in the legend penned by a dying Marine on Guadalcanal:
"Where angels and Marines fear to tread, there you'll find a Corpsman dead."
The makeup of the medical section changed little during the war. Each platoon was assigned a designated corpsman - usually a pharmacist's mate, equivalent in rank to a Naval petty officer. (Junior medical personnel were rated as "Hospital Apprentice.") The front-line corpsmen were assisted by stretcher bearers, usually company musicians or "other duty" Marines. Once a casualty was stable, he was transported to the battalion's aid station, where one of the two battalion surgeons - a Lieutenant or Lieutenant (j.g) - would inspect the wound and decide on a course of action. Thanks to their efforts, it is estimated that as many as eighty percent of all wounded Marines survived.
A great history of the Hospital Corps may be found here.
Corpsmen evacuate two badly wounded men on Saipan.
They are nothing more or less than male nurses. Sounds sissy. But listen to what they do: they go along in every battle, down into every awful valley, unarmed, and they go to the places where the enemy is doing the most hurt, in order to rescue the wounded. In the face of gunfire, often, they put tags on the clothing of the wounded, telling who it is, what's wrong, and what they've done to relieve the pain. They tell the men who can get themselves off the battlefield where the nearest dressing station behind the lines is; others they carry out or support themselves. They too are liable to have to stay up all night, assisting at an operation. They too deserve medals.
The bandsmen go where the corpsmen go. They are the boys of the regimental bands, the ones you have seen dressed up so fine and marching up the avenue. Only at the front they don't carry their piccolos or trumpets into action: they carry stretchers and syringes of morphine, and they take their chances just like any riflemen. They ought to get some medals.
- John Hersey, Into The Valley
As of 1943, the perscribed breakdown of medical personnel was as follows:
Two Battalion Surgeons (Lieutenants)
One Chief Pharmacist's Mate
Two Pharmacist's Mate First Class
Three Pharmacist's Mate Second Class
Three Pharmacist's Mate Third Class
Five Hospital Apprentice First Class
Six Hospital Apprentice Second Class
Total Personnel: Two officers, twenty enlisted.
Corpsmen were trained to address any situation - even sitting in cactus. "Doc" Sears pulls spines out of mortarman John Czepiel's posterior.
The information contained herein was compiled from WW2 Gyrene and the GHQ Table of Organization & Equipment #3, 1994.