Photo By Douglas Stutz | 80-G-11915: Destroyers assist with the abandonment of USS Lexington (CV-2), during the...... read more read more
It was an old photo-album, filled with sepia images, depicting a world at war that completely fascinated the mind’s eye.
The scrapbook of faded photographs belonged to an uncle, who helped raised me, and vividly illustrated his time as a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War.
To encapsulate his Navy Medicine career, he went from the frying pan to the fire, involved in two pivotal campaigns that each helped to turn the tide in the Pacific Theater. During that time - almost 80 years ago - there exists a correlation with Navy Medicine today in preparation for tomorrow.
It was just months after Imperial Japanese forces launched a devastating attack at Pearl Harbor, defeated American troops in the Philippines, overran the Dutch in the East Indies, and overwhelmed the British in Hong Kong and Singapore to Malaysia and Burma. The entire South Pacific belonged to the Imperial Japanese Navy and they were on the offense. A Japanese task force, marshalled by three aircraft carriers, advanced in force to claim the Allied air base at Port Mosby, New Guinea, to further their air, sea and land superiority towards Australia.
Steaming hard to prevent them from gaining such an upper hand was U.S. Task Force 17, which included the carriers USS Lexington and USS Yorktown. My uncle – Paul Burgner – was on the ‘Lady Lex,’ as the old flattop was fondly called by crew. It also became a frying pan.
Unbeknownst to them all, they were about to become part of a naval first – the first major sea battle between fleets completely out of sight of each other as well as the initial clash of one aircraft carrier against another.
Although the Battle of Midway which followed a month later can arguably be considered one of the most decisive naval engagements in history, for that to happen, the Battle of the Coral Sea had to take place, May 4-8, 1942.
There was loss. The Lexington was a fatal casualty. After being slammed by torpedoes, the ship’s crew was still in the fight until gasoline vapors ignited, resulting in massive explosions and tremendous damage, enough to abandon ship.
Yet there was no panic. Duty and discipline ran deep. Shoes were lined up on the deck, as if the owners were to return. Some of the crew even took the time to grab the remaining ice cream from the ship’s store…
The Sailors departed in as orderly a manner as possible. Knotted ropes over the side enabled the crew to climb down the ship, as well as maneuver the wounded over to a waiting destroyer. Corpsmen were busy dealing with the wounded from smoke inhalation, burns, shrapnel.
In all, 2,735 crewmen who went over the side to abandon ship were rescued with no one drowning. Even the captain’s cocker spaniel, Wags, made it. However, 216 crewmen were lost in the battle.
The Yorktown was also hit. But Task Force 17 gave as good as it got. The light carrier Shoho went down after an attack from American aircraft and the two other Japanese carriers, Shokaku and Zaikaku sustained enough damage to force them to retreat back to the mainland for lengthy repairs, unable to take part in the upcoming Battle of Midway.
The Battle of Coral Sea halted – another first - the expansion of Imperial Japanese forces.
It’s not a stretch of imagination to state that how the U.S. Navy persevered back then has historical relevance to current operations.
The four priorities of Navy Medicine – People, Platforms, Performance and Power – were all exemplified then as they are now.
It was a well-trained crew (People) fighting for their ship (Platform) until the end. The opponent in the Battle of the Coral Sea was over the horizon and unseen. It was Performance responding to the wounded crew and demonstrating the projection of Power by saving many in need.
Those on the deckplate at that time might not have had much time to dwell on such notions. They were trained to respond to the emergency and crisis all around them. The wounded were protected. The crew was rescued to continue to support operational effectiveness and mission readiness.
The hospital corpsmen were needed at sea as well as land. My uncle was plucked out the sea and placed ashore. He ended up in the Solomon Island chain on an island called Guadalcanal, the aforementioned ‘fire.’
The old photos in my uncle’s book showed jungle visages, quaint native villages, along with various snapshots of Sailors and Marines in various hurry up and wait status.
It was all very exotic, mysterious and daring-do. Here was the tropics during war. Never mind the constant threat of danger, disease and destruction. If the Lexington was the epitome of haze gray underway, then Guadalcanal was the quintessence of a tropical setting with swaying palm trees, azure sea and equatorial sun.
But what looked appealing on the outside was a grim reality for those who had to endure living – and fighting – on that contested isle.
The Imperial Japanese soldier wasn’t the only adversary. There was crocodiles in the creeks and backwater; giant lizards that barked like dogs; leeches, scorpions, and too many other insects to count. Even the jungle rain seemed to add to the basic black and green color scheme with a unique rusty tint of its’ own. There was malaria, dengue fever, and a host of other ailments for the corpsmen to deal with, including those wounded in battle.
The Marines and their Sailor counterparts endured. Many of the Devil Dogs had gone through basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina, which turned out to be an ideal training platform for Guadalcanal and jungle fighting.
They were facing an enemy whom up to that point was considered invincible. They fought them in the mud, the heat, the humidity. They adapted. They survived. They defeated a difficult foe.
That resiliency is again apparent today, against yet another determined opponent. Just as there’s reduced visibility in jungle fighting, so is there limited discernibility in eradicating a pandemic.
Navy Medicine continues to answer the call to those in need, on the front lines of this current COVID fight as was the case those many decades ago in the Pacific Theater of WWII.
Footnote: My uncle survived both the frying pan and fire…to become a doctor and practice medicine for many a year in Portland Oregon. Paul R. Burgner, M.D., Clinical Associate in Medicine (1956). B.S. (1948), M.D. (1952), Oregon.
| Date Taken: | 05.04.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 05.05.2021 09:12 |
| Story ID: | 395662 |
| Location: | BREMERTON, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 156 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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