Title: War Surgery and Medicine

Author: Stout, T. Duncan M.

Publication details: Historical Publications Branch, 1954, Wellington

Part of: The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945

This text is the subject of: ‘Something of Them Is Here Recorded’: Official History in New Zealand

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ABDOMINAL WOUNDS 3 NZ DIVISION, SOLOMON ISLANDS

The close nature of the jungle warfare and the predominance of rifle bullet and grenade wounds resulted in very few abdominal casualties surviving to reach the Field Ambulance dressing station. The forward units recorded only 5 abdominal cases, 2 of them being Japanese prisoners, and all but one dying at the MDS. Only 2 of the cases were definitely recorded as New Zealand casualties. There were only some three hundred New Zealanders killed and wounded in the campaign. Treatment of the abdominal cases followed the lines adopted in the Middle East.