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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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AIDS IN 2 NZEF

It has been pointed out that in the 1914–18 War the Field Ambulance was solely concerned with first aid and the evacuation of the wounded to the Casualty Clearing Station. This position held at the beginning of the Second World War, and it had been decided by the DGMS in New Zealand that a separate CCS was not required for 2 NZEF. This must have influenced the Field Ambulances considerably in their outlook on forward surgery. They accumulated extra equipment and were enabled to do some surgical work in Greece and Crete. In the desert campaigns the immobility of the CCS forced the Field Ambulances to undertake forward surgery, though this did interfere to some extent with their primary functions. However, the position was met by the appointment of surgeons to the Field Ambulance staff and then by the attachment of surgical teams and Field Surgical Units from base hospitals.

As already stated, it was at first only possible to attach single teams to a Field Ambulance, but later two or more were attached providing adequate surgical personnel. Later Field Transfusion Units were set up and these added tremendously to the efficiency of the treatment. Hospital beds were also added to Field Ambulances during the pre-Alamein period, so that abdominal cases in particular could be held and nursed after operation.

Our New Zealand MDS was, from late 1942, when fully staffed with extra personnel, an efficient surgical unit. There was commonly attached:

(a)	The light section of 1 NZ CCS with two MOs, ORAs (operating room assistants), and nursing orderlies, with full equipment for operating and nursing facilities, including hospital beds. page 51
(b)	NZ FSU with surgeon and anaesthetist, ORAs, and operating tent, but no nursing orderlies or nursing facilities.
(c)	NZ Field Transfusion Unit with full equipment and personnel.

The attachment of the light section of the CCS was invaluable as this contained well-trained nursing orderlies, as well as tentage and hospital beds, and other equipment for the nursing of the seriously wounded men. The equipment, a heritage from the MSU, was exceptionally good, and the surgical van supplied lighting and suction and autoclaves, as well as elaborate theatre furniture. Still missing, however, were nursing sisters and an X-ray unit. The 2nd NZEF retained the MDS as a unit for forward surgery throughout the war, and did not establish an FDS to take its place, as a mother unit for FSUs and FTUs, as did some British formations.