Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Early Days
- Chapter 2 Washington Heights
- Chapter 3 Speyer School for Gifted Children
- Chapter 4 New York University at University Heights
- Chapter 5 To Each His Farthest Star–A Medical Student at Rochester: 1929–1934
- Chapter 6 Duke University Hospital and Its Medical School, 1934–1935
- Chapter 7 Yale Medical School, 1935–1936
- Chapter 8 Return to Duke, 1936-1937
- Chapter 9 You Can Go Home Again
- Chapter 10 My One and Only Wife
- Chapter 11 The Bronx Is the Graveyard for Specialists, 1937
- Chapter 12 The Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, 1937 — The First of Its Kind
- Chapter 13 Pearl Harbor and World War II
- Chapter 14 Valley Forge General Hospital, 1942–1945
- Chapter 15 Tinian, 1945
- Chapter 16 Saipan, 1945–1946
- Chapter 17 Return to Columbia-Presbyterian, 1946
- Chapter 18 The Changing of the Guard at the Medical Center
- Chapter 19 An Internist-Diagnostician Rebuilds His Practice
- Chapter 20 The Upjohn Grand Rounds
- Chapter 21 The Iceman Cometh to Park Avenue
- Chapter 22 Songs My Patients Taught Me
- Chapter 23 Mr. J. Peter Grace, Chairman of W. R. Grace and Company
- Chapter 24 Birth of the Upjohn Gastrointestinal Service
- Chapter 25 Roosevelt Hospital, 1962–1965
- Chapter 26 Consultant and Physician to President Herbert C. Hoover
- Chapter 27 Problems at Roosevelt Hospital: The Bête Noir of Full Time
- Chapter 28 Internal Medicine as a Vocation (1897)
- Chapter 29 The Upjohn Service Moves to St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Chapter 30 Helicobacter Pylori and Peptic Ulcer: A Revolution in Gastroenterology
- Chapter 31 Plasmapheresis for Hepatic Coma at St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Epilogue
- Endmatter
Chapter 15 - Tinian, 1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Early Days
- Chapter 2 Washington Heights
- Chapter 3 Speyer School for Gifted Children
- Chapter 4 New York University at University Heights
- Chapter 5 To Each His Farthest Star–A Medical Student at Rochester: 1929–1934
- Chapter 6 Duke University Hospital and Its Medical School, 1934–1935
- Chapter 7 Yale Medical School, 1935–1936
- Chapter 8 Return to Duke, 1936-1937
- Chapter 9 You Can Go Home Again
- Chapter 10 My One and Only Wife
- Chapter 11 The Bronx Is the Graveyard for Specialists, 1937
- Chapter 12 The Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, 1937 — The First of Its Kind
- Chapter 13 Pearl Harbor and World War II
- Chapter 14 Valley Forge General Hospital, 1942–1945
- Chapter 15 Tinian, 1945
- Chapter 16 Saipan, 1945–1946
- Chapter 17 Return to Columbia-Presbyterian, 1946
- Chapter 18 The Changing of the Guard at the Medical Center
- Chapter 19 An Internist-Diagnostician Rebuilds His Practice
- Chapter 20 The Upjohn Grand Rounds
- Chapter 21 The Iceman Cometh to Park Avenue
- Chapter 22 Songs My Patients Taught Me
- Chapter 23 Mr. J. Peter Grace, Chairman of W. R. Grace and Company
- Chapter 24 Birth of the Upjohn Gastrointestinal Service
- Chapter 25 Roosevelt Hospital, 1962–1965
- Chapter 26 Consultant and Physician to President Herbert C. Hoover
- Chapter 27 Problems at Roosevelt Hospital: The Bête Noir of Full Time
- Chapter 28 Internal Medicine as a Vocation (1897)
- Chapter 29 The Upjohn Service Moves to St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Chapter 30 Helicobacter Pylori and Peptic Ulcer: A Revolution in Gastroenterology
- Chapter 31 Plasmapheresis for Hepatic Coma at St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Epilogue
- Endmatter
Summary
My overseas orders arrived during the last week in May 1945, couched in classical “Army Speak”:
TO PHOENIXVILLE 503 FROM HAYES COMMANDING GENERAL 3RD SERVICE COMMAND BALTIMORE, MD. TO COMMANDING OFFICER VALLEY FORGE GENERAL HOSPITAL, PHOENIXVILLE, PENN. GRNC ORDER ISSUING RELIEVING MAJOR MICHAEL J. LEPORE 0–505–780 FROM ASSIGNMENT THIRTEEN EIGHT SEVEN SERVICE COMMAND YOUR STATION AND ASSIGNING HIM THREE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL HOSPITAL CAMP SHELBY MISSISSIPPI. STOP LEAVE EN ROUTE AUTHORIZED REPORTING NOT LATER THAN 15 JUNE STOP DIRECT OFFICER PROCEED ACCORDINGLY COPIES OF ORDERS TO BE FORWARDED NEW STATION STOP
I was about to embark on one of the most interesting journeys of my life and by far the most hazardous. Perhaps it was just as well that I did not know exactly where I was going. The war in Europe had ended and it did not take a genius to figure out that my destination was the Pacific theater of war, I was pleased to be assigned to a numbered general hospital, the crème de la crème of overseas duty, or so I thought. Thus far, each of my previous assignments had been with general hospitals. Number one was the Army and Navy General Hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a brief period followed by over three years at the brand new Valley Forge General Hospital, adjacent to the historic valley for which it was named.
The short leave provided a few days of leisure to spend with my wife driving South and visiting with her cousins who lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, nearby a massive, newly built, and mysterious installation called Oak Ridge by some and the Manhattan Project by others.
In Knoxville we were told by friends and relatives that they all knew a secret weapon was being developed at Oak Ridge that would wipe out the Japanese and end the war. It sounded like a Buck Rogers story, but it was nice to hear and seemed consistent with other information I had acquired during my professional work at Valley Forge.
On reporting to the 303rd General Hospital on 5 June 1945 in Camp Shelby outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I was quickly informed by the C.O., Colonel James W. Howard, that I was the last of his officers to arrive and that I had exactly twelve hours to arrange my affairs because we were departing soon by troop train for the West Coast.
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- The Life of the ClinicianThe Autobiography of Michael Lepore, pp. 202 - 228Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002