By Andrew A. Rooney, Stars and Stripes Staff Writer
February 9, 1943

Col. Wray was dressed and ready for the day's work over the locomotive factories at Lille. The only technicality before the takeoff was the flight surgeon's OK.

The squadron flight surgeon, Capt. Weldon T. Ross, talked briefly with Col. Wray and noticed that the colonel's head cold (he'd been watching it for a few days) was no better.

"Sorry, sir, it's no go," Capt. Ross said quietly; and there was no sense arguing. Col. Stanley Wray, who came from Muncie, Ind., to fly against the Nazis, was grounded for the day.

There are no "leave-me-in-coach " heroics in the Air Force. What the flight surgeon says goes — or doesn't go, as in this case. To ground a man who has faced death a hundred times, who has received the Air Medal for distinguished flying, sounds absurd, and for a captain to tell a colonel what he can and cannot do doesn't sound like the Army, but that's what happened when Capt. Ross laid down the law to Col. Wray.

A simple head cold, uncomfortable on the ground, can result in a serious infection at high altitudes due to the sudden change in atmospheric pressure, which attacks the nasal passages, while the pressure inside the body exerts a more or less constant force outwards. The atmospheric pressure at 20,000 feet is about eight pounds per square inch, little more than half atmospheric pressure at sea level. The difference makes the trouble.

The flight surgeon's job is a tough one and he earns the gold wings he wears and the flying pay he draws. There are no cure-alls for the medical problems he is faced with, and despite the fact that every accredited flight surgeon is a graduate of the three-month course at Randolph Field, there are still research technicians, as well as highly qualified doctors. Every airdrome is a laboratory where the flight surgeon continues to learn what can happen to a man in an airplane.

He is not only a doctor. The flight surgeon is psychologist, surgeon, sometimes chaplain, and friend to the flier, all rolled into one uniform.

Watch Airmen's Nerves

It is a delicate business, spotting the men who are not temperamentally suited to the split-second warfare being waged in the air. These men are few and far between by the time an outfit reaches a combat zone, but there is still the business of catching a man before he "goes stale."

Mental attitude is perhaps the toughest problem the flight surgeon has. Flying over enemy territory is risky business and no one denies it. A bad-news letter from home, the loss of a close friend, and even such general things as unfavorable reports of the progress of the war on other fronts can affect the delicate balance of a man's natural instincts of self-preservation on one side and his instinct to live up to accepted standards of. combat on the other.

Many of the doctors at the fields in England are graduates of the flight surgeons' course that has been established in the ETO, but as yet graduates of this school are not-considered as accredited flight surgeons. These men, although they do not wear the gold wings or receive flying pay, are of invaluable aid to the recognized flight surgeons.

The surgeons live close to the men, flying at least four hours a month with them. In many cases they have gone on actual operational flights. One flight surgeon tells a stark story which illustrates the problems of his lot.

On an operational flight his ship was forced down in the sea, miles from land. One of the crew was badly wounded in the right leg, but in the crash all the surgeon's equipment had been lost. The men had all they could do to scramble into the rubber dinghies and get free of the ship before she went down.

By the time they reached shore blood poisoning had set in. and if more time were lost the flier would die. The surgeon sterilized a pocket-knife over an open flame, and without the aid of an anaesthetic or any antiseptic, amputated the wounded flier's leg. That man is alive today.

Not all the flight surgeon's work is Hollywood material. In the station hospital he has the routine problems of any hospital doctor.

Only after a mission on which members of the crews over which he watches have been wounded does the flight surgeon have to work at the top speed of which his skilled fingers are capable.

Organize First Aid

It is up to him to organize the most efficient system of getting aid to the wounded men in the planes — and to get that aid to them as soon as the plane lands.

The usual method is to have an ambulance waiting at the end of each runway and several auxiliaries at the control tower. When the planes circle the field preparatory to the landing any with wounded aboard drop flares, any color handy.

When the plane which had dropped a flare touches the runway, an ambulance with three enlisted men and a doctor aboard races after it. As soon as the plane stops at the far end of the runway the ambulance pulls alongside and the men rush to the aid of the wounded.

Fifteen minutes are saved by not waiting for the ship to taxi to her permanent spot on the field.

Taking a wounded man from a Flying Fortress is a tough job, and the flight surgeons in England praise a simple wraparound litter designed by the RAF. The task of lifting a wounded man from the deep-bellied Liberator is much simpler.

Every airman who goes on an operational flight is thoroughly familiar with the best way to handle emergencies in the sharp cold of high altitudes. Through constant lecturing they know more about physics and medicine at high altitudes than the average surgeon in a general hospital in a large city.

Help Flight Surgeon

They make the flight surgeon's job easier. They can help to alleviate the shock that is dangerous when a man is wounded. They keep the wounded warm, apply tourniquets, splints, or give stimulants if necessary. And yet with all their knowledge of medicine they are primarily gunners or radio men or engineers.

Regardless of enemy attacks, high altitudes alone present a problem to the flight surgeon. Long flights above 25,000 feet are apt to provoke the same reaction in the flier that extreme depth does in a diver. Fliers also get the "bends," despite the use of oxygen masks. Whereas the diver gets them on the way up, the flier gets them coming down.

They're a hard-working lot, the flight surgeons. They come from every part of the U.S.A. There's Maj. Wilmer H. Paine, of Charlottesville, Va., and his assistant, also a Southerner, Capt. David W. Kennedy, of Shreveport, La. There's Maj. Abraham Black, of Wood Haven, L.I., and Capt. B. P. Lelich, of Highland Park, Mich. Working together at a heavy bomber station "somewhere in England" are Capt. J. C. Walker, of Savannah, Tenn., and Capt. I. M. Campbell, of Mogadore, Ohio. And these are only a few.