MEDICAL SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1942, Page 3

MEDICAL SERVICE

FAILURE IN THE GERMAN — ARMY. In the past twelve months only 40 per cent, of the Germans wounded on the eastern front have been able to return to the ranks, whereas the Red Army doctors have restored 70 per cent, to active service, writes Dr. A. Smirnov, in ‘Soviet War News’. The clue to this substantial difference is to be found in the poor work of the German army’s medical service, which calculated on a blitzkrieg. Further, the German 'medical service planned on the basis of its experiences in Poland, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. It, failed to take into account even such an important factor as the length of communications, which demands a well-organised ambulance service at the front, with vast casualty clearing stations and hospitals. The German medical service lacks all these. The Nazis’ main losses' occurred in the severe cold of December to March as a result of frostbite; roads were bad, and the evacuation of the wounded was poorly organised. This explains the high death-rate among German wounded in the fighting zones. The German field ambulance service is utterly incapable of providing not only surgical treatment, but even decent accommodation and elementary care -for the sick and wounded. A war prisoner, an army doctor of the 16th German Motorised Division,