Hospital Unit "K"

This page hosted by GeoCities Get your own Free Home Page

Immediately after his return from the Mexican Border Service in March, 1917, Major Donald Macrae, Jr., Medical Corps Iowa National Guard, resigned. from the Iowa National Guard, to organize a hospital unit. Having received permission from the Surgeon General of the Army, a unit consisting of 12 Medical Officers, 21 female nurses and 50 enlisted men was quickly established. All personnel were examined physically and after receiving typhoid-parathypoid inoculations and vaccination for small-pox, were mustered into the Red Cross

Not until June 18, 1917 were these men mustered into the Army of the United States. During the period after the preliminary organization, and muster of the enlisted men into the Red Cross, all of the Medical Officers, with the exception of Captain Bellinger and Lieutenant Sabin, were ordered to the various training camps throughout the country, as follows:

During this period the fifty enlisted men, under the officers remaining at home, were active in all branches of war work, including attendance at rallies of the Red Cross and Draft Meetings throughout Western Iowa. Drills and lectures were held three nights each week during this period. Great praise is due the citizens and. especially the women of Council Bluffs and vicinity and the nearby towns, for their efforts to quickly furnish the necessary surgical instruments, dressings and hospital equipment to conform mith the requirements of the Director of Military Relief. Among other donations, Manilla, Iowa, presented the unit with a fully equipped motor ambulance, and citizens of Oakland, Iowa furnished each man with a complete uniform, including hat and shoes.

This organization composed of fifteen officers and one hundred and three men arrived at Nantes February 18, 1919. They were immediately marched about four miles to San Sebastian where most of the officers were billeted in French houses, the men in houses and barns. Mobile Hospital No. 1 and Base Hospital No. 45 combined headquarters in a Chateau co-operating in every way to make this stay as pleasant as poesible as well as aiding each other in the work of perfecting details necessary before departure for America. While here the various organizations in the district formed athletic clubs, including baseball competitive drills and so forth. These things in addition to almost daily inspections of all kinds of drills and so forth consumed the time. Not until April 8, 1919 did orders arrive for the organization to pack up and proceed to St. Nazaire where it arrived April 8th. Before leaving Nantes the following officers received promotions as follows:

Sometime before this however, (March 23) orders for all officers except Colonel Macrae, Captain Hanisch and Lieutenant Long were received for them to proceed to Brest where they set sail on various dates for the United States where they were mustered out of the service. Their names were as follows;

After five days at St. Nazaire, a most thoroughly organized camp, by the way, the three officers and the following men: set sail for "The Good Old U.S.A."

Boarding the EX-German liner, Princess Matoika and on April 13, 1919, the organization with five thousand other soldiers after a pleasant passage in which Colonel Macrae of Mobile One was Ranking Officer, landed at Newport News, Virginia, April 26th.

Arriving in early morning of April 26th the troops immediately disembarked. They were marched to Camp Hill and quartered in barracks. Here the members of Mobile Hospital No. 1 were split up, the original Unit "K" plus the members living in the western area entrained May 2nd, for Camp Dodge via passenger cars arriving at destination in the early hours of May 5th. The enlisted men were mustered out of service on the same day. The original Unit "K" arrived in their home town, Council Bluffs, Iowa, after midnight in the early hours of May 6th, 1919.

In spite of the time of night fully twenty five thousand people were assembled at the station and on the surrounding streets to welcome the boys home. A march to the armory and final roll call,---Dismissed. Thus ended the history of Mobile Hospital No. 1 (Unit "K"), having served in the zone of advance continuously from June 15th until the Armistice, November 11th, and thereafter remaining in the shell holes until Christmas Eve 1918. During the entire service of this organization in the United States and France with one or two exceptions no leaves of absence or requests were granted to officer, nurses or enlisted personnel. Each officer, nurse and man of Hospital Unit "K" gloried in the fact that each volunteered almost immediately after the "Declaration of War", and had the great priveledge of being spared to serve the United States Government and aiding and saving the lives and relieving the suffering of the American soldier. The motto of Mobile Hospital No. 1 was "Deliver The Goods".