History
On Wed, 10 Nov 1999
Mike Salovesh Email address wrote:
406th Medical General Laboratory was a stand alone unit based in Tokyo,
and sent out small detachments wherever the lab work needed people to do
local work elsewhere -- such as Korea. It was the main medical
laboratory for FECOM (Far East Command), providing specialized tests
most Army hospitals weren't equipped for; testing for opiates and other
illegal drugs; specialized research on communicable diseases
(specifically, Korean hemorrhagic fever); and the full run of medical
lab procedures. We also did food chemistry and quality testing for
supplies the Army purchased for distribution to ROK troops.
The 406th also was the home of the 48th United Nations Blood Bank, the
main blood bank for FECOM. We collected about half the supply of whole
blood the Medical Corps used in Korea. (The other half came from Red
Cross collections in the whole of the ZI.) If you shipped in or out of
FECOM and Korea by way of Camp Drake, Japan, or through the port of
Yokohama, you probably saw people from the 406th MGL. We collected lots
of the blood we distributed by asking guys going Stateside to leave a
pint for somebody who was sure to need it in Korea.
I was assigned to the 406th in October 1952, and made the first of my 9
or 10 flights to Korea as a blood bank courier early in November. On
each trip, we had high priority going in with the blood shipment, but
just about no priority at all for getting on a return flight to Tokyo.
Usually it would take two to four days to catch a hop after delivering
the blood. (On one trip I accompanied the shipment all the way up to a
MASH unit on the MLR, and spent a week there before getting back for a
flight out of K-14. I wasn't that anxious to stay, but lab tech was a
critical MOS; they put me to work until they got a replacement for a guy
who shipped out for ETS.)
It has been a long time (as you know very well), and I didn't keep my
duplicate 201 file, so I have to guess about when I was in Korea with
the communicable diseases team. I think it was a couple of weeks toward
the end of January 1953, but that could be the wrong month. I'm
embarassed to say that I'm also vague on when I was transferred from the
406th down to Nara, Japan, where I was lab tech for the Convalescent
Hospital there. I remember the cherry trees were in bloom, anyhow. My
courier flights ended with my transfer.
The Nara Convalescent Hospital closed up shop around the end of May,
1953. (They were folded into Osaka Army Hospital.) About a dozen of us
were left behind as the post medical unit for the cadre at Camp Nara,
its Korean R & R Center, and its dependents housing facility. Our unit
was made up of a doctor, a dentist, a nurse, and eight to ten EMs.
In August or September, 3000 Third Division Marines were moved to Nara.
The division was created out of nothing, with units stripped from posts
all over the ZI; a majority of the men were straight out of boot camp.
In the kind of confusion you'd expect with a newly-formed unit, it took
a while for the Navy medics to catch up with them, and we provided all
the medical support they had. That mess was pretty well straightened out
after a few weeks, but we sure as hell were busy until then. (The first
night alone we had to sew up eight guys who got stabbed while playing
grabass with bayonets in the barracks. Gung ho?)
I was shipped Stateside for release from active duty towards the end of
October 1953, and was released from active duty on 14 Nov 1953. (I
remember that date!)
I wish I could get hold of my old Army records, but as it happens they
were destroyed in the big records fire more than thirty years ago. (Was
that in Kansas City or St. Louis? I forget.) When I retired last year,
the personnel office at work wanted something out of my Army records.
When I tried to get some verification of my service from the VA or the
Army, they told me that my records were among those lost in that fire.
It turned out that the only official piece of paper I could show the
people at work was my DD 214. Luckily, that was enough.
Good luck on working up the records for medical units. I think that
will be a pretty tough job: the Medical Corps was as unmilitary as you
could get and still be in the Army. One of the things that kept it that
way was that lots of us sort of wandered in and out of places on
detached service when somebody needed a body with a critical MOS.
mike salovesh Email address
PEACE !!!
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