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Show GREAT NUMBERS ARE RETURNING Plans for Physical and Financial Finan-cial Comfort of Returned Wounded Soldiers. NEW YORK, Dec. 14. November's swing of tho pendulum of history from war to peaco, which reversed the eastward east-ward flow of America's fighting millionsthe mil-lionsthe greatest trans-oceanic troop movement ever known brought the Amorican people face to face with tho tragedy of the casualty lists. General Pershing's announcement that more than 58,000 of the expeditionary" expedi-tionary" forces had given their lives in the nation's cause and that 11,000 others, exclusive of prisoners, were missing, created a profound impression, impres-sion, but the human touch of almost 190.0AO wounded, 16,600 of whom already al-ready havo boon returned in various stages of helplessness to ttiolr native shores, promises to give the country its first renl appreciation. of tho sacrifices sac-rifices of Its sons who followed the flag on foreign sou. The method of their debarkation denies de-nies to the homecoming wounded th'e popular honors paid their comrades in full health. But the war department, operating along lines intended to give the He to the proverbial "ingratitude of government," has arranged for medical, med-ical, recreational and educational attention at-tention whose aim is to restore these maimed heroes, as fully as possible, to physical comfort and financial independence. in-dependence. From tho day of their arrival at New York or Newport News, the ports of debarkation, to their ro-entrance into civilian life, a host of Good Samaritans Sam-aritans army doctors, nurses and orderlies or-derlies and workers of tho American Red CroBS will minister to theso sufferers suf-ferers from a ruthless1 enemy's engines en-gines of war. Harbor hospital boals, debarkation hospitals, hospital trains and general hospitals for reconstruction reconstruc-tion or convalescence form a chain of service linking the western bound fleets of transports wlth the homes of the wounded. And in this servlco the medical debarkation corps, suddenly thrust into tho foreground of publicity by the collapse of the Central powers, plays an important and picturesque parL Tho end of tho war found 'the port medical authorities prepared to shoulder shoul-der tho heavy burden laid upon thorn. During nineteen months of American participation in the conflict they had maintained an embarkation Bervice, treating the comparatively rare cases of illness among troops ready to go overseas. When American forces entered the trenches small groups of wounded, evacuated from hospitals in France, began to filter through the sorvlce on this sldo of the Atlantic. With the experience accentuated by tho lessons of the allied governments in repatriating their wounded, the debarkation de-barkation system was put in readiness readi-ness for the reception of injured men at the rate of 10,000 to 15,000 a month. During tho war and a five weeks' period following the signing of the armistice, ar-mistice, approximately 11,500 wounded wound-ed had been received at Now York and 4,500 at Newport News. And the authorities were prepared, on official advices from Washington, to handle 50,000 cases In the next four months. Tho army embarkation service at New York, which sent three-fourths of tho nation's 2,000,000 men overseas, is oxpected to debark a majority of the returning forces, and tho westward west-ward flow of wounded also will be directed here, with some diversion to Newport Nows and possibly, later on, to Boston. To carry on the work at this port the medical dopartmont has a personnel of 7,306 greater than the ontlro army medical corps when the United States entered the war. On this staff, headed by Colonel J. M. Kennedy, veteran of twenty-five years' service as an army surgeon, 950 are medical officers, 983 nurses, men and women, 5.18-1 enlisted mon and 189 civilian employes. The operating facilities Include eight debarkation hospitals with an aggregate aggre-gate of capacity of 10,900 beds, two base hospitals with 4,250 beds, a reconstruction re-construction hospital at Columbia university uni-versity for cases too serious to be moved to interior institutions, five harbor hospitals with 300 beds each, seventy-five ambulances, with fifty additional held in reserve by the Red Cross, and four hospital trains each, accommodating upwards of 200 patients. pa-tients. The base hospitals are at Camps Merritt and Mills, former embarkation, embarka-tion, now debarkation cantonments for tho overseas army. The debarkation hospitals are strategically located on or near the harbor front. The port medical authorities, responsible res-ponsible for soldier patients from the time of thoir arrival from Europe to their delivery at general hospitals nearest their homo communities, aim to cleatr their charges from the debarkation de-barkation hospitals within a week. The work begins at tho port quarantine station. Here medical officers board Incoming transports and assist tho .doctors aboard in preparing tho men 'for landing. In practically all cases .1 the wounded aro taken directly from the ship to the harbor hospital boat, which conveys them to a pier near one of the debarkation hospitals, where ambulances are in waiting. While the men get their "shore bearings" their cases aro studied and assignments made to reconstruction or convalescent hospitals. The next process is the attachment of a medical liaison officer to tho ! group he Is to conduct to an interior . station. When ho has become fa-, fa-, miliar with his charges ho applies for ' a hospital car or train, according to tho sizo of his party, and for an escort of doctors, nurses and orderlies. If a train is assigned, the journey, oven across the continent, is simple, but if tho wounded fill only one car, which must bo attached to regular trains, the; feeding problem becomes acute. Here j the Red Cross lends Its aid, arranging by telegraph with its auxiliaries along the way for meals for the travelers at points- where neither dining car service nor station restaurants arc available. The hospital trains, equipped with specially constructed Pullman sleepers sleep-ers and kitchen cars, have uccommo-dations uccommo-dations both for "walking cases" and for men so severely injured that they must remain abed both day and night In anticipation of their use on an extensive ex-tensive scale, fifty officers and 200 men arc in training here, and a smaller smal-ler company at Newport News, as escort es-cort detachments. |