The Round Tablette

The Round Tablette October 2002 Volume 11 Number 2 Published by WW II History Roundtable situation was very different. In the early part of Edited by Jim and Jon Gerber the Burma campaign, the toll taken by malaria www.mn-ww2roundtable.org was infinitely greater than the number of casualties inflicted by any other source. So Soldiers of India - Fighting in Many great was the number of cases that in forward Theaters areas unites were so reduced in strength as to make them unfit for Service. In fact, there was Presented by: General Shankar Roychowdury - a serious danger of some units disintegrating. Chief of Staff of Army of India Initially, the only treatment for malaria was Welcome to the October meeting of the Dr. quinine, and with the enormous increase in the Harold C. Deutsch World War Two History number of troops in eastern India, supplies were Roundtable. Tonight we're privileged to have insufficient. The situation was also made worse with us General Shanker Roychowdhury, Chief by the shortage of medical units, doctors, of Staff of the Army of India. He will speak nurses, and medical equipment. Among the about the Army of India in World War Two. soldiers of the 23rd Indian Division, thousands went down with the fever. there were instances Effects of Disease on the War of battalions being reduced to a fighting strength of one company; out of a patrol of 140 One of the areas that the Army of India fought men from a British battalion, 70% contracted was in Burma. While medical science and a malaria. On brigadier, when ordered to send high standard of hygiene have reduced death out a patrol, said that because of the shortage of dealing disease to a low rate in the West, it is quinine, the operation would be futile since sometimes difficult to realize the effects of within a week the men would be carrying each these diseases on far Eastern populations where other. The situation among the technical and standards were not so high. Typhoid, cholera, administrative units was just as bad. In one smallpox, and malaria are only some of the recovery unit, responsible for 60 miles of road, endemic diseases to which these people were only one sergeant and two Indian mechanics exposed. Of these diseases, particularly in remained on their feet, resulting in a long line Burma, malaria was the greatest scourge and of vehicles standing by the roadside awaiting had a marked effect on plans and operations in repair, while others lay broken and weather 1942/43. beaten down the hillsides because there was no one to retrieve them. In the mule companies, Over the years, through vaccinations and there were often barely sufficient men to look inoculations, the incidence of typhoid, cholera, after the animals, let alone lead them when and smallpox had been reduced. In India, as far loaded. One company of 280 men had only 63 as the soldiers were concerned, with good fit to work. The construction of urgently accommodations, mosquito netting, and needed telephone lines stopped because most of repellents, plus good medical attention and the signalers were ill. The reinforcements that well-equipped hospitals near at hand, the upper were struggling to get to the front contracted hand had been gained over malaria and health malaria about 50% of the time and went directly was generally good. But when the soldiers to the hospital on arrival. were on active service in primitive areas, the As soon as one hospital was filled and another return to duty. Thus battalions, artillery was constructed, that too filled immediately as regiments, and administrative units were not well every other hospital that was constructed. seriously weakened for months on end. The the field ambulances were filled to overflowing lines of communication were not choked with and the regimental aid stations had to treat the many sick soldiers and for those who hoped to malaria cases right there sometimes holding as get away from Burma as a result of a bout of many as 250 cases at a time. When evacuated fever, the idea was not so attractive. to India, many were reinfected and never did return to their units. It was realized that prevention was better than the cure. General Slim insisted upon the by November 1942, the 23rd Indian Division, strictest malarial discipline through his totaling 17,000 men, was permanently 5,000 regimental officers and the non-commissioned men under strength. This was a very serious officers. the introduction of the drug shortage in view of the enormous area for mepachrine, and later paludrine, provided a which it was responsible. At one period the more lasting effect. The daily dose was taken annual rate of infection with malaria in the night and morning under the supervision of an Eastern Army was 84% and there were about officer and when a patrol went out, each soldier 12,000 a day who became ill. This situation was given enough tablets to last for the duration was becoming similar to the West Indies in of the patrol. The wearing of shorts was 1790 when the army was decimated by the prohibited at any time and shirt sleeves were "black vomit" or yellow fever. rolled down at dusk. Surprise inspections were help and should it be proved that less than 95% Malaria was not the only disease that attacked of the men had taken their mepachrine, the the fighting soldier. There was also scrub- commanding officer was removed. At first a typhus, which was caused by a mite that lived rumor spread that the tablets made men in the grass in which the men laid down to impotent, but the medical authorities quickly sleep. As a result of the bite, glands swelled in dispelled the alarm and soon everybody various parts of the body. Some men developed assumed the jaundiced complexion that was a rash or went deaf. Others had difficulty brought on by the drug. Steadily, through the breathing when the disease attacked the lungs. united efforts of the army commanders The only cure was careful nursing, good food downwards and the medical authorities, the and rest. To move a patient was dangerous and incidence of malaria decreased until in 1945, it in one case, when the doctors insisted that the had been reduced to one case per 1,000 men per patients could not be moved, nursing sisters day. went out to the hill on which they lay and tended to them on the spot. More reading on tonight's topic:

To overcome the ravages of malaria took many China, Burma, India by Don Moser - Time-Life months and although some progress was made Books, Alexandria, Virginia 1978 by the introduction of drug attabrin and the issue of gloves and masks to men on patrol, it The Road Past Mandalay by John Masters - was not until General Slim took command of Harper Publishing, New York, New York 1961 the 14th Army towards the end of 1943 that the situation began to improve. Malaria Forward Monsoon Morning by Ian Stephans - Benn Treatments Units were positioned immediately Publishing, London 1966 behind the fighting formations. These were tented field-hospitals to which the men who Slim by Michael Calvert - Ballantine Books, contracted malaria went and then remained New York, New York 1973 there for about three weeks until they were fit to Chindits by Michael Calvert - Ballantine Books, New York, New York 1973

The March on Delhi by A. J. Barker - Faber and Faber, London

Defeat Into Victory by Field Marshal the Viscount Slim - Van Rees Press, New York, New York 1961

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