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EMERGENCY CALL, PEARL HARBOR
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the hospital's Chinese galley force. Anyone who has lived in the East knows you can kill a Chinaman, but you can't surprise him. His imperturbability equals that of the Great Wall his ancestors built.

The hospital's cooks and mess boys lived up to the traditions of their race. With the great tide of seriously injured patients, slight casualties, helpers, and stray sailors whose ships had been blown up and who didn't know where to go, turning up at the hospital, every inch of space inside and out was crowded. Yet, somehow, by some miracle and the equanimity of the Chinese temperament, those boys served that day, between noon and 3 p.m., 4,500 Sunday dinners. Then they pitched in and produced an equal number of suppers.

Next day they did it again. After that, the hospital was cleared of all except the patients and staff, and the housekeeping settled down to a routine.

Character and habit are what make for morale in any emergency. Sometimes force of habit produces amusing results. When the U.S.S. Arizona was blown up in a world-shattering explosion, the Hayden children ran excitedly to the front door to see. Automatically Mrs. Hayden called after them: "Don't let the mosquitoes in."


One striking difference between the medical picture presented by World War I and the one we are fighting today lies in the enormously increased number of burn cases. As a result of modern warfare, burns have become a major casualty. Of the patients sent to the Pearl Harbor Hospital, 254 were burn cases.

Practically all these were flash burns, caused by the temporary but intense heat from exploding bombs or torpedoes. These were preponderantly second-degree burns, and many burns covered some 80 per cent of the body surface.

It was immediately noticeable that those parts of the body surface which were covered by any kind of clothing, even the lightest skivvy shirt or cotton shorts, were not burned. When the attack