It was a job of trying to organize some order and plan out of preposterous chaos.
Meanwhile, American ships and seamen were endeavoring to hold Macassar Strait against the invaders. At that Thermopylae of the sea the U.S.S. Houston was mortally wounded and lost. The U.S.S. Marblehead, with her steering gear shattered and great gaping holes in her sides, limped into Surabaya, carrying survivors from the Houston and her own injured.
There were excellent Dutch hospitals in Surabaya, with Dutch and Javanese doctors and nurses, where our wounded and sick could be cared for as competently and carefully as in the best of American medical centers.
To Dr. Wassell fell the job of assigning patients to these institutions — officers to Darmo Hospital, ratings to the C.B.Z. (Central Civilian Hospital). These hospital staffs assumed all care of our wounded, and the American doctor wisely did not interfere. But every day he visited each institution, making the rounds of the wards, talking with the men who were able to talk, and bringing them the small, homely comforts which under such circumstances assume a value and importance out of all proportion to their intrinsic worth. It is fantastic how much morale value is compressed in a single tube of familiar, American-made shaving cream, or a five-cent chocolate bar. To those mutilated, suffering, and nerve-shattered men, the doctor with his gifts of candy, ice cream, soap, and — final touch of thoughtfulness — long Chinese cigarette holders which would allow the comforts of a smoke to men whose burned arms and hands were swathed too heavily in bandages to let them hold a cigarette, must have seemed like a kindly American uncle.
"There weren't any naval orders to buy these things," the doctor recalls. "I didn't know but what I'd get court-martialed for spending 250 guilders (about $125) of the Navy's money on ice cream and smokes. But I figured it would be worth it. So far, the Navy Department hasn't called me on the carpet for it."
Another of the doctor's duties, together with those of the chap-
