Heimlich's Maneuvers Read online

  It is not in my nature to back down under pressure or compromise my position to attain a less-than-just decision. And so I held my ground. “You think Jews should stand back and take abuse. I’m as good as you are,” I told him. I remember thinking that, in rebuking the student, I took after my father, who stood up for prisoners whom he felt had been treated unfairly.

  JOINING THE NAVY

  After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the government required that medical-school students join the military to ensure that there would be medical personnel in the field. Because I had always loved the water, I chose to join the US Navy Reserve as an unpaid ensign.

  I was proud to have given an oath to fight in the war if needed, but others did not know that, because I did not wear a uniform in public. During this time, I traveled across town every day by bus, going from our home to medical school and back again. As the war progressed, there were plenty of insults hurled at me on that bus by people who did not know that I’d signed up to fight in the war if needed. Bus drivers who were too old to be drafted were particularly vicious with their comments. A typical mumbled remark was “Get on, 4F.” The military designation “4F” was given to young men with physical disabilities that prevented them from being drafted into the service.

  I was so incensed by people’s false allegations of reserve soldiers that I wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote a daily newspaper column. I told her how difficult it was to be in that situation. I like to think that she picked up on my comment, because, in a future column, she wrote about how people should not make assumptions regarding men who were out of uniform.

  On May 7, 1943, during my last semester in medical school, the federal government created the V-12 Navy College Training Program to keep in school those students who were preparing to become officers. I was required by the federal government to resign as an ensign and become a V-12 midshipman. This time, I wore the uniform and got paid. What’s more, the navy paid for my tuition. Things were looking up. Not only did I not have to put up with people’s insults, but I was also admitted into officers clubs, where I could get dates with society girls.

  Figure 4.5. An officer: As a midshipman, I proudly wore my uniform in public.

  Figure 4.6. Joining the navy: There was no question that I would join the navy while in medical school because I loved the water.

  A MEDICAL INTERN

  In December of 1943, I graduated from medical school six months early because there were no vacations or breaks from school during the war. We just studied straight through. After that, I received an internship at Boston City Hospital and was placed on inactive duty. I was thrilled about working as a doctor in the real world, although it was a financial strain. Unlike today, when interns receive a modest salary, I was expected to work for free.

  Figure 4.7. Ready to treat patients: After graduating from Cornell Medical College, I was excited to work as an intern in a hospital.

  Working as an intern at a city hospital during the war was an odd experience—one that likely put some patients at risk. Normally, there would be plenty of physicians to offer instruction, but with so many doctors overseas, we interns were often on our own at the hospitals. (Meanwhile, those who stayed behind, which included mostly older physicians, made a lot of money. With hardly any competition, their practices flourished and they each made a fortune. I recall visiting one surgeon in Boston and seeing patients lined up down the steps and into the hall.)

  Many of us interns were fresh out of medical school. We were eager to put what we had learned to use, but we needed more supervision than was given to us. We were often performing procedures that would have been better left in the hands of more experienced medical personnel. One of the first surgical operations I performed was an appendectomy, a procedure I had never done before. What’s more, I had to be prepared to do it singlehandedly.

  I began prepping the patient by shaving his abdomen. Next, I placed him on a rickety stretcher and wheeled him through the rat-infested tunnels under the enormous hospital that led to the operating-room building, a distance of about three blocks. Once I got to the operating room, I turned the patient on his side and injected spinal anesthesia. I knew I needed assistance, so I phoned my fellow intern on call to come and help me. While I waited for him to arrive, I painted the patient’s abdomen with a pink sterilizing solution, draped sterile sheets around the site of the incision, and made my first cut. When the intern arrived, he and I set to continuing the procedure. Thankfully, we two neophytes got the appendix out. Afterward, I wheeled the patient back through the dungeons and to the ward. It was not an ideal situation for either surgeon or patient, but such experiences and responsibilities were preparing me for what I would endure in just a short time, when I would be working as a surgeon in one of the most remote places on earth.

  On September 13, 1944, I was ordered back to active duty as a lieutenant JG, or junior grade, and transferred to the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The assignment was luxurious. As an officer, I was fed delicious steak dinners, a delicacy denied most civilians during wartime. But again, the work was no picnic. With so many young men away, I, as a surgeon, had to do just about everything myself. And, as in Boston City Hospital, I was left to take on responsibilities I was not fully qualified for.

  One day, I was assigned to give anesthesia to a patient undergoing a knee operation. Like performing the appendectomy, I had never administered general anesthesia. Today, anesthesiology is a highly specialized field for a reason. If not handled correctly, patients can die from receiving too much of the drug or suffer great pain if not given enough. For this procedure, an orthopedic surgeon from Boston was performing the operation. I was afraid to keep the anesthesia very deep for fear of overdosing the patient, and in the middle of the procedure, the surgeon said to me, “Doctor, the patient is about to walk off the table.” I increased the ether and hoped. Thankfully, all turned out well.

  On October 28, 1944, I reported to the naval receiving station on Great Diamond Island in Casco Bay, Portland, Maine. The station housed sailors from the time they left their ship until they got a new assignment. My job was to take care of their medical needs, which was not difficult, since most of the men were in good health. This was also soft living: good food, drinks in the officers’ club, a beautiful bay, plenty of social life on shore, and only an occasional patient or two in the sick bay.

  Still, I’ll never forget one of those patients, and I’m sure he remembers me to this day. A twenty-three-year-old ensign came to see me about some problems with his prepuce, the foreskin that overhangs the uncircumcised penis. He told me he had been on board a ship for several months and had recently married his long-time girlfriend. He asked me if I would circumcise him, and I agreed to do it. I gave the sailor local Novocain anesthesia and made the first incision. He screamed. I injected more anesthesia, started operating, and he screamed again. There was no stopping, so I completed the operation. Years later, it dawned on me as to why the patient was in such pain: the medical corpsman assisting me probably gave me saline solution to inject into the patient rather than Novocain. I felt terrible for the agony the patient endured. Worst of all for him, the next day, he got a two-week leave and was heading back home to see his wife.

  On December 15, 1944, a month and a half after arriving at Casco Bay, I received news that would change my life forever. I had just had a pleasant date with a nurse onshore and was waiting for the boat to take me back to the island. When the boat arrived, a lieutenant commander stepped off, came over to me, and said, “Doctor, your orders just arrived at the base.” When I got to the office, I read the brief document. It had been sent to me by Randall Jacobs, the chief of naval personnel in Washington, DC. The cryptic instructions stated, “You will regard yourself detached from duty at the Receiving Station, Casco Bay, Maine.” Instead, I was to go to Washington “and report to the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, for temporary duty, pending further assignment to duty by the Bureau
of Naval Personnel.”2

  I was intrigued but also nervous. Whatever I was being asked to do had to be an important mission, or else why summon me to Washington? But I also wondered why I was being given so little information.

  In early January, I spent a few days with my family in New York City. Then I headed to Washington as I was ordered to do. I had no idea what awaited me there.

  In the 1940s, Chinese Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek were engaged simultaneously in two conflicts in their own territory. On the one hand, they were resisting the Japanese invasion that had begun in 1937 with the notorious Rape of Nanking. Simultaneously, they were also struggling for internal control against Mao Zedong’s Communists. While I was in medical school, I gave little thought to these struggles on the other side of the globe. Yet, as hard as this would have been for me to believe when I was ordered to go to Washington, DC, on that December day in 1944, I was to play a critical important role in the conflict.

  After spending a few days at home in New York City, I reported to the chief of naval operations in Washington, DC, on January 9, 1945, as I had been instructed to do. I was taken into a large conference room and instructed to sit down with two officers. They could say very little about my assignment, although they did let me know it was dangerous.

  “All we can tell you about your assignment is that it is voluntary,” I remember one of them saying, “and that it is prolonged, extra-hazardous, overseas duty in China. You don’t have to take it. If you don’t, you’ll be reassigned.” The officers also informed me that the duty for which I was selected was connected with a secret project and that I was forbidden to discuss any details of my assignment with anyone except my supervisors. I could divulge to loved ones only that I was going to China. The officers then filled me in just a little bit more: I was going to be a part of a military partnership between China and the United States, called the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO), also known as the US Naval Group, China.

  I quickly thought, I have no idea what it would be like to serve in China, but if I don’t accept this assignment, I could end up landing on a beachhead somewhere in the Pacific. And China had to be an interesting place to be. I told the officers that I’d do it.

  On February 13, about a month after that initial Washington meeting, I received written orders from Chief of Naval Personnel Jacobs that I was to “proceed to the port in which the Commander, U. S. Naval Group, China, may be” with my baggage. Three other navy lieutenants were included on the orders.1 When I arrived at the port in Washington, a large group of navy men were waiting on the sidewalk, appearing just as perplexed as I was. Some officers escorted us onto buses; after that, we headed to the railroad station and boarded a troop train. The trip took a little over a week. When we stopped at a station along the way, I slipped off the train and called my sister. Cele was also in the navy and stationed in San Diego. I asked her to meet me in Los Angeles, where our train would be stopping.

  Cele was waiting on the platform. She and I had a late dinner together at a fine restaurant. We talked on and on about the past and what our futures might bring. For the first time, I learned about Cele’s extraordinary military service. She had become one of six WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), aerial navigators who trained pilots for the dangerous flights from North Island, California, naval air base to the Hawaiian Islands. These sixteen-hour flights flew at night, covering extraordinarily long distances over water and enduring headwinds that only increased the risk. Because war conditions required radio silence, the pilots had only the stars to lead them. I told Cele all the information the navy said I could disclose; that is, I was being sent to China.

  LEAVING AMERICA

  The next day, Cele drove me to San Pedro, location of the Los Angeles Harbor, where I and several thousand other American soldiers boarded the USS Admiral W. S. Benson. Most were army personnel. The only navy seamen on the ship were the crew and about ten of us SACO officers. We sailed out under a blue, Southern California sky, wondering what China would be like and what we would be doing once we got there.

  Figure 5.1. A meaningful get-together: My sister, Cele, and I on our day together before I left for China during World War II. (Photograph courtesy of Cecilia Rosenthal.)

  Just after we left shore, we got a firsthand view of war. A small plane appeared, towing a fluttering target on a cable that the navy soldiers on the ship were to shoot for practice. Gunners on deck started shooting rounds of antiaircraft missiles at the banner. We watched from the deck, in awe as one of the shots got a direct hit on the banner, and we all screamed and cheered. I was relieved to see the soldiers destroy the practice target. For the enemy, a troop ship was, in itself, a key target. It made me feel we had a chance of surviving if we were attacked.

  There was much camaraderie on board, and yet I still was not fully accepted by some because I was Jewish. But I do have one fond memory of how prejudice led to friendship. One day, after we had been at sea for a couple of days, an army captain was standing with me at the railing and said, “Hank, you’re a Jew, aren’t you? Tell me, why is it that Jews always tried to get out of going overseas?”

  “What makes you think that?” I asked.

  “When our group was in camp getting ready to go overseas, there was a big line at sick bay and most of those in line were Jews,” he responded. “They must have been faking illness to avoid the mission.”

  “How did you know they were Jews?” I questioned.

  “From their names,” he answered, “when the nurse called them up.”

  “I see,” I said. “But let me ask you, how many of them were Catholics?”

  “Don’t know,” the captain replied.

  “Okay. How many were Protestants?” I demanded.

  He shrugged.

  “Is it possible that you’re prejudiced, and that every time they called a Jewish name, you were conscious of it, but you didn’t consider the religion of the other people called?” I asked.

  “You know, you’re right,” he conceded.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said to him. “Why don’t you come with me to the Friday night Jewish services on the ship, and we’ll see how many Jewish men there are?” The man agreed to go.

  I had no idea just how many Jews would be at the services, but I had already thrown down the gauntlet at that point. Still, I was vindicated. When Friday night arrived, the man and I went to the dining hall where Jewish services were held. We saw several hundred soldiers and sailors in attendance. After that, the captain and I were friends for the rest of the trip. I had gained his respect for my taking a stand, and he had gained my respect for being open to learning.

  On March 29, 1945, after we had been at sea for thirty-two days, we landed in Bombay (now known as Mumbai), India. Four days later, we boarded a train to Calcutta (also known as Kolkata). Two officers and I shared a comfortable, screened, private room with its own lavatory, while the enlisted men lived in second-class cars that were open on both sides with long wooden benches shared for sitting and sleeping. The train was pulled by an ancient steam engine. Sometimes it stopped because a cow, deemed holy according to the Hindu religion, was standing on the track. At these interludes, we would take our aluminum canteen cups and hike forward to the engine. As we held the cup under the exhaust, the engineer ejected steam into the cup, providing hot, sterile water for making coffee.

  After four days on the train, we reached Calcutta and were driven to Kanchrapara, a US Army camp. I still had no idea how I was getting to China or what I would be doing. The dirt roads to the camp were narrow and always lined with people carrying heavy loads attached to poles or atop their heads. One evening in the officer’s club, I heard an American laughing. “I knocked off two gooks with my truck today,” he said, meaning that he had run over two Indian locals. The remark sickened me. I had grown a stiff hatred for Nazis, but I suddenly realized that anyone who hates others in a prejudicial way could be found in any country, including the United
States.

  Later that night, a few of us went walking and saw a small, attractive building surrounded by beautiful gardens. On the gate was a bronze plaque with the name “Punjab Club.” We wandered in and were met at the door by a young Indian officer who cordially invited us inside. There were other Indian soldiers there, pleasant and bright men who welcomed us with food and friendship. One soldier asked a question that made us laugh: “Is America going to take India from the British after the war?” We assured them that we would not. I thought about the Indians’ hospitality and warmth and questioned, “Who among us are really the ‘gooks’?”

  I AM A MULE FOR THE US NAVY

  On April 18, 1945, I received orders telling me to board a commercial aircraft that would fly me to Chungking, China. There, I would report to the office SACO’s commander, Milton E. Miles. I was given a civilian American passport and was required to wear civilian khakis without any insignia rather than wear my uniform. The idea was to blend in with the other passengers aboard the plane and not to tip anyone off that I was in the military. I soon found out that I was to be a short-term “mule” for the American government, delivering supplies to the Americans in China, although I still did not know just where in the country that would be.

  I was given five huge mail pouches and a letter marked “Secret.” In the pouches were mail, rifles, and ammunition. In addition, I was loaded down with a half dozen .45-caliber pistols hanging from straps over my shoulders and in holsters on my belt. The pilot didn’t want me to board the small plane because it was too much weight. He worked for the government-controlled Chinese National Aviation Corporation, or CNAC, which owned the plane. But the man who accompanied me, who worked for the US embassy, popped his head in and told the pilot that I was part of an important military mission. We took off at 0400.