U.S. Army Medical Corps PlaqueNurse Collar DeviceU.S. Army Medical Units at Dachau7th Army Shoulder Patch

FAR LEFT: U.S. Army Medical Corps Plaque; LEFT U.S. Army Nurse Corps Collar Device: RIGHT: Seventh Army Shoulder Patch

The 32,000 liberated Dachau inmates were in urgent need of medical care.

Within days of the April 29, 1945 liberation of Dachau, the Seventh Army deployed medical units to Dachau.

The first were the
116th and 127th Evacuation Hospitals, Seventh Army.

Along with the nurses of those units were nurses attached from other units for a total of
eighty nurses.

Eighty percent of liberated inmates were suffering from tuberculosis

The personnel of the medical units quickly converted barracks into hospitals eventually creating 11 wards with 1200 beds.

Typhus had broken out with up to 400 liberated inmates dying per day.

The U.S. Army Typhus Commission with eight nurses on detached service from the 59th Evacuation Hospital ran the typhus ward.

Click on image for larger format
Typhus
            Ward
The Army nurses were assisted by clergy, former inmates, and German nursing personnel.

On May 10 Commanding Officer of the 59th Evacuation Hospital was assigned as Camp Surgeon of Dachau.

Other Army medical units deployed to Dachau include the 10th Field Hospital and the 66th Field Hospital.

The 56th Evacuation Hospital was deployed on June 6, 1945.

Among the liberated inmates cared for were survivors of Nazi medical experiments.

Medical Units at Dachau Include:

56th Evacuation Hospital

116th
Evacuation Hospital, Seventh Army

127th Evacuation Hospital, Seventh Army

10th Field Hospital Seventh Army

66th Field Hospital,
Seventh Army

U.S. Army Typhus Commission


Sources and for More Information:

Army Nurses in Dachau, 1945 by Constance J. Moore, Colonel, Army Nurse Corps (Retired), Army Nurse Corps Association Historian

2nd Lt. Dorothy Baggett, RN, 127th Evacuation Hospital

59th Evacuation Hospital Unit History

Letters from Dachau June 6 to 26, 1945, René Bine Jr., MD 56th Evacuation Hospital, Includes his reports on care of survivors of Nazi medical experiments.

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