A IR FORCE crews in combat are subject to injury not only from enemy gunfire but also from the effects of cold or anoxia at high altitudes, from burns or injury from crash landings or parachute jumps or from a bizarre assortment of accidents within a plane in flight, the commonest of which is being caught in a moving gun turret.

During the course of the year March 1, 1944 to March 1, 1945, 1,054 battle casualties from the Eighth Air Force were admitted to the Sixty-Fifth General Hospital, located at Redgrave Park, Suffolk, England. Two hundred and fifteen of these were admitted as transfers from station hospitals in the vicinity. Eight hundred and thirty-nine were admitted to this hospital for definitive care, directly from their bases, on an average of five and one-half hours after being wounded. The latter group, of 839 patients, forms the basis of this report.