Note 38 — Chapter XI · Logistics and Civil Affairs

Co-operation between the medical services of the Sixth Army and those of the Seventh Fleet was excellent. Col. William A. Hagins, Sixth Army Surgeon, praised the medical service of the Seventh Fleet in unstinting terms: “The LST’s equipped to provide surgical service conformed to the highest professional standards and they, together with the APH’s (transports for wounded) and the small PCE(R)’s (patrol craft, escort (rescue)) formed a floating hospital reserve that varied between 3,000 and 5,000 beds. Without this service, which relieved the hard pressed hospitals of many cases, the level of medical and surgical care on Leyte would certainly have been sub-standard.”38