The army's 95th Evac, one of 107 evacuation hospitals that fought 
tirelessly to save soldiers maimed from battle or ravaged by 
disease, arrived in Casablanca in April 1943 with seven thousand 
troops, thirty doctors, and forty nurses. It eventually became the 
first American hospital to penetrate Nazi-occupied Europe. Records 
show that the 95th Evac treated more than forty-two thousand 
Americans in nearly every critical battle of the European theater.

    In Hospital at War, Zachary Friedenberg, a young surgeon fresh
out of his internship at the time, provides an insider's account of
how these men and women of the 95th worked day by day, under
trying conditions, to salvage lives. In doing so, they adjusted to each 
other, to the foreign countries in which they had to work, and to 
climates ranging from the extreme heat of North Africa to the frigid 
winters of the Rhineland. Like the troops it cared for, the hospital 
often endured shelling and bombing.

    By the end of its two-year tour of duty, the 95th Evac was 
superbly efficient, and 99 percent of casualities who arrived at this 
hospital survived. For anyone who wants to know how so many of our 
boys made it home despite horrific injuries, this book provides part 
of the answer.

_________________________________________________________

ZACHARY FRIEDENBERG is now a professor of orthopedic surgery
at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.


Number Ninety-six: Texas A&M University Military History Series