Army Doctor: The reminiscences of a West Australian Army Medical Officer during the World war 1939-1945 (1981) By Dr. Philp Thomas
 
The best known of Australian doctors was Lieutenant-Colonel E.E. ‘Weary’ Dunlop but he was one of many: 106 Australian doctors were captured by the Japanese, of whom 44 worked on the Thai–Burma railway. They included Albert Coates, Bruce Hunt, Rowley Richards, and Roy Mills. Ten doctors died while prisoners of the Japanese, none on the railway. Very little could be done for the prisoners’ dental welfare with only six Australian dental officers scattered along the railway. With little medicine and equipment – though some doctors managed to bring some instruments with them — these medical personnel had to treat illnesses and diseases which were often unfamiliar to them. Yet they showed a remarkable capacity to improvise. Surgery and amputations were conducted in the most difficult of conditions, sometimes with the Japanese watching on.
 
In jungle camps along the railway there was an average of one doctor to one hundred men. However, in places such as 55-Kilo camp in Burma, this ratio was as low as three doctors to 2 000 men. The ratio rose to four to 100 in the base hospitals, such as Chungkai and Tha Sao. But even this was far fewer than were needed given the numbers of the sick. The doctors ranged from experienced surgeons to general practitioners in their twenties scarcely out of medical school. Doctors also protected the sick from the Japanese, at considerable risk to themselves. At Tha Sao, for example, Hunt confronted a Japanese corporal who insisted that certain men were fit to travel. Falling in with the sick men Hunt stood his ground together with his interpreter C. H. D. Wild.
 
Soft Cover
109 pages 
In Good Condition