This is england. England before june 6, 1944. From these shores, the United Nations was soon to launch the greatest military expedition of its kind in history. The First Channel invasion of europe against the nazi power. Vast preparations were being made. Huge quantities of material and supplies collected. Guns. Half tracks. Bombs. Ambulances. Yes, ambulances. [explosion] for in the midst of all of this preparation and the training that went on, there went on other kinds of preparations. Preparations for the business of saving life and preserving limb and easing pain. Through the endless english months of wargames and maneuvers, the medical corpsman on the ground worked with the units and grew tough and ignored the conditions. They learned the prime importance of speed. As the day drew nearer and the grand strategy was mapped, medical corps drafted plans. The disposition of hospital facilities in england would be as follows. In the north, scattered over a wide area, the General Hospitals. Large institutions, completely equipped for every type of medical service. A few miles inland from the south coast spotted near railroads, would be a series of hospitals for which would pass , all the casualties arriving in england. Here they would be classified and routed to the various General Hospitals in the north. Along the coast, close to the beaches and ports and each receiving area, there would be holding hospitals. Fully equipped for emergency surgery. Here, serious cases could receive immediate attention, immediately on their arrival in england. These were the plans. This was the reality. The General Hospital, the transit hospital and the holding hospital. Better equipped than many Permanent Institution back home. The tent stood empty. Ready, waiting for the day. June 6, dday. A great plan is put to the test. The enemy lies in wait, as determined to stop us as we are to land. The First American soldiers hit the beach. [explosions] ] unshots b the medics have moved in and the work begins. Stations are established on the spot. Also an astounding record starts piling up. The check up later revealed 90 of the wounded received medical care within 10 minutes of being hit. Immediately, the business of evacuation begins. Worst wounds get first priority. To go back to the boat that landed them a short time before. This is part of the plan. Where the lfts are unable to come in close enough, the smaller craft are used to get the wounded to them. The ships received damaged human cargo for the trip back. All along the beach as they wait. As the fighting develops, every means is used to hasten the removal of the wounded from the scene of the battle. The chief of all trades is pressed into service and proves itself again. And a duck sets out with its load of wounded. Through it all, the slogan of speed remains the keynote. The lfts used in the normandy invasion were designed to become Emergency Hospital ships as soon as their fighting cargoes had been deposited onshore. S, wall brackets were installed to accommodate tiers of litters. In the first days of the invasion, 90 were evacuated on the ships. The smoke and a drink of water and trophies and rest. The dead rest of exhaustion. Elsewhere on the ship, a life is being saved. Some wounds cant wait. Included an operating room on each lft. Also an experienced army surgeon. Soon it will be england again and rest and care and safety. The routing of the ships had been carefully planned to avoid congestion at any one landing point on the english coast. As each ship disembarked his wounded, those cases needing immediate surgery or other treatment were moved to the nearest holding hospital. Then as soon as they were transportable again, they were moved inland to the transit hospital serving the area. All other cases and the work these were in the great majority were moved directly to the landing point of the transit hospital and from there were routed by special train to the north. Every preparation for these moves had been made. Ambulance companies strung out all along the coast were under the control of evacuation offices of each area. 5000 of these vehicles stood by, ready for immediate service. The ships start coming in. And port, some tapirs some to piers in outlying areas. Others pull up directly onto the beaches. No time is lost in moving out the wounded. Specially trained sanitary litteres take over the jobs and the business of unloading begins. Evacuation officers supervise. The disposition of each litter case has been decided. And so man helps man. And american teamwork proves itself once more, and the job is shortly done. The emergency cases move out first. Often its only a matter of minutes before a dangerous wound has been xrayed. A decision made, and a patient readied for surgery. As soon after the operation as its safe for him to travel, hes moved out, sent off to the transit hospital. In normandy, the fighting has moved inland. In the last war when a soldier was wounded, you had to watch and wait. Now the order is reversed. The aid man does the watching and waiting and is at the side of the casualty as soon as he becomes one. In addition, the american corpsman today, unlike his counterpart in previous wars, is qualified to administer morphine and plasma and to render numerous other services to the wounded. All this is making a vast difference in the saving of life. Some of the wounded filter back to the aid station on foot. But evacuation by walking and hand litter bearing soon gives way to the faster method of evacuation by jeep. A battalion aid station operates just behind the lines. Here the trained corpsman again demonstrates his value, taking over many jobs that the physician would otherwise have to perform. This frees the doctors time for more detailed attention to the serious cases. Next, the wounded are brought to a collecting station a mile or so farther back. There are facilities here for further emergency treatment if needed. But the primary job is the transporting the wounded with all possible speed to the clearing station. This is located far enough to the rear to avoid exposure to direct enemy action. Here medical officers expert in judging the condition of casualties sort the patients and determine their disposition. Surgeon cases needing certain specialized types of surgery are turned over to the field hospital, which is set up close by. A great majority of operations here are for perforating abdominal wounds and sucking wounds of the chest like this one. Whole blood flown in from england consolidates the gains that have been made by lifesaving plasma at the front. On dday plus four, the first Evacuation Hospital goes up in france. This is the largest and most elaborate type of installation used in the combat zone. Nevertheless, its ready to receive patients within 30 minutes, and operating starts in two hours, three of them going on at once. Count them. Skilled army nurses look after the patients, and there are such comforts as cots and mattresses and hot food. Many of the less seriously wounded will make complete recoveries here and report to replacement depots in a matter of days. But cases requiring prolonged periods of convalescence are sent back to england. Plane evacuation, expected to begin about dday plus seven is actually begun on dday plus three. Within a fortnight, were flying out more than a thousand wounded a day, and sea evacuation has been almost entirely supplanted. The air trip from france to england takes about an hour. Speed has won another triumph, and it becomes a common occurrence for a soldier wounded in france in the morning to be resting in a General Hospital in england by evening. From the landing field, the patients are shuttled to the transit hospital, and before long theyre boarding the hospital trains that pull out daily from nearby railway spurs for the trip north. And the last leg of the journey begins. The General Hospitals are telling some remarkable stories these days, like 16,000 casualties handled by one group and only 15 deaths. What is making such records possible, of course, is the fine condition in which patients are arriving due to the splendid work of units all along the line. In the first two months of the invasion, some 76,000 wounded were handled by the medical department. In world war i, 8 of these men would not have survived. Today, less than 3 are being lost, and many who would have been invalided for life will be totally healed. So the careful planning of months bears fruit, and men who knew the battlefield but a few short hours back, knew the pain, the suffering, now know the care, the comfort, and the hope that the best in modern medicine can bring. You can watch archival films on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series reel america, saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv. Sunday on American History tv on cspan3 we continue our coverage of the 75th anniversary of dday. At 6 00 p. M. On american artifacts with historian, author, and actor jared frederick. They had landed i halfmile off course. There was uncertainty, perhaps hesitation as to what they should do. The assistant commander, Theodore Roosevelt junior, son of the president , the oldest american participant in the invasion said defiantly, we will start the war right here. Al at 6 30 p. M. On or histories, a talk about landing on omaha beach. They talked about the carnage, which was there, but they made it look like we did not have any difficulty. The Fourth Division lost 197 men on the beach on dday. The next day, when we attacked, we lost 50 of our men within three or four days. This weekend on American History tv on cspan 3. Cspan cities tour is in reno, nevada to highlight its history. Next we hear about renos basque population at the center for Basque Studies at the university of nevada, reno. [speaking spanish] welcome to the center for Basque Studies. The center was created in 1967. It is now 52 years old. Originally part of the institute to study immigration to the desert. After that, it slowly progressed into what we have today, a