The dental service of the US Army during World War II
by
Xavier Riaud

In 1901, in front of the American Dental Association, Dr John Sayre Marshall, the founder of
the US Army Dental Care System, declared: "A soldier who has bad teeth cannot stay in good
health for a long time. He may suffer from sudden digestive disorders which unable him to
fight on the field and which make him a threat for his comrades. The duty of every American
dentist is to rehabilitate his mouth so that he can gain back a satisfying general good state of
health and go back as soon as he can on the front to serve his country."

Historical background of the American dental care before World War II.
On June 17, 1775, Major General Joseph Warren died from a bullet wound during the battle
of Bunker Hill. It was Paul Revere, a dentist from the young American army, who identified
the Major General's body ten months after in 1776 thanks to two artificial teeth that he made
in 1775. In 1778, Comte de Rochambeau landed in Newport. A French dentist, Jacques
Gardette, came with him. As the soldiers had to deal with their own dental care, Gardette
contributed to the training of civil dentists during the War of Independence such as Josiah
Flagg who served in the American army during the war of 1812 as a dentist without official
status. In 1839, the first dental school in the world was founded in Baltimore and in 1940, the
Dental American association. In 1861, the dental association of the North parted with that of
the South. Dentists worked in those two camps without suitable facilities during the Civil
War. On April 4, 1872, William Saunders became the first official dentist of the US Army and
treated the youngest officers of the military Academy of West Point in New York.
On February 11, 1901, John Sayre Marshall became field officer and was the first dentist on
hire. On April 20, 1906, Leonie von Meusebach-Zasch was the first woman dentist to work
for the army. On March 3, 1911, the dental service of the US Army was officially established.
On November 30, 1918, the number of active dental officers reached 4620 among whom 1864
were stationed in Europe, the first unit having landed on August 20, 1917 in France.
On January 6, 1922, the U.S. Army Institute of Dental Research was created and was
commanded by Colonel Siebert Boak.
On July 1, 1934, the Army Medical Museum gave birth to the Registry of Dental and Oral
Pathology.
On January 29, 1938, the rank of brigadier general was granted by the 75th Congress to the
head of the dental Division. On June 29, 1938, Leigh Fairbank was the first to occupy this
position. He remained head of the division until March 16, 1942.
Right from 1941, 2,000 reserve dentists were summoned to fight. On March 17, 1942,
Brigadier General Robert Mills became the 9th Chief Executive Officer of the dental service of
the US Army. On March 17, 1946, he retired with the rank of Major General granted for the
first time to a dentist. On April 9, 1942, the Japanese arrested Major Roy Bodine in Bataan,
Philippines. He was made prisoner of war during 3 and a half years in the Philippines, Japan
and Korea before being released on September 7, 1945. His dedication to duty and his
comrades was hold up as an example. In 1943, the Army did not produce enough artificial
glass eyes. Researchers from the Dental Research Institute extended their investigations to the
maxillofacial sphere. They succeeded in making a plastic eye with a light synthetic resin
which was used immediately. The dental staff was also decisive in the development of audio
phones and in the making of damaged skulls consolidation techniques.
For the preparation of D-Day and the Normandy landing, huge piles of weapons and
equipments, tones of dental amalgams were transported to Great Britain. On November 1,
1944, the dental service had 15 292 officers.

Organization of the US Army Dental Care System in Normandy
This system was organized into two parts:
- The first followed the troops thanks to equipped vehicles;
- The second, which was at the rear of the front, was developed in specialized clinics.
Before June 6, 1944, a massive preparation effort of the allied forces was made by the dental
services to avoid problems on the various fronts. After that date, 50% of the dentists served as
assistants to surgical battalions or in other medical services. Once the situation was safer, the
organization of dental services of the front and interior zones were made possible. From the
beginning until the end of the war, the number of dentists rose from 250 to a little more than
15000. The strength of the US army revolved around 8,000,000 people, among whom there
was a proportion of 1 dentist out of 500 men. This goal was only achieved in 1943. In
December 1942, there should have been 30,000 dentists to satisfy the required proportion
when around 500,000 men had enrolled in one month. This situation was restored the
following year as the arrival of the troops spread over time. A great shortage of equipment
affected all the services at the beginning of the war but the American national production
made up for this delay which ceased during the landing.

The mobiles troops

The American army had 33 trucks converted into dental offices and 30 trucks turned into
prosthetic laboratories which followed one another in Europe. Flying units, which consisted
of a dentist and his assistant, could intervene with emergency medical supplies in areas of
confrontation. These troops had transportable equipment and supply kits such as chairs that
could be taken apart. All the equipment was packed up in boxes. These supplies were used in
front lines. During the conflict, at the dentists' request, an artificial light and an electrical
tower were added to these devices to bring further comfort to the patient and the practitioner.
The equipment and devices were piled up in warehouses located in safe places at the rear
battle areas.

The dental service in rear battle areas

As they were organized into clinics, the ambition was to centralize and optimize dental care.
According to the regiments, the medical centers offered different accommodation capacity
organized from 1 to 6:
-The Dental clinic (DC) 1°: Furnished with 25 armchairs. It aimed at welcoming divisional
camps and other groups gathering around 15,000 men. Supplied with the most modern
equipment (X-ray generator and prosthetic laboratories) spread on two floors. Measures: 40 m
long and 12 m wide.
- DC 2 : Without floor and aimed at welcoming 15 armchairs. Mere replica of the first one but
smaller. Aimed at welcoming groups of 10,000 men and found in hospitals of 250 beds or
more;
- DC 3 : With 8 armchairs. Appeared in the middle of the year 1941 for camps of 3,000 to
6,000 men or for hospitals with 100 to 200 beds;
- DC 4 : With three armchairs and which appeared in the middle of the year 1943. Designed
for small billets. Main part of the clinic. Supplied with the most modern equipment (X-ray
generator and a miniature prosthetic laboratory)
- DC 5 : Only one armchair, without an X-ray generator. Supplied with a small prosthetic
laboratory.
- DC 5 : Only one armchair. Without camera. Supplied with a small prosthetic laboratory.
- DC 6 : Only one armchair. Designed for prisoner camps.

The training of military dental surgeons in the USA

At the end of 1941, a new military program was applied in all dental schools of the country.
Once they had passed the physical fitness test, the students were sent to the active service
until the end of their full training. They received the second lieutenant rank and that of ensign
in the navy until their diploma.
Captain Ben Salomon : a war hero
He was born in Milwaukee on September 1, 1914. In 1937, he graduated from the University
of Southern California Dental College. He enlisted as a mere infantry private in 1940. Within
a year, he had risen to the rank of sergeant and was in charge of a machine gun section. In
1942, he was to become an officer in the Army Dental Corps. It is finally in Hawaii that he
was commissioned a First Lieutenant on August 14, 1942. In May 1943, he was serving in the
105th Infantry Regiment of the 27th Infantry Division where he excelled as a dentist. He got
involved in all battle simulations and won all his regiment's competitions. He was promoted
to the rank of captain in 1944 and left for Saipan, Mariana Islands. He volunteered to replace
the 2nd Battalion's surgeon who had been wounded. On July 7, 1944, the Japanese broke
through the American lines in Tanapag. The medical center was soon overwhelmed by the
wounded who flowed abundantly. Salomon ordered that the wounded soldiers should be
evacuated. He got hold of a submachine gun to cover their retreat. On the morning of July 8,
the Americans outflanked the Japanese. The dentist's body was found riddled with 76 bullets.
There were 98 Japanese bodies piled up in front of his defensive position.
On May 1, 2002, President George W. Bush signed an order posthumously awarding
Solomon the Congressional Medal of Honor for his "extraordinary heroism and devotion to
duty." He is the only dentist to have received this decoration. He had been refused any
recognition after the war. The Americans, who had signed the Geneva Convention, thought
that a doctor wearing a Red Cross arm band had no right to bear arms. They were wrong. The
name of Ben Salomon was then given to a dental clinic in Fort Brenning.
The USA had signed the "Geneva Convention to better the condition of the wounded and the
sick in the armies on campaign" of July 27, 1929.
ARTICLE 6 :
Mobile sanitary formations (i.e., those which are intended to accompany armies in the field)
and the fixed establishments belonging to the sanitary service shall be protected and
respected by belligerents.
ARTICLE 7 :
The protection due to sanitary formations and establishments ceases if they are used to
commit acts injurious to the enemy.
ARTICLE 8 :
A sanitary formation or establishment shall not be deprived of the protection accorded by
Article 6 by the fact:
1. That the personnel of a formation or establishment is armed and uses its arms in self
defense or in defense of its sick and wounded, etc.
Dr Hernan Reyes from the International Committee of the Red Cross claimed that: "The
nursing staff has the role to protect the wounded and the sick. To bear arms is therefore
solely authorized to protect these people. During the Second World War, let's take the
example of a French wounded man who would have succeeded in stealing his pistol within
the country hospital sheltering wounded men from the two camps, and who would have
started to shoot at all the German wounded men being there and who would have not obeyed
the order of ceasing fire formulated by the nursing staff. The doctors would thus have had the
right to shoot at this armed man to protect the others. The staff would also have had the right
to retaliate if a wounded man, whoever he is, would shoot at the nursing staff within the
hospital which is considered a neutral place.
However, if an enemy would attack a hospital with its infantry, the nursing staff would not
have the right to return fire like in a bunker. The staff would have to hoist the Red Cross flag
and try to make its neutrality respected. If nevertheless the enemy would begin to kill the
wounded soldiers of the other camp, nobody could reproach the nursing staff to intervene,
even with their weapons."
116 dentists died during the war: 20 on the battlefield, 5 because of injuries, 10 in custody and
81 following a disease or injuries which occurred outside the battlefield.

Other example

Alexander « Pete» Suer (1917-1945) received a physical training like any other servicemen
and became familiar with military dental training in a war hospital but also in "Medic", a unit
fighting on the first line, a position which consisted in practicing first vital emergency care,
collecting the wounded and evacuating them outside the battlefield. Moreover, in Sicily, Suer
had invented a bold method to save the wounded who were beyond reach. Standing on the
bumper of his Jeep, waving a Red Cross flag, Pete moved in between lines to collect the
wounded while the two camps kept on shooting at each other. He was the most admired and
decorated doctor of the regiment. He received the Silver Star Medal, a military decoration for
curing his wounded soldiers under German fire after the D-Day.
During their stay in Normandy, Suer captured 15 German soldiers alongside a doctor.
During his 5th operation (Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Ardennes) on December 23, 1944, Suer
was informed that two wounded soldiers were waiting for emergency care and were located
close to the German lines. With three male nurses, he got on the spot and crawled towards the
soldiers.
At that moment, mortar fire crushed his two feet. Pete demanded that the two wounded were
evacuated before him. Then, he was driven to the aid station where a plasma perfusion was
performed. Suer was transferred to Liege then to Paris and from there, to the Walter Reed
Army Medical Center in Washington DC. His legs were amputated and he died as a result of
the surgery at 28 years old.

Bibliography

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Oppem, 2004.
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DC, 1955.
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