Life-saving measures

Sigmund A. Kosewick

“I was the head corpsman on duty on Dec. 6, 1941, and was to be relieved at 0800 on Sunday, Dec. 7. I had finished giving a report of my watch to the relief corpsman and sat down to sign the log. … I don’t remember whether I ever signed it as the Japanese attack started.”

Kosewick said he went to the second deck’s dispensary to wake up the corpsmen who were still asleep. “I then telephoned the doctors who lived in the officers quarters on the hill above the station, informing them that we were being attacked by Japanese planes.”

“I subsequently gave a quick orientation on the use of morphine syrettes as I had read a pamphlet on them just the evening before the attack. It was worthwhile as we were found to have some in stock.”

“The sick sailors in the ward were sent to an inner room with solid walls where they would be safe from strafing. For a few minutes I did some triage work with incoming wounded. We soon had all the beds in the sick bay filled.” Mattresses were then hauled out and lined up wall to wall for more wounded sailors.

“Our sterile linen supply was quickly exhausted, hence we had to quickly wash the used sheets (and instruments) and put them into the instrument boiler to sterilize them,” Kosewick said. “After the first round of surgery, which included mostly lifesaving measures, we had to call back some of the early cases that required additional work, such as looking for perforated gut wounds.”

Kosewick continued, “We finished working at about 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I went to bed but could not fall asleep as there was a strong odor of blood. I got up, looked at the mattress and noted that it had been bled upon by one of the wounded men. I turned it over and fell asleep.”

He added, “I slept only briefly as I was awakened by the sound of machine gun fire. That turned out to be only the metal Venetian blinds hitting the metal window frames.”