KU Medical Center doctors and nurses formed the backbone one of World War II’s first mobile hospital units. Photos and memorabilia from the 77th Evac are held at the KU Medical Center Archives.
Evacuation hospitals were usually situated behind the rear boundary of the fighting division, out of range of enemy fire.
The unit’s crest and movements, shown on the card for its third anniversary party.
Officers of the 77th Evac
Medicine Under Canvas, published in 1949, tells the unit’s story.
In November 2008, KU Medical Center released a new edition of Medicine Under Canvas and a documentary DVD of the same title.
Surviving unit members James McConchie (pictured here), Louise Gilliland and John Shellito shared their stories in the Winter 2009 issue of KU Giving.
Louise Gilliland, one of the unit's original members, served as a nurse.
John Shellito joined the unit as an anesthesologist in 1944. He later was a faculty member at the KU School of Medicine-Wichita.
KU doctors Edward Hashinger (shown here) and James Weaver led the unit.
Ten-minute break at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where the unit trained from May through July 1942
Nurses at Fort Leonard Wood
A lighter moment
Nurses on the drill field at Fort Leonard Wood in their hospital uniforms; no military uniforms had been produced yet for nurses.
Nurses of the unit, September 1942, England
Doctors and nurses performed surgery in makeshift canvas operating rooms.
Field surgical kit
First aid kit
Enlisted members of the unit lived in tents.
Home, sweet home
It all goes.
Loaded up and ready to move camp.
In the radiology ward; James McConchie is at left.
X-ray technicians in action
Loading the ambulance
Nurses at Bone, North Africa. The unit was attached to Gen. George Patton’s 7th Army during the North African campaign.
The unit was stationed near the town of Oran, Algeria, from November 1942 through January 1943.
The muddy camp outside Oran
Water for bathing, shaving and laundry was all done using a steel helmet.
Louise Gilliland at the camp near Oran
Nurses Marion Cross, left, and Dorothy Downs amidst the bombing rubble in London, spring 1944
Utah Beach, where the unit arrived in July 1944, 30 days after the D-Day invasion
A truckload of nurses leaves camp, Clermont-en-Argonne, France, autumn 1944.
During the Battle of the Bulge, the unit worked in a school building at Verviers, Belgium.
Sgt. Donald McKenny reviews the wreckage of the urology ward after the school was bombed.
An enlisted man stands inside the huge bomb crater at the school-turned-hospital in Verviers.
Anne Kathleen Cullen, the unit’s only fatality, was killed in the bombing.
Anne Kathleen Cullen is at left.
At the border
The unit was in München-Gladbach, Germany, when cease-fire orders came on May 9, 1945
Pierre and Mariette Simone hosted James McConchie in Germany.
Members of the 77th Evac and their families gathered Nov. 10 in Kansas City, Mo. From left: Andre Jamar, translator; Jessie Wallace McNutt, nurse; ZoAnn McConchie, daughter of James McConchie; James McConchie, radiologist; Robert Hinnenkamp, husband of Josephine Zeman Hinnenkamp; Josephine Zeman Hinnenkamp, nurse; Robert Hinnenkamp Jr., son of Robert and Josephine; Louise Gilliland Wilson, nurse; Herbert Eldridge, enlisted man; Sandra Osgood, daughter of deceased 77th nurse Dorothy Sydenstricker; Caroline Eldridge, wife of Herb Eldridge.
Josephine Zeman Hinnenkamp, James McConchie and Herbert Eldridge
From left: Louise Gilliland Wilson, Jessie Wallace McNutt, Andre Jamar and Herbert Eldridge review the poster announcing the release of the new DVD Medicine Under Canvas.
Jessie Wallace McNutt
Louise Gilliland Wilson
Herbert Eldridge
James McConchie
Josephine Zeman Hinnenkamp
Andre Jamar
McConchie with the unit’s crest