Ww2 Medics and guns

[UsmcReanacter]

So this is a question that I am asking for my friend, he is starting a us medic impression for the European theater but he is convinced that medics carried guns at the time. And he won’t believe me that they were not common, so can you respond to this with more evidence for this argument

 

thanks

- Joe 

[Brian Dentino]

Joe, just google it.  The long and short of it is that some medics did carry .45 1911's but if they were used for anything other than self defense of themselves or their patients (think an offensive action) then the medic lost his protection as such under the Geneva Convention rules.  Would guess based on lots of reading over the years that a medic was much more likely to carry a .45 AND long gun of some sort in the Pacific Theater where the Japanese would intentionally target medics due to their value to the unit.

[sundance]

My dad was a medic in the Pacific so this may not help much. He didn't, just like most wartime soldiers , talk much about the war. He did say that although he didn't carry a firearm he always made sure there was one within reach and he knew where it was.

[Vanderbilt]

On 1/25/2022 at 3:43 PM, sundance said:

My dad was a medic in the Pacific so this may not help much. He didn't, just like most wartime soldiers , talk much about the war. He did say that although he didn't carry a firearm he always made sure there was one within reach and he knew where it was.

......my father was a medic also. Like your dad, he never talked much about his service. He always said his unit was lucky. They weren't part of the D Day landings. He said they weren't supposed to carry weapons. If they could get one, they would carry it in their bag. 

[tredhed2]

My dad was a medic in a separate cbt engr bn in the ETO. He trained w/ an M-1 and a .45. He was an admittedly lousy shot. Never carried a firearm in the field. He knew where he could get one..... 

[Zack Miller]

Medics, physicians, etc were certainly allowed to carry sidearms if they chose, but it was to be for defensive purposes only ie to protect themselves or patients.  

[GEB]

My father was a Navy Corpsman in the Pacific from 43 to 45.  He DID NOT talk about the war, and died when I was 12, in 1964 from complications related to injuries sustained while in the Pacific.
But I am aware of at least one instance of a story that he told to my uncle, in which he was armed with a Thompson submachine gun.
On Guam while the possession of the island was still  being contested, he pulled night guard duty of an aid station full of wounded. They were on lower ground, close to a beach.  There was a "coast road" higher up  the slope in the jungle above them on which a truck had been abandoned earlier in the day. In the night, the truck was rolled over the edge of the road and came crashing through the jungle as Japanese solders shouted down from above. As the story was relayed, under the impression that he was facing a Banzai attack by an overwhelming enemy force, my father was apparently credited with single handedly totally killing ALL  3/4 tons of a Dodge truck. 

He had previously served on New Guinea and would later be sent ashore at Iwo Jima, (D+1) not specifically with the Marines, but as the Corpsman (School Nurse he described it in a reassuring letter to my mother) with a "Forward Detached Unit" of the CINCPAC HQ established on the landing beach below Suribachi.  It was there that he was a witness to the flag raising on 2/23.
  
Navy Corpsmen in the Pacific were allowed to carry weapons for self defense and to protect the wounded only.  In my readings on the topic, "protecting the wounded" was a broadly applied condition.

When he returned home in December of 45, he threw away his uniform and never claimed his military disability or his "been there done that" awards.   He did however keep a heavy grey box in the basement. It apparently contained a medical kit. It was the only thing untouchable in the whole house for us kids.  And I only saw him even acknowledge that it was there in the basement under the stairwell, one time. That was in 1957 when a massive tornado ripped through the suburbs just south of Kansas City. Perhaps  2 miles south of our home.  He came home early from work, carried the box upstairs and put it in the trunk of his new Ford. Before driving off, with me, my mother and my sisters standing around and behind him, he opened the box and did a brief inventory.  I can still see and smell the musty smelling cloth of what to me was an ABSOLUTELY an army coat (!!!!!!) but with no sleeves and a bunch of bulging pockets. I know better now.

[skyking]

Thank you @GEB for your post, sharing about your father and his roles, most especially on Iwo Jima.

My father was there too, and acting as a stretcher bearer. He had already broken down from shell shock earlier in the campaign, and I only know this from brief stories related to my mother by my uncle and her first husband, who also served. He spoke only to them about the war. 

I can imagine them possibly crossing paths there. In the worst of the fighting he and his mate would triage soldiers on what became a long trek back to aid stations, setting the ones aside who expired or were not going to survive, and going back for better candidates for survival.