Major V.P. Marran

A bold memoir of medical experience and improvisational command in WWII...This Major Marran narrative of the war details the way he and the healers around him used their creative resourcefulness to repair broken lives, bodies, and careers, in worst circumstances, by improvising surgical setups, new to the field. As a member of the Third Army, led by General George S. Patton, Major Marran applied his medical skills at the Battle of the Bulge, Normandy, Buchenwald, starvation camps for downed British pilots, and in meeting the Russians west of Prague...A doctor, specializing in oral surgery, Major Marran went from naive inexperience to the inescapable nightmares of World War II while still maintaining his enthusiasm for duty and positive outlook. As a soldier first, he survived, more often than not unarmed, all the while endangering himself in his battle for survival of the wounded. The additional duties, that he assumed unexpectedly, add much to the drama of his story...Major Vincent P. Marran, trained at Harvard Medical school, went into WW2 as a doctor and a family man, anxious to be on the front lines. He enlisted in the Army while attending Harvard in 1938, and by 1945 was in charge of a mobile army surgical hospital, proving the concept that established MASH units in later wars. He began as a Major, thanks to ROTC, and with meritorious service, finished as a lieutenant colonel.