The 801st Medical Air Evacuation Squadron, 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo) flew more than 280,000 patients out of Korea during the war. In 1949, the Secretary of Defense designated air transportation as the primary means of evacuating sick and wounded, and gave that responsibility to the Air Force. However, the greatest contribution by the AFMS during the war was in the area of aeromedical evacuation. Medics also provided medical, dental, veterinary, epidemiological, and preventative medicine services, as well as a wide range of programs to keep flyers and support personnel physically and mentally prepared for action at its medical facilities in the Pacific and back home.
The Air Force was instrumental in the collection, processing, and transportation of blood products that enabled increased survival rates. The fledgling medical service contributed to the war effort in a number of respects. Unfixed facilities operated at Kunsan, Suwon, Osan, and Kimpo ABs and additional dispensaries operated at Taegu, Kangnung, Seoul, and Chunchon in Korea. By the conflict's end, the Air Force had additional fixed hospitals or infirmaries at Haneda, Misawa, Johnson, Johnson Island, Itazuke, Nagoya, Tachikawa, Ashiya, and Iwakuni ABs, Miho AB in Japan, and one at Anderson AB in Guam.
The closest medical care was at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. When the fighting began, there were no Air Force hospitals in Korea or Japan. By the end of the war, the number of medical personnel had grown to 38,500 and medical treatment facilities climbed to 180. In response, leadership immediately undertook a rapid build-up of both personnel and facilities to prevent the newborn service from becoming overwhelmed. Medical facilities had decreased in the single year since the AFMS stood up, dropping from 78 hospitals to 73. There were about 12,500 medical personnel in the Air Force in June 1950, far below the estimated 19,500 needed to take care of the force in peacetime. The agreement stipulated that all parties continue to engage in peace talks.a situation that continues to today.Īs a new organization, the AFMS was not yet fully established and still grossly understaffed when fighting began in 1950.
The Air Force Medical Service was less than 1 year old, and the Air Force was in its infancy when the Korean Conflict broke out on June 25, 1950, after forces of North Korea poured over the 38th Parallel.Īfter three years of fighting that cost the lives of nearly a million people, including 33,686 Americans killed in action, the United Nations Command, supported by the United States, North Korea, and China, signed an armistice on Jto cease hostilities, but not to end the war. Senate to recognize the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War, comes to a close this month culminating a year of reflection and commemorations in both the United States and South Korea. FALLS CHURCH, Va., - The "Year of the Korean War Veteran," established by the U.S.
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