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Doc Davis
The only people who felt nearly as useless as Doc Davis did were Mayfair First
Dog, the lst Platoon of Battery D, 537th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. They were
attached to the 915th to protect us from attacks by enemy aircraft, but after our first few
weeks in Normandy, the allied air superiority had pretty well swept the German Luftwaffe
out of the skies. As I have written elsewhere, our attached AAA did nobly at protecting
us from ground attack by enemy infiltrators and small units, which had been by-passed.
However, they never forgot that their primary job was to shoot down hostile airplanes,
and felt that their talents were being wasted from lack of opportunity.
We did get an aerial bombing the night our CP was in the chateau with the 359th
CP, but since it was after dark, our AAA could not see the bombers, and not being
equipped with radar, they could not fire. And I don't believe the attack left any casualties
for Doc Davis to work on either.
When we were stopped for so long near Gravelotte, Major Bob Swatosh, our S-3,
had the ends of several fingers blown off by the booster of a souvenir shell he had
disassembled, and Davis treated and bandaged the hand. He made out the tag, which
accompanied any medical evacuee, marking it NLD (not in line of duty) meaning that the
injury was the fault of the patient, not resulting from enemy action or from anything
associated with his duties.
Some time after V-E Day when Major Swatosh returned to us, he was sporting a
Purple Heart Medal, a decoration awarded to people with combat wounds. Lt Davis
fussed and fumed about that, made dark threats about starting an official letter through
channels, demanding that the Purple Heart be withdrawn. But I don't think he ever did, or
would have succeeded if he had.
And the doctor experienced a change in life style as an indirect result of Swatosh's
departure. I became the S-3, so we got a new S-2, Capt Arlo Knowles. Arlo had been a
liaison officer in the 344th FA Bn until he was wounded and evacuated. When he
returned from the hospital, there was no vacancy for him in the 344th, so they sent him to
us just in time to fill the S-2 vacancy. I don't know how Knowles was before his wound,
but now his outlook on life was bitter, and he was subject to violent prejudices. One of
them seems to have been against the medical profession, perhaps because of his treatment
when wounded. Anyhow, he couldn't stand the sight of the inoffensive Lt Davis. "Doc,
get out of the way!" or "Doc, don't you have something you could be doing?" Soon it
became clear that Capt Knowles felt that battalion surgeons should stay at their aid
stations, where they belonged, instead of getting underfoot in his S-2 Section.
Doc Davis crawled further into his shell. Only occasionally would he venture over
when he knew Capt Knowles was gone. Sgt Johnson, the operations sergeant, would
show him the situation map and brief him on what was happening, for although not an
artilleryman, he could understand a map well enough. Don Thomson and I would pass the
time of day if we weren't busy, but we saw less and less of him.
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