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Recollections of Pharmacist's Mate Wheeler B. Lipes.
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[Source: Adapted from "One
Merchant Ship, One Oil Tanker, and One Successful Appendectomy."
U.S. Navy Medicine 78, no.1 (Jan.-Feb. 1987): 20-23.]
When did you join the Navy?
Mr. Lipes: In 1936. I was in a long time before the war broke
out. I had been on the battleship [USS] Texas [BB-35] before
I went to the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. From there to Canacao
near Manila. In October of `41 I went into submarines.
How did that happen?
One day I just decided I wanted submarines. The personnel
officer thought that I had a hole in my head. There weren't any
subs available then but I went looking for one and eventually
got aboard the [USS] Sealion.[SS-195] The Sealion and
the [USS] Seadragon [SS-194] were sister ships. The Sealion
was almost finished with its overhaul and the two subs were
tied alongside one another at the Cavite Navy Yard. When the bombers
came at noon on the 10th of December [1941] they just leisurely
wiped out the yard. One bomb went right down the after engine
room hatch. The shrapnel from that one killed some people on the
Seadragon's conning tower and punched holes in her pressure
hull. I was in the water for awhile and was picked up on the perimeter
of the navy yard late that night with the yard burning and exploding.
The Seadragon's pharmacist's mate was slightly wounded
in the arm by shrapnel and he transferred himself off the sub,
which left a vacancy. I was the logical choice to replace him.
My escape from the Philippines was made possible by that event.
How many patrols did you participate in?
About five as I recall. Formosa, Camranh Bay. We were in the
blockade of New Britain, New Ireland, Java, Java Sea, and in on
all the initial efforts to hold back the Japanese and keep our
finger in the dike until reinforcements arrived. As part of a
squadron of submarines that was feeding Bataan, we would leave
our torpedoes, except those in the tubes, in Cebu, take on 40-60
tons of food, and run it into Corregidor. As Bataan was being
overrun we were taking people off Corregidor.
What actually happened on Seadragon in September 1942?
I had been up on the watch and when I came down to the after
battery section of the submarine -- the crew's compartment --
I found Darrell Rector. It was his 19th birthday. He said to me,
"Hey Doc, I don't feel very good." I told him to get
into his bunk and rest a bit and kept him under observation. His
temperature was rising. He had the classic symptoms of appendicitis.
The abdominal muscles were getting that washboard rigidity. He
then began to flex his right leg up on his abdomen to get some
relief. He worsened and I went to the CO [Commanding Officer]
to report his condition. The skipper went back and talked to Rector
explaining that there were no doctors around. Rector then said,
"Whatever Lipes wants to do is OK with me." The CO and
I had a long talk and he asked me what I was going to do. "Nothing,"
I replied. He lectured me about the fact that we were there to
do the best we could. "I fire torpedoes every day and some
of them miss," he reminded me. I told him that I could not
fire this torpedo and miss. He asked me if I could do the surgery
and I said yes. He then ordered me to do it.
When I got to the appendix, it wasn't there. I thought. "Oh
my God! Is this guy reversed?" There are people like that
with organs opposite where they should be. I slipped my finger
down under the cecum -- the blind gut -- and felt it there. Suddenly
I understood why it hadn't popped up where I could see it. I turned
the cecum over. The appendix, which was 5 inches long, was adhered,
buried at the distal tip, and looked gangrenous two-thirds of
the way. What luck, I thought. My first one couldn't be easy.
I detached the appendix, tied it off in two places, and then removed
it after which I cauterized the stump with phenol. I then neutralized
the phenol with torpedo alcohol. There was no penicillin in those
days. When you think of what we have in the armamentarium today
to prevent infection, I marvel.
You did have sulfa, didn't you?
We had some tablets that I ground into a powder and then put
in the oven to kill any spores. This was all I had. I had given
this kid a 3-inch incision, yet he healed well and was back on
duty in a few days. In fact, the ship's cook said, "Doc,
you must have sewed him up with rubber bands, the way he eats."
Obviously, this was not the first time you had seen such an
operation.
Oh, no. I assisted many times in the OR [Operating Room].
In fact, the day I was to leave the Naval Hospital at Canacao,
a doctor I had worked with, Carey Smith, came over to me and said,
"You never know what's going to happen in a submarine. One
of the things you may face is appendicitis. Never use a purse-string
closure." I remembered that advice.
What was the general reaction to your successful surgery?
After we submitted our report, there was a great deal of consternation
in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Everyone did then exactly
what they would probably do now. They reacted to a situation they
knew absolutely nothing about. There was an old warrant officer
I knew back at BUMED [US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery]
who was on duty the night the message came in about the operation.
He told me later how much trouble I had caused him. There were
many doctors back there who were very upset about what I had done.
I guess they were afraid that because I had performed an appendectomy
everyone in the fleet would be running around looking for the
first opportunity to do one. They forgot there were commanding
officers and you had supervisory chains that would preclude this.
Were you ever officially recognized for having performed the
operation?
The day I returned I got one of those canned retirement letters
signed by the Surgeon General. It gave me credit for bravery in
action during the sinking of the submarine Sealion. Yet
neither it nor any document I ever received mentioned the appendectomy.
Not that that incident in itself was so important. What was important
was that I did my job and saved the guy's life. It was my job
to do anything I could to preserve life and, really, I didn't
deserve special credit or recognition for doing that. However,
since the incident had gone so far to give the Navy good publicity
and to present to the public the fact that Navy men were well
trained and dedicated, the omission was that much more evident.
I think the whole point of the operation was not that I did it.
It was the fact that those hospital corpsmen on independent duty
had been so well trained. It was proof that the Navy's training
program was tested and found to be effective. There was a hard
core group of hospital corpsmen and pharmacist's mates in those
days who worked very closely with doctors who themselves spent
a lot of time teaching us. And those on independent duty demonstrated
that whether it was in the field with the Marines or aboard surface
ships, or wherever, we could do the job.
When did you get back home?
I returned to the States in January `43 and reported to the
Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, where I was promoted to warrant
officer. I then represented the Navy in war bond drives and visits
to war plants.
How long were you on the speaking circuit?
About 8 or 9 months. I would go from plant to plant making
speeches and trying to increase production and sell bonds. This
was in addition to my regular duty at the hospital.
How did George Weller come to write the original article?
When I got back from that patrol, our report -- "One
Merchant Ship, One Oil Tanker, and One Successful Appendectomy"
-- had already caused a stir. I was told I was wanted in the wardroom
of the [submarine] tender [USS] Holland [AS-3]. When
I arrived, there was Admiral [Charles A.] Lockwood [Commander
Submarines, Southwest Pacific]. He and I had a conversation and
then Weller came in. He and I talked at some length and then he
wrote the story.
In the last 44 years not a month has gone by that I'm not reminded
of that incident. Weller's story has even appeared in high school
literature books. When my grandson was in the 7th grade in New
Mexico he found it in one of his books. In fact, he proudly told
the teacher that this was his grandfather. The teacher said something
like, "Go away little boy, don't tell stories." It's
also been the subject of movies and TV programs. There was a series
in the 50's called The Silent Service, in which the incident
was portrayed in an episode called "Operation Seadragon."
I was on an airplane recently and the man next to me was reading
a magazine containing one of those Ripley's Believe it or Not's.
It told of a submarine sailor who removed the appendix of a shipmate.
This guy turned to me and said, "Can you believe that?"
I read it, shook my head, and said, "Don't you believe a
word of it."
Further
Information on the Operation and Personnel involved:
One of the most dramatic stories to
come out of World War II recounted the emergency operation performed
by a 23-year-old corpsman as his submarine, USS Seadragon,(SS-194)
cruised submerged in enemy waters. Related in a 1942 newspaper
article, the story brought a Pulitzer Prize to journalist George
Weller and fame to Pharmacist's Mate Wheeler B. Lipes. It also
gave a much needed dose of inspiration to the homefront when good
news about the war was hard to come by.
Over the years the episode became legend, providing drama for
such Hollywood productions as Destination Tokyo and Run
Silent, Run Deep.
Wheeler B. Lipes retired from the Medical Service Corps in 1962.
He then became chief executive officer of the 1,000 bed Memphis
hospital which serves as the teaching facility for the University
of Tennessee and subsequently, president of Memorial Medical Center
in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Darrell Dean Rector, Lipes' patient did not survive the war. He
died 24 October 1944 in the tragic sinking of USS Tang
(SS-306). On her fifth war patrol, Tang launched a surface
attack against a Japanese transport. One torpedo ran true; the
other turned sharply left, circled, and hit the submarine in the
stern. The wound was fatal. There were but nine survivors. All
spent the rest of the war as POW's [Prisoner of War]. Her skipper,
CDR [Commander] CR.H. O'Kane, survived the war and received the
Medal of Honor.
There were two other successful appendectomies performed by submarine
corpsmen during the war, one aboard USS Grayback [SS-208],
the other aboard USS Silversides [SS-236].
19 October 1999