Original Title/Caption: “In an underground surgery room, behind the front lines on Bougainville, an American Army doctor operates on a U.S. soldier wounded by a Japanese sniper.”

Description: This black and white photograph shows an underground surgery room in Bougainville.  The room is surrounded by sandbags, and a sign posted above the entrance reads, “Surgery.”  Through the entrance, a surgical team wearing surgical caps and masks performs an operation.  This photograph was taken in December 1943 by the Army Signal Corps.

Source: “In an underground surgery room, behind the front lines on Bougainville, an American Army doctor operates on a U.S. soldier wounded by a Japanese sniper.”  Photograph, 1943. From the National Archives at College Park, Record Group 111, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860-1982. Still Picture Records, Series: Signal Corps Photographs of American Military Activity, 1754 - 1954. http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/basic_search.jsp (accessed March 20, 2007).

Historical discussion: According to historian Albert E. Cowdrey, “Medicine was entering an era when it would be able to kill infections deep inside the body and defeat diseases that up to now had been almost invincible.  That alone would make World War II different from any that had been fought before” (Cowdrey 29).