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THE NATIONAL RED CROSS MEDICAL SERVICE
Until the fall of the Shanghai-Nanking area, the National
Red Cross Society of China maintained no organization for medical
service with the army in the field. The necessity for providing
such service was realized when the hospitals organized by the
National Red Cross in that area fell into enemy hands last November.
Realizing the enormous difficulty of securing personnel, equipment
and transportation at that time for the creation of new Red Cross
hospitals behind the widely extended fighting front, the National
Red Cross took steps to organize a Medical Relief Commission for
the purpose of providing such field service as could be quickly
organized, equipped and set in function. Doctors, nurses, and dressers who had retreated from the hospitals in the occupied
territories to the Nanchang, Changsha and Wuhan regions were
immediately enlisted and formed into units which could be attached
to selected military hospitals on the various fronts.
Since December 1937 the organization of these Red Cross units has been gradually modified so as to be adapted to the conditions of the present war. The provision of adequate medical supplies, and their preparation for use in standard packages, has formed one of the important activities of this Commission. trucks to provide transportation for medical personnel and supplies, and wounded soldiers have been slowly acquired.
Further,
At the present time, 53 Units have been organized for field service and are supplied through 8 Depots, with a skeleton transportation system of 12 motor (60 trucks) and 5 boat (2 launches, 25 junks) Convoys. Units, Depots and Convoys are grouped according to lines of communication or areas, with officers in charge of groups, and the whole service operated as a single corps. In this way, the Red Cross Medical Corps is being developed.
Many