There is no doubt that thousands of allied lives were saved during Operation Overlord and the Normandy Campaign which followed as a result of this super drug. This new antibiotic was used extensively for military patients who had undergone amputation and other major operations, or had extensive wounds. QAs would administer penicillin every three hours and often would no sooner finish one drug round of penicillin injections than they would have to start all over again.
Fleming, Florey and Chain were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in , recognising the tremendous contribution of penicillin to human welfare. Read more ». Skip to primary navigation Skip to content. It is the human cost we consider here. I crossed the Channel on the Llangibby Castle which then anchored about four miles offshore.
When it began to get dark the Captain was in a hurry to return to Port and there seemed to be some uncertainty how we would get to the beach. In the end we were ordered onto the scramble net. Of course there was a fear of falling into the water and you might think it was a tense and frightening situation.
Yet there was a great sense of fun, with lots of banter and good humour. We managed to drop into the landing craft, with plenty of assistance from the marines! By the time we arrived at the beach it was dark; the order was shouted to quickly run up the beach to get into cover. Have you ever tried to run uphill through soft sand in heavy boots and carrying a full pack?
Anyway, we made it, then spent the night on the floor of a casualty tent which had just been set up for our use. Abdomen wounds were a problem because it was so difficult to move them. We did arms and legs mostly; cleaned them up, put them in plaster and sent them off to the beach for shipment home.
Although many of the casualties were in agony from bullet and shrapnel wounds, we could at least treat them with penicillin which had first been tested on a human patient just three years earlier. In those days it was a sort of powder which had to be diluted before use, mainly for injection. I remember treating a young French woman who had severe back injuries.
When we looked at her closely, she had maggots eating her flesh. We washed the maggots away until there was clean flesh underneath and the penicillin did its work. Battle injuries were so severe, sometimes we were just pouring the penicillin into open wounds. It was necessary to dissolve it in sterile water so it could be injected every two hours to counter bacterial infection.
There were plenty of really serious injuries and amputations so we were using huge quantities. The casualty clearing tent were I worked was really quite a size. Stretchers would typically be brought in 25 at a time, so we had two sections of 25 on each side, making a total of men.
There was constant movement of stretcher cases; newly injured coming in, and treated cases being moved down to the beach head for the journey back to England. With that quantity of soldiers to treat, we just worked until we dropped. People ask how we kept going, but we just did.
There was a critical job to do. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of north-west Europe. Operation Neptune was the assault phase of Operation Overlord and involved landing the troops on the Normandy beaches. It began on 6 June D-Day and ended on 30 June By then, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. The liberation of Paris on 25 August is sometimes used as the end point of the Battle of Normandy. The number of people killed in the fighting is not known exactly.
Accurate record keeping was very difficult under the circumstances. Books often give a figure of 2, Allied dead for D-Day. Total German losses on D-Day not just deaths, but also wounded and prisoners of war are estimated as being between 4, and 9, Over , Allied and German troops were killed during the whole of the Battle of Normandy, as well as around 20, French civilians, many as a result of Allied bombing. Default contrast. Roughly , German troops were killed or wounded. The Allies also captured , prisoners of war not included in the , total, above.
During the fighting around the Falaise Pocket August alone, the Germans suffered 90, losses, including prisoners. Please use this data for any reference citations.
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