Motor Trucks To Carry Wounded.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 6, 1913:
Army Captain of Medical Corps Tells How Commercial Vehicles Become Ambulances.
USEFULNESS IN WAR SURE
But Motors Will Never Entirely Supplant the Faithful Army Mule at the Front.
    "The Use of Motor Vehicles in Transporting the Wounded " is the title of an extensive article that appears in the March issue of The Journal of the United States Military Service Institution, the Service magazine published on Governors Island by officers of the army. Capt. Louis C. Duncan, Medical Corps, is the author of the article, which has attracted wide attention throughout the army. "Transportation," writes Capt. Duncan, "is one of the most difficult problems of war, and grows to be more and more of a problem yearly with the increased wants of highly civilized men and the progress of ammunition-eating guns. Time was when each soldier carried his own supplies; the armies of Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame were not troubled with supply columns. "Those good old days are long past, never to return. Even the light baggage of the Confederate armies will be seen no more. An army from the South today would require as much transportation as one from any other part of the country, or of Europe. The impedimenta tends to increase steadily, while animals can draw no more than in the past.
    "Man is equal to every demand — the motor vehicle is the solution. That this vehicle will be useful in war there can be no doubt. So powerful and speedy a means of transportation cannot possibly be ignored. It will be used, and successfully. But this general proposition should not lead to the hasty conclusion that motor cars may be used in any and every place, and for any and every purpose.
    "A careful study of the possibilities and limitations of the car, and of the requirements of the various zones of the field of operations, from the firing line back to the base, must be made. Also a study of the different types of vehicle is necessary in order to determine which type is best adapted to each particular case. Such a study will include the experience of our army in various past wars; the prospective field of operations in the future; the use of motor vehicles in other armies, and the general subject of the field of action, use, and upkeep of motor vehicles. It will presume a knowledge of the different parts of the line of operations. the echelons of the medical department in each, and their functions. In considering the whole subject the fact must not be lost sight of that the medical department is but a part of the army, and its transportation but a part of the general transportation. Any scheme of transportation tor this department which is not subordinate to the general scheme will fail."
    Capt. Duncan proceeds to tell of the ten years of experimentation with motor vehicles which has resulted in the definite conclusion by the British War Office to adopt motor cars for transportation, and to work out a scheme for their management. The British motor cars in question carry about 5,000 pounds each.
    The author is an officer who still believes in the mule-drawn ambulance, and he considers it settled beyond all doubt that this vehicle is here to stay, although, as he points out, its use can be supplemented by the motor-propelled vehicle. He argues for the use of the motor car for handling the wounded in the rear, leaving the work on the firing line to mule-drawn vehicle.
    "In the work of transport columns the Red Cross Society." he adds, "could be of much assistance, not by furnishing separate transport columns, as with the Russians, but by furnishing additional motor vehicles, say, sufficient to carry sixty reclining patients, to each regular column. A train of twelve motor ambulances such as I shall describe could handle the wounded in the rear in the majority of cases. Other motors or vehicles could be hired or impressed after an exceptionally great battle.
    "In some recent English manoeuvres two motor trucks were assigned for this purpose, and they proved extremely useful. The English Army has a standard truck with a platform or bed 6 by 12 feet in size and a weight capacity of three tons. The whole subject is well considered in an article appearing in the January number of The Journal of the R.A.M.C. In the discussion which followed the original reading of this paper it was generally agreed that the ambulance companies should send no transport to the rear, but that each clearing hospital should have a small mobile section.
    "Some experiments recently made in France show that an ordinary motor car, when fitted with certain apparatus, will carry six reclining patients comfortably at a rate of twenty-two miles per hour. The French roads are among the best in the world. Such a rate of speed, while desirable, is unnecessary.. Some objections were made to the jolting in other experiments, but jolting will occur in all vehicles and jolting is actually a choice of the lesser evil. The Austrian Army has a real transport column for wounded, and so had the Japanese in the late war.
    "During the recent Connecticut manoeuvres motor trucks were employed for the supply service on rather an extensive scale. More than 2,000 tons of supplies were handled in eight days. Some of the trucks were geared to run as high as thirty miles per hour. It was in the work of hauling supplies from rail points to something like refilling points that the trucks displaced the wagon trains. The newspaper writers at once jumped to the conclusion that we have seen the last of the army mule. These writers, like some advocates of the motor ambulance, had studied the subject so little that they did not even distinguish between the various echelons among the line of supply. Col. Bellinger is reported to have made the following significant statement: 'I am firmly convinced that the army truck has come to stay. When the roads are suitable it cannot be surpassed.' When the roads are suitable — that is the whole question. If there is doubt as to the roads in the rear there is little doubt as to the roads and fields at the front; in 90 per cent, of all cases they will be unsuitable.
    "I believe the motor trucks with the experimental regiment last Summer were largely a failure. They could hardly be otherwise in actual campaign. Trucks have no place in a regimental train. Had they only been used to haul supplies from the railway to certain points, on good roads, and on or near the line of march, regimental wagons could have covered the remaining short distance, and the trucks should have been a success. Yet there are roads on which, in bad weather, no truck can operate successfully. The States on the Pacific Coast have roads that are more uniformly suitable to motors than those of any other portion of the country.
    "In each campaign decision would have to be made in advance as to whether motor vehicles could or could not be used. The problem is much more difficult for us than for France or England, countries which have splendid highways leading in all directions.
    "For carrying the wounded by these transport columns a peculiar type of motor vehicle would be necessary, some-thing unlike any ordinary ambulance, but easily constructed, on the lines of certain commercial trucks. After examining a. large number of trucks I have come to the conclusion that the type used by the express companies in the cities is very near to what is desired. In fact, some of these could be used with but slight alterations, and the addition of litters and suspenders."
    Capt. Duncan describes the truck or car desired by the army as one that is capacious, but not very heavy, which will not need a carrying capacity of a greater weight than two tons. It should have 36-inch solid tires, a good clearance and a powerful but not necessarily speedy engine equipment. On the chassis should be a plain platform about six and a half by eighteen feet, with a seat in front, on either side of and a little above the hood. On the sides of the platform should be string stanchions, with bows for the top, and a simple canvas cover, like a wagon cover. In fact, the whole car should be as simple as possible.
    Such a truck as he describes, Capt. Duncan says, can be used for any sort of work. All that would be necessary in order to convert it from a supply carrier to an ambulance would be to add ten ordinary litters and forty spiral spring suspenders, all of the litters suspended from the stanchions by shock absorbers. The entire extra equipment would weigh less than twenty pounds to the patient. The litters would be placed transversely across the car bed.
    The article closes with a tribute to the army mule:
    "For all-round use, with all variations of care and feed, under all conditions of weather and roads, the mule-drawn wagon and ambulance have never been equalled; they have at present no competitors in sight. All talk of relegating the army mule to the background is sheerest nonsense. Motor wagons may do the work in the rear, but when the cavalry goes forward and the foot and guns are pushed into the fight, there will so the army wagon and ambulance, drawn by the ever-faithful army mule. It will be many a year before his sonorous blast gives way to the discordant honk of a soulless machine. He has been the savior of the army many times in the past and his hee-haw will be heard long in the future, wherever the uniform and flag are seen."