I have returned to the subject of Lawson General Hospital again and again. It is intriguing to me that during WWII this hospital was located in Chamblee, adjacent to Naval Air Station Atlanta. Also, the people involved were sometimes from Atlanta, Chamblee or other nearby towns, but most of the people who worked, trained, or were treated at Lawson General Hospital were there for a brief time. They went home or to another hospital after being treated or they received their orders and left to serve their country using the skills received as part of the MDTS, Medical Department Training School.

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, I enjoy thinking back to the holiday during my childhood years. Since I grew up in Atlanta, we had a southern traditional meal with turkey, sweet potatoes, dressing, other side dishes and of course pie. My mom sometimes baked a cream cheese pound cake, two kinds of pie, and some chocolate chip cookies when she became a grandmother.

Thanks to a reader of pasttensega.com, I can now share the journey of Abraham (Abe) Koppel during World War II. Koppel wrote down a narrative of his experiences when his granddaughter was working on a school project. The family also shared a photograph of Koppel and the X-ray section he trained with at Lawson General Hospital, along with an image of the back of the photograph with messages from several men.

In 1944, the land that is now DeKalb Peachtree Airport in Chamblee was home to Naval Air Station Atlanta. Men came from all over the U. S. to train at Naval Air Station Atlanta beginning in 1941 and women began to arrive in 1942 to work as link instrument trainers.

Lawson General Hospital sat adjacent to Naval Air Station Atlanta, where the IRS and CDC Chamblee offices are located today. The hospital opened in April of 1941.

The website of AMEDD presents history of the Army Medical Department and includes data of the various Medical Department Technician Schools across the US during WWII. In addition to treating patients at Lawson General Hospital, which was in Chamblee on the outskirts of Atlanta Georgia, men (and women with the Red Cross) were being trained to provide medical care to injured soldiers. This training began in July of 1942 for Lawson General Hospital

After World War II ended, there was a serious shortage of housing for returning veterans across the United States. In the Atlanta area, solutions included families living in military tents on rented land or in trailer parks set up for the purpose of housing veterans with families.

The classic movie The Best Years of Our Lives tells the story of three World War II soldiers returning to their hometown after the war ends. One of the soldiers was played by Harold Russell, a World War II veteran who lost both hands in a training accident and ended up at Lawson General Hospital in Chamblee, Georgia. There he received treatment, which included prosthetic hands and training on how to use them in his daily life.

Dr. Moore arrived at Lawson General Hospital in January of 1945. “I was reamputating soldiers coming from the Battle of the Bulge and the European Theatre,” recalls Dr. Moore. “I had a ward of thirty-four beds kept full. We had five or six surgeons at Lawson.” He performed surgeries ever day of the week, usually with only Saturday and Sunday off.