National Affairs: The Logistics of Mercy

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Melting Himalayan snow and driving monsoon rains began the damage. The swollen Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers spilled over one-third of East Pakistan, washing nearly 10 million people from their homes and destroying so many crops that famine seemed unavoidable and epidemics imminent. As Pakistan sent up distress signals last week, the U.S. responded as rapidly as it would to a cry for help from flooded Iowa. Within a few hours after President Eisenhower ordered U.S. Government agencies into action:

¶ Dr. Alexander Langmuir, chief epidemic-fighter for the U.S. Public Health Service, and five assistants left Washington for East Pakistan's capital of Dacca.

¶ Huge C124 Globemasters with tons of medicines, food and clothing (one ton of sulfa drugs, 10,000 hypodermic needles, 4½ tons of woolen blankets) took off for Pakistan from U.S. Air Force bases in Japan, West Germany and the U.S.

¶ Units of the Eighth Army's 37th Preventive Medicine Group left Korea to supply skilled manpower in flood areas. tj The U.S. Army rustled up 250,000 Ibs. of powdered milk in Japan.

¶ The American Red Cross contributed $50,000 to buy blankets and drugs.

From three continents, the U.S. airplanes converged on an inundated area twice the size of Vermont. Grateful Pakistanis called it "Operation Mercy."