Dr. William Bridgers (front row, centre) was a neurosurgeon who worked with the 65th General Hospital in England. This US Army unit, made up of staff from Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina, treated nearly 50,000 men in 22 months. Shifts were long and hard, as Dr. Bridgers and his team battled to save men wounded by flak, bullets and the harsh environment high above Germany. ‘About four or five o’clock in the afternoon was what we called “flak time”; everybody was alerted and ready to receive the injured patients. One afternoon, we had 26 patients come in. Some of these patients had multiple wounds, not only head, but chest and abdominal wounds,’ he remembered. ‘I well recall one period when Captain Brown and I operated three days and two nights without sleep.’ The staff worked closely together – Bridgers eventually married one of his nurses.