Remembering Vice Admiral Donald Custis (1917-2021), the 26th Surgeon General of the Navy

Photo By André B. Sobocinski, Historian | In Memoriam: VADM Donald Custis, the 26th Surgeon General of the Navy  

FALLS CHURCH, VA, UNITED STATES

03.21.2021

Story by André B. Sobocinski, Historian 

U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

On March 18, 2021, Vice. Adm. Donald Custis, the 26th Surgeon General of the Navy died. He was 103.

For those who served in Navy Medicine during his tenure in office his passing marks the end of an era—the last surviving World War II veteran Surgeon General.

And for all those who had the great privilege of knowing him it is a loss of an accomplished physician, a true gentleman in the classic sense and an individual who was always known to be gracious.

The Indiana-native entered the Navy on a reserve commission in December 1941. After graduating medical school at Northwestern and then completing his internship at Presbyterian Hospital in 1944, Custis was called into active duty. He served briefly at the Naval Hospital San Leandro, Calif., before being assigned as the junior medical officer aboard USS Clinton (APA-144), a ship ordered to transport replacement troops to Okinawa.

“The first exposure to combat we had to combat was Okinawa, the kamikazes, the ships that were sunk, and the people we fished out of the ocean who were survivors of those ships,” Custis later recalled in a 1992 oral history. Many of the casualties he treated aboard the ship were survivors of Kamikaze attacks suffering from fractures, penetrating wounds and burns. The job of a junior medical officer was to treat the wounded and, as necessary, perform major and stabilization surgery.

Custis briefly remained aboard the Clinton after the war as it repatriated American POWs and transported Chinese troops from Chiang Kai-shek’s army from Haiphong to Tientsin and Tsingtao.

In 1946, Custis left the Navy to complete a general surgery residency at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Wash. He and fellow residents later operated a private surgical practice that marked the beginning of the Bellevue Clinic. Although thriving in his practice, thoughts of returning to the Navy stayed with Custis during these years.

After leaving private practice in 1955, Custis took a job with the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Medical Education in Chicago. While conducting an accreditation survey of Georgetown Medical School he met Capt. George Raines, an active duty Navy psychiatrist who was also serving as the school’s Chief of Psychiatry. Raines laid on “quite a Navy recruiting effort” for Custis inspiring his to return service.

Appointed a Commander in October 1956, Custis soon embarked on a series of surgical tours at naval hospitals CONUS and OCONUS. He served as part of the surgical staff at Naval Hospital Portsmouth, Va. (1956-1958); Chief of Surgery, Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (1958-1960); Assistant Chief of Surgical Service, Naval Hospital Great Lakes (1960-1963); Chief of Surgical Service, Beaufort, S.C. (1963-1965); Chief of Surgery and Executive Officer, Naval Hospital Philadelphia, Penn. (1965-1967).

In May 1969, Custis deployed to the Naval Station Activity (NSA) Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam as the senior medical officer. Until it was decommissioned in 1970, the hospital at NSA Da Nang was the largest and busiest Navy medical facility in theater. Unlike other Navy facilities, Da Nang had urologists, neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, Navy nurses, an infectious disease laboratory and even a frozen blood bank. His tireless leadership, dedication and meritorious conduct in theater later earned Custis a Legion of Merit with Combat “V.” It also was while on deployment that the future Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt and future Secretary of the Navy John Warner both met him and recognized his many talents.

After Custis returned stateside, he received orders to serve as the Commanding Officer of Naval Hospital Bethesda, Md., with additional duty as Deputy Commander of the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC). In less than two years on this job, Custis was promoted from Captain to Rear Admiral. A mere six months later, Custis took the helm as Surgeon General in February 1973 and promoted to Vice Admiral. Never before or since has a Navy Medical Corps officer risen through the ranks so rapidly.

Admiral Custis served as Surgeon General of the Navy in the midst of the Vietnam wind-down and the transition of a peacetime force. Navy Medicine was losing a lot of its corporate memory and facing decreasing resources. Custis fought for implementation of bonus pay and he worked with the board of governors of the new Uniformed Services University in building a foundation for the medical school. He gave the first Medical Service Corps officers hospital command; established the Health Sciences Education and Training Command (HSETC) following the deactivation of the Naval Medical School; established the Naval Medical Research and Development Command (NMRDC) as a central hub for all R&D issues; expanded regionalization of medical and dental facilities; and was a strong proponent of graduate medical education and research.

Custis retired from his role as Surgeon General on August 1, 1976. During his three and a half year tenure, Custis earned a reputation as an innovative executive and dynamic leader.

Following retirement from his service he served as the Assistant Chief Medical Director for Academic Affairs and later Chief Medical Director of the Veterans Administration.

Vice Admiral Custis stayed connected to Military Medicine until the very end of his life and if you were to ask him if he would have done it over again, his answer would undoubtedly have been “yes.” In his oral history, Custis remarked: “I can’t remember the time when I didn’t want to be a physician, and if I’m ever reincarnated, I would want to be the same thing.”

Sources:

Custis, Donald (Oral History conducted by Jan K. Herman on October 29 and November 19, 1992. BUMED Oral History Collection.

Custis, Donald, Biography of. VADM Donald Custis Collection. BUMED Archives.

Custis Distinguished Service Medal Citation, 1 August 1976. VADM Donald Custis Collection. BUMED Archives.

• Date Taken: 03.21.2021
• Date Posted: 03.21.2021 15:26
• Story ID: 391930
• Location: FALLS CHURCH, VA, US