Photo By Robert Hammer | U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David Norvell Walker Grant (1891-1964), known as the...... read more read more
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David Norvell Walker Grant, the first surgeon general of the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Army Air Forces, is known as the grandfather of the present-day Air Force Medical Service. David Grant USAF Medical Center (60th Medical Group) at Travis Air Force Base, California, is named in his honor.
The scale of Grant’s influence on modern military medicine cannot be overstated: His vision, innovations, and unshakeable determination changed the course of battlefield care and aeromedical capabilities we use today.
The Sanitary Train
According to an official U.S. Air Force biography, Grant received his medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1915. During World War I, Grant served as a sanitary inspector and then later as a surgeon at Camp Gordon, Georgia. In 1919, he took command of the “sanitary train” on departure for Mayen, Germany. Constituted in 1917, the train was not locomotive—but rather a system of hospitals, surgeons, and ambulances. Field operations reports by U.S. Army General John J. Pershing in “American Expeditionary Activities in Germany, Italy, North Russia, and Siberia” note that Grant’s train had motorized and animal-drawn battalions—the rugged land, slow travel, and volume of casualties made for a painstaking endeavor to transport wounded from the front lines to hospitals.
Pioneering Airman
According to the article, “The Making of the Air Surgeon: The Early Life and Career of David N.W. Grant” by historian Robert E. Skinner, provided by U.S. Air Force Medical Service Senior Historian Dr. Joseph Frechette, Grant was transferred to the epicenter of U.S. Army Air Corps training. In 1931, the Grant family arrived at the brand-new, barely-yet operational Randolph Field, now Randolph Air Force Base. Grant pulled double duty as a post surgeon and flight surgeon.
Skinner wrote that leading up to World War II, Grant spent the subsequent period developing the theoretical understanding of aviation in combat and convincing the war department that developing a system of air evacuation of casualties would be a worthwhile investment of time and resources.
Grant was the first medical officer to be ordered to Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alabama in 1936, where he wrote his thesis that became the groundwork of all aero evacuation.
“With mechanized armies, contact with the enemy will occur over large areas, necessitating a more mobile ambulance service than we have at present,” he wrote.
Grant is directly responsible for the development and use of aeromedical evacuation in World War II, and theorized use of helicopter-like aircraft in combat long before their wide use in Korea and Vietnam.
Dr. Thomas Julian of the U.S Air Force History and Museums Program detailed in “A History of Aeromedical Evacuation in the U.S. Air Force” how Grant studied unique problems such as airsickness, motion sickness and radiation exposure. This research was vital in aeromedical care, as there was limited common understanding of capabilities due to the newness of air warfare in the 1930s.
According to an excerpt from “Doctors at War,” provided by Frechette, Grant himself explored the shifting popular ideas about aero readiness, as he wrote: “The problem is to take a man whose body is adapted to function in a ground environment and whose mind is conditioned to seek peace and security and fit him for a life of a flying, fighting animal.”
Under Grant’s direction, military aviation psychologists developed the most comprehensive mass testing procedure in history for the selection and classification of aircrew based on aptitude, personality, and interest, according to an official U.S. Air Force biography. Grant noted in “Doctors at War”, “Since we cannot build the flier to specifications or wait for evolution to turn him into a superman, our only alternative is to select and train the individuals best fitted for this duty, and then provide them with devices and methods for protection.”
Also carried out under his direction was aeromedical research in human requirements for high-altitude flight and the development of oxygen equipment, electrically heated clothing, and anti-G suits.
According to Dr. Thomas Julian, by the outset of World War II, Grant had spent nearly a decade collecting evidence and winning supporters for aeromedical evacuation. In 1939, after the German attack on Poland created a period of U.S. military armament and increases in spending, the first air ambulance unit was approved.
By 1953, aerospace medicine was designated as a board-certified specialty.
Travis AFB Excels at Care in the Air
Modern-day Travis AFB operates an aeromedical staging facility that can unload and upload patients to and from large aircraft. This capability makes David Grant USAF Medical Center a crucial hub in global warfighter readiness, as well as for emergency management in the event of regional and national disasters. The center has been recognized with renowned accomplishments over the years.
In February 2023, the center’s Intensive Care Unit team received a DAISY Award—an internationally recognized award that celebrates nurses who have made profound differences in the lives of others. The center was later awarded USAF Surgeon General Hospital of the Year at the 2024 Air Force Medical Service Annual Awards, demonstrating expertise, leadership, and commitment of the mission supporting the U.S. Air Force and combatant commanders.
In August 2025, TAFB demonstrated the highest standard in aeromedical capabilities during Exercise Ultimate Caduceus 2025, a U.S. Transportation Command-led field training simulation in global patient movement. The drill simulated the reception, treatment, and onward transport of injured personnel from overseas to designated military hospitals and clinics—demonstrating how Grant’s work fuels excellence in aeromedical evacuation and health care today.
“Grant built an incomparable Army Air Forces Medical Service,” Skinner wrote. “(He) directed great strides in aeromedical research and created the Air Evacuation Service that safely transported over a million casualties from the various theatres of the war.”
| Date Taken: | 08.26.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.26.2025 12:49 |
| Story ID: | 546522 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 95 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, ‘Grandfather’ of Aeromedical Evacuation Legacy Carries on at David Grant USAF Medical Center, by Andrew Ortuzar, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
