Reminiscences of Rear Adm. Almon C. Wilson, Medical Corps, USN (Ret.)

This is a rare volume in the Naval Institute collection in that it deals primarily with a staff corps officer. Even so, Wilson was commissioned as a line officer in 1944 and served the last year of the Pacific war on board the high-speed transport USS Liddle (APD-60). After a few months at the Naval Supply Depot, Scotia, New York, he returned to civilian life and earned his M.D. from Albany Medical College. He did an internship in at the Bremerton Naval Hospital and served as medical officer for Mine Squadron Three in the Far East. After another stint of civilian practice he returned to active duty and served in naval hospitals at Subic Bay in the Philippines, San Diego, and Chelsea, Massachusetts. In 1965-66 he was commanding officer of the Third Medical Battalion, the facility in Danang that served Marines fighting in the Vietnam War, then was chief of surgery at the naval hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. After attending the Naval War College, Dr. Wilson was medical officer on the staff of Commander in Chief Naval Forces Europe. During a subsequent tour in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BuMed) planning division, he had additional duty as personal physician to Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dr. Wilson then commanded the naval hospital at Great Lakes, Illinois, before becoming assistant chief for material resources in BuMed, 229-244. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he oversaw the fleet hospital program to develop transportable medical facilities. From 1982 to 1984 he served as head of the BuMed resources division and deputy to the Surgeon General. This oral history provides candid assessments of several admirals who served in the billet of Navy Surgeon General over the years.

Paul Stillwell is an independent historian and retired naval officer. He worked for thirty years at the U.S. Naval Institute as an oral historian and editor of Naval History magazine. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, including four on battleships and an award-winning volume on the Navy’s first African American officers, The Golden Thirteen. His 2021 book Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. also received acclaim. He lives in Arnold, Maryland.