WWII: The Pacific War & Atabrine (1942-47)
Atabrine was mentioned early in If you wake at Midnight. So, I rewatched The Pacific and read Robert Leckie’s amazing war memoire, A Helmet for My Pillow
Before mefloquine there was another synthetic anti-malarial. Mepacrine, related to chloroquine and mefloquine was its real name. United States soldiers, sailors, aviators, and marines referred to it by its trade name.
Atabrine…
Image: Waiting for chow. Guadalcanal, 1942. Severed Japanese head mounted on sign advising Marines to take their Atabrine. Source: The Pacific, HBO.
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Atabrine was mentioned Robert Leckie’s war memoire, Helmet for my pillow. In fact, on the voyage from Melbourne, Australia to his second campaign in Cape Gloucester, New Guinea I’m pretty sure they are trying to avoid it (by accident/purpose). Excerpt:
We ate on deck, and we also attended to our necessities on deck. A galley shed had been constructed above decks and there were also topside heads. In a strong wind, we fought to keep our food down on those unmanageable instruments of exasperation we called our miss kits – or to keep it down in the stomach, once the wind blew from the heads.
We had resumed taking atabrine pills. When one arrived at the end of the line, canteen cup of coffee in one hand, meal and mess kit balanced precariously in the other hand, an officer waiting there commanded one’s mouth to open. Whereupon a medical corpsman flicked a yellow atabrine pill into the cavity.
“Open your mouth, there”
“Ah, that does it.”
“You missed, you fool”
“Hey, there – watch your food. Ugh! You clumsy… watch it, watch it!...”
“I can’t help it, Lieutenant – the damned ship rolled…”
“Damn it, men, be careful of those canteen clasps. You’re spilling your coffee. Come on now, move on. You there, what are you blinking at? Move on, you’re holding up the line. Careful, now, corpsman. You’re missing too many of them. Careful I tell you. CAREFUL!”
“Oops, I’m sorry, sir.”
“It isn’t a bad burn, sir – not even a second degree, I don’t think.”
“Damn it, corpsman! I told you – “
“Watch it, sir. She’s rolling again. Ugh, smell that head. Watch it, sir! He’s turning green. Watch it, sir.”
It was Part Four: Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika that really caught my attention. Even as I reread the chapter dedicated to the Gloucester campaign, I found a possible Neuropsychiatric Incident that wasn’t even in the episode. Excerpt:
He told us the first sergeant back there had killed himself. He grew despondent one night, Eloquent said, and shoved the muzzle of a Tommy gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger: a most messy end of himself. None of us could comprehend it.
Watching that episode alone I saw two probable NQIs.
Image: PFC Ronnie ‘The Kid’ Gibson (played by Tom Budge) and 2nd Lt. “Lieutenant Commando” Lebec (played by Rohan Nichol). The Kid might have gone mad due to combat stress, but Lt. Lebec was a veteran of the doomed Dieppe Raid in 1942 and an unlikely suicide.
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MTF…
Note: The Pacific is currently available via Binge in Australia
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REFERENCES
IMDb (2024) Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1576599/?ref_=tt_mv_close] Page accessed 30.05.2024
Leckie, R (1957) Helmet for my pillow. Random House. New York City, New York, USA.
Marriot, A.G. (2022) If you wake at Midnight. The Lariam wonder drug scandal. Austin Macauley. London, UK
The Pacific (2010) Part Four: Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika. HBO. New York City, New York, USA. Viewed 10.05.2023
The Pacific (2010) Part Two: Basilone. HBO. New York City, New York, USA. Viewed 10.05.2023
Wikipedia (2024) Dieppe Raid [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid] Viewed 30.05.2024
Wikipedia (2024) Mepacrine [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mepacrine] Page accessed 30.05.2024