Invisible Excellence- A Difficult and Dangerous Drive Toward the Front

This installment finds Unit K/Mobile One being stationed ever closer to the perilous European front, with its attendant danger and devastation. For example, during this episode, in two different postings, Mobile One narrowly avoided being shelled. In a third, the hospital was situated so close to a gas-shell dump that an attack would have required personnel to don their gas masks in just seconds to escape serious harm. Along the way, this innovative group devised methods for performing operations safely during the approaching colder weather; and for doing surgeries at night, while still maintaining the cover of darkness. They also reconfigured a set of train cars to function essentially as a rolling hospital, capable of rapidly transporting large numbers of recovering soldiers further from the front. And on November 12, 1918, as Mobile One began arriving at the final French station covered in this installment, its personnel learned that the WWI armistice had become effective the day before.