   It was dark in the castle. Lieutenant Anton Zerha adjusted the light to get better illumination. A surgeon from Vienna, Zerha was operating on casualties here in Wiltz. This one was an American, hit in the abdomen by shrapnel. Zerha tossed a bit of bloody metal into the tray and sighed. This would be easy with adequate facilities and medicines. The damage wasn't great, there were no major arteries severed. But with one weak electric light bulb for illumination, he couldn't see the work well enough. And with the supply of antibiotics limited to what was on hand when they captured this American hospital, the patient would probably die of peritonitis.
   The Wehrmacht saw medicine as a means of recycling injured soldiers. If they were too seriously injured to be returned to the front, the German Army didn't much care what happened to them. Zerha sometimes thought the Army would rather have all the invalids die. What good would they do back home?
   Zerha moved on to the next man, a German corporal whose shoulder was dislocated when he'd been thrown by a bomb blast. "Let's just have a closer look at this, shall we?" he said reassuringly as he signalled an orderly to hold the man firmly. Then with a firm jerk, he rammed the shoulder back into place. The man screamed and fainted. There were more humane ways to do that, but they took time and anesthesia, neither of which Zerha had. He moved on. At the next table an American, Major Henry Huber, was trying to operate on a German with a punctured lung. He looked up at Zerha and cursed the lack of equipment. "Don't you people have anything?" Zerha shook his head apologetically. "No, Herr Major, we don't." He shrugged his shoulders and moved on.
/Casualties
   Wartime casualties are broken down into three categories: battle casualties, non-battle injuries, and sickness. This last category accounted for ten times as many casualties as battle casualties. Trenchfoot, pneumonia, malaria, venereal disease, and other ailments took their toll. Few soldiers died of their illnesses, but a great many were put out of action for up to six weeks at a time, and trenchfoot sent many home minus toes and feet.
   Non-battle injuries resulted from accidents, and these also outnumbered battle injuries. About 40% of such injuries arose from traffic accidents. If you recall that the average American infantry division stocked nearly 2,000 vehicles, all of which were driven by 18-22 year olds, you get the picture. Accidental fires, unintended discharge of weapons and premature detonation of explosives accounted for the other accidental injuries.
   Artillery inflicted about half of all battle casualties. The machine gun came second, making about 20% of all battle casualties. Next came rifle fire at 10%, and mines also at 10%. The remaining 10% covers a hodgepodge of factors: crushing, asphyxiation, drowning during combat, phosphorus burns, etc.
   While artillery wounded a lot of people, it killed only 19% of its victims. Machine gun fire killed 42% of its victims, largely because machine guns tend to inflict multiple wounds. Not surprisingly, wounds were distributed randomly over the body surface. The arms and legs received 47% of wounds; the head and neck, 18%; the trunk 12%; and the genitalia, 0.6%./