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Doctor on D-Day
It was 6 p.m. on a Monday in June 1944. Dr. Jacques Rethel completed a clinical examination of his patient, then quickly made his assessment: “His belly is tense and rigid; he's been vomiting and feverish for the past 24 hours. He bears no appendectomy scar, and his Douglas cul-de-sac is very tender.”
“Jacques,” the doctor said to himself, “Analyze his symptoms properly. This is no time for mistakes … .”
Dr. Rethel addressed his patient soberly, without ceremony. “Major Preiller, you obviously have acute appendicitis and, most likely, the onset of peritonitis. You need emergency surgery.”
Jacques Rethel was a country doctor in a village located in the Manche area of Normandy. He was used to dealing with patients needing emergency surgery, and he regularly referred such patients to the nearest hospital, in Carentan, a mere 10 km away. This wasn't the first time he'd been requisitioned by the Germans at a moment's notice to attend to their soldiers—usually high-ranking officers. So it was with a certain resignation that he'd received a call 30 minutes earlier from General Erich Hahn, the commandant of the 84th Corps of the German Army, the headquarters of which were stationed at Saint-Lô.
“Dr. Rethel? General Hahn speaking. I've just been told that my aide-de-camp, a Major Friedrich Preiller, who's on a visit of inspection of our Atlantic Wall at La Madeleine, has come down with an attack of …
