Snake Bites

[Pips]

Just wondering if anyone has any info on the number of caualities caused by snake bites. Probably not so much Europe, but possibly Western Desert; and certainly New Guniea and the Pacific.

[Trackhead M2]

Just wondering if anyone has any info on the number of caualities caused by snake bites. Probably not so much Europe, but possibly Western Desert; and certainly New Guniea and the Pacific.

Dear Pips,
I will have to get data together on snake attacks. However, if Double Edged Secrets if available in your local library, it is about US Navy Intelligence at Pearl Harbor during WW 2. It includes a story of how the Intelligence team found out about a particular snake being venomous that the Medical personnel in the Pacific by ordering supplies caused a world wide anti-venin shortage. The Intelligence report didn't have information on the size of the snake's population and no attacks by the particular snake were reported.
Strike Swiflty,
TH-M2

[phylo_roadking]

Pips, I would say that scorpions posed a much greater threat in the Western Desert than snakes....

[Larry D.]

Just wondering if anyone has any info on the number of caualities caused by snake bites. Probably not so much Europe, but possibly Western Desert; and certainly New Guniea and the Pacific.

I'm guessing you would probably have to approach this on a country-by-country basis. The U.S. Army's Medical Department issued a blizzard of special studies over a 15-20 year period after the war and you can bet snake bite is the subject of at least one of them. But the figures in that report probably would not cover casualty figures for other nations, such as Australia. I mean, let's face it - who needs to tell the Aussies about snakes, what with Inland Taipan, Coastal Taipan, Tiger snakes, et al, all over the place. It's amazing that so few Aussies get bitten and die annually. Unlike India where something like, what, 45,000 die from snake bite each year?

As for U.S. forces in the Pacific campaign, both the Army and the USMC issued snake bite kits to each soldier fighting in snake infested areas, e.g., New Guinea, Solomons, Marianas, Philippines, etc., and quick treatment at the scene probably saved a lot of lives prior to the injection of antivenin.

L.

[Peter H]

"Living in the Jungle" from Intelligence Bulletin, September 1943
http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/inte ... ungle.html

5. SNAKES

The dangers from snakes in the tropics have been very much overemphasized. A person in the jungle probably will not see more than one or two snakes a month—and when he does, the view will probably be fleeting, as the snake most likely will be making every effort to disappear. There are no land snakes in the more remote Polynesian islands, and there were none in Hawaii until a minute, wormlike blindsnake was accidentally introduced there in recent years. Most of the islands of the East Indies have both venomous and non-venomous types. There are four kinds of snakes on the Fiji Islands, including one venomous variety. There are many kinds on the Solomon Islands, and Australia has an abundance of them, but nearby New Zealand has none. Only harmless kinds occur in the Galapagos Islands.

The poisonous snakes in New Guinea and the large neighboring islands are relatives of the Indian cobra, and their venom affects the nervous system (in contrast to most North American poisonous snakes, whose venom affects the blood stream). If you should accidentally step on one, you probably would be bitten. The chances of this occurring to persons traveling along trails or waterways are probably about the same as the chances of being struck by lightning. A large party, composed of some 700 men, traversed a considerable area in New Guinea some years ago and in a year's time none of them was bitten. New Guinea is as infested with poisonous snakes as any part of Melanesia, but is probably a less dangerous area in this respect than New Mexico, Florida, or Texas, for example. This does not mean that one should be utterly careless about the possibility of snake bites, but ordinary precautions against them are sufficient. One should be particularly watchful when clearing ground for a camp site, trail, or the like, and also when roaming in the brush gathering firewood.

[Pips]

Thanks guys.

[Larry D.]

5. SNAKES, from "Living in the Jungle" from Intelligence Bulletin, September 1943, is probably a fitting and accurate summary of the subject, but maybe a bit too understated. I spent a year in Central Thailand in 1967 during the Vietnam War and can address the topic on a first-hand basis. Thai "beaters" would arrive at dawn every day and sweep our big, sprawling air base for kraits (both banded and spotted varieties), Thai cobras and Russell's vipers that infiltrated during night from the surrounded jungle and grasslands. Rarely a day went by that they did not find at least a few. There were a good half-dozen snake bite cases in the year I was there, including one fatality, and those are just the ones I know about. We had sandbag bunkers all over the base that were for protection from the occasional mortar rounds that hit us, and these bunkers were favorite nesting places for snakes because they could make homes for themselves in gaps between the bags that formed the walls. Several guys were bitten in these bunkers. I personally saw a krait fall on top of a guy while he was standing in front of a wash basin shaving prior to reported for midnight shift in the base tower. The krait had been in the rafters chasing a rat and evidently lost its balance. Fortunately, the guy was not bitten and another fellow grabbed a mop and beat it to death. Everyone took a flashlight and maybe a stick with them for night-time trips to the latrine, just in case. Of the three, the Russell's viper was considered the worse because of the large amount of venom it could inject. The krait was the least deadly.

As for Vietnam itself, stories about soldiers being bitten by mangrove vipers in the wet, southern lowlands are not terribly uncommon, but stories of cobra encounters in the central and northern highlands are rather uncommon. Perhaps you might find some statistical data for Vietnam that you could use as representative for what the troops in the South Pacific experienced.

L.

[sonofsamphm1c]

When I was a kid my Dad told a story about a man who was bitten by a sea snake. Presumably in the Solomons.

[Peter H]

Snakes on Okinawa
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=144704

[cuscus]

my understanding is there are very few poisonous snakes in the Solomon Islands. I have heard of one snake, in Choiseul and very rare, which has a fatal bite.
In PNG there are a few - taipan, papuan black - but they are primarily in the grasslands and down towards Moresby. Most snakes are non-venomous python types
really the threat would have come from ticks, scorpions, spiders, centipedes etc etc and the risk if being isolated from treatment and infection
All pacific islands host a huge range of poisonous sea creatures like stone fish and cone shells etc etc.

[Larso]

Ellis in his book, 'The Sharp End' writes that the British suffered 3 snake bite deaths in WW2.

[Graham B]

The worst enemy of all was the mosquito. Deaths from malaria, in many units, outnumbered all other causes (including combat).

[Ironmachine]

Snake Bite Kits:

http://med-dept.com/snakebite_kit.php

http://www.mtaofnj.org/content/WWII%20Combat%20Medic%20-%20Dave%20Steinert/field_equipment_of_a_wwii_corpsm.htm

[Larry D.]

The instructions in those links are a hoot! Just the opposite of today's treatment reccomendations that prescribe no tourniquets, suction devises, cutting of "X"s to open the bite wound, etc. What a difference 70 years makes.