Jumping M.D.

The doctor who seemingly drops from the sky in answer to a prayer is no longer a miracle but a pioneer in a new medical service which requires both daring and skill. First Lieut. Ames R. Little '39, one of the few qualified parachute-jumping M.D.'s in this country, recently made his eighteenth jump, the star performer in an exhibition landing before the Air Field personnel in Casper, Wyoming. In spite of a heavy wind and cumbersome equipment, he landed in the designated spot, on the parade ground in front of field headquarters. Confronted with the increasing seriousness of rescuing survivors from crashed planes in territory where travel is difficult, the Army Air Forces Medical Corps has formed squadrons of surgeon-doctors from volunteers to be members of "Search and Rescue Groups."

After graduation from Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Lieutenant Little, hearing of this new branch of service, attended the U. S. Forest Service Parachute school at Seeley Lake, Montana. After completing this course, he entered the parachute school operated by the AirBorne Command at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where he became proficient in the science of making precision landings; he is capable of reaching the earth within fifteen or twenty yards of the place he has chosen to land. Lieutenant Little holds the rating of a parachutist, which is equivalent in rank to that of a pilot or co-pilot.