thedrifter
09-16-08, 09:29 AM
September 16, 2008
Global Update
Fighting Disease in the Name of the Skeeter Beaters
By DONALD G. MCNEIL JR
In the South Pacific during World War II, and particularly in the six months of fighting for control of Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands in 1942 and 1943, malaria put far more marines out of action than Japanese fire did. Shrinking the vast mosquito populations fell to a newly created unit, staffed mostly by Navy corpsmen volunteers, officially called Malaria Control Unit Cactus, but unofficially known as the Skeeter Beaters.
Their jobs included spraying diesel oil on swamps to choke larvae, fumigating planes and huts with newly invented aerosol “bug bombs,” getting marines to take the hated Atabrine pills and forcing local plantation workers to relocate so mosquitoes could not spread malaria from them to troops. Their exploits were recorded in a 2002 history by Dennis Cline, “Skeeter Beaters: Memories of the South Pacific, 1941-1945.”
The small unit’s work was never well known. As Howard Vance, 89, one of the last two surviving members, told Mr. Cline: “Over the years, I got pretty tired of telling people I killed mosquitoes when they asked me what I did in the war. Their blank stares and snickers got to be a little much.”
Mr. Cline, a real-estate manager in Denver, is raising money in the unit’s honor to fight malaria. His Skeeter Beaters Foundation hopes to send 20,000 insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets to the Solomons by December.
Although malaria was eradicated in the United States in 1949, it still thrives in the South Pacific. Robert Kanavel, 84, the other survivor, will travel to Denver from Tennessee next month to help raise money. More information is at www.skeeterbeaters.org.
Ellie
Global Update
Fighting Disease in the Name of the Skeeter Beaters
By DONALD G. MCNEIL JR
In the South Pacific during World War II, and particularly in the six months of fighting for control of Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands in 1942 and 1943, malaria put far more marines out of action than Japanese fire did. Shrinking the vast mosquito populations fell to a newly created unit, staffed mostly by Navy corpsmen volunteers, officially called Malaria Control Unit Cactus, but unofficially known as the Skeeter Beaters.
Their jobs included spraying diesel oil on swamps to choke larvae, fumigating planes and huts with newly invented aerosol “bug bombs,” getting marines to take the hated Atabrine pills and forcing local plantation workers to relocate so mosquitoes could not spread malaria from them to troops. Their exploits were recorded in a 2002 history by Dennis Cline, “Skeeter Beaters: Memories of the South Pacific, 1941-1945.”
The small unit’s work was never well known. As Howard Vance, 89, one of the last two surviving members, told Mr. Cline: “Over the years, I got pretty tired of telling people I killed mosquitoes when they asked me what I did in the war. Their blank stares and snickers got to be a little much.”
Mr. Cline, a real-estate manager in Denver, is raising money in the unit’s honor to fight malaria. His Skeeter Beaters Foundation hopes to send 20,000 insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets to the Solomons by December.
Although malaria was eradicated in the United States in 1949, it still thrives in the South Pacific. Robert Kanavel, 84, the other survivor, will travel to Denver from Tennessee next month to help raise money. More information is at www.skeeterbeaters.org.
Ellie