- Leonard D. Heaton
Leonard Dudley Heaton (
November 19 ,1902 -September 10 ,1983 ) wasSurgeon General of the United States Army from 1959 to 1969.Biography
Youth and education
Heaton was born in
Parkersburg, West Virginia . As an undergraduate he attendedDenison University inGranville, Ohio graduating in 1922. He then attended theUniversity of Louisville where he would earn his medical degree four years later.ervice years
Heaton was commissioned as a
first lieutenant in the Medical Corps Reserve immediately following his graduation from medical school. In 1940 he was assigned as Chief of Surgical Service in Hawaii. He was among the attending physicians in the aftermath of the attack onattack on Pearl Harbor , where he operated and treated the wounded for over 24 hours straight. With the entrance of the United States into World War II, Heaton was assigned to theEuropean Theater of Operations . Soon after D-Day, he was appointed as the Commander of the 802d Hospital Center in Blandford, England where he had over 12,000 people working under him.After the war, Heaton was promoted to
Brigadier General in 1948. He held many posts including being the commander of theWalter Reed General Hospital inWashington, DC . He became the tenth officer to command the hospital.General Heaton was made Surgeon General of the Army in June 1959. Aside from administrative duties, Heaton continued to surgically operate. Among his many patients included President
Dwight D. Eisenhower , Secretary of StateJohn Foster Dulles , and Generals of the ArmyDouglas MacArthur , andGeorge C. Marshall .As Surgeon General, he oversaw the expansion and deployment of Army medical services to
Southeast Asia and advocated for the increased use of helicopters formedical evacuation operations in the Army.External links
* [http://history.amedd.army.mil/tsgs/Heaton.html US Army Medicine Profile]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.