Although both he and his commanding officer feared the possibility of court-martial, native Utahn Harry Roby performed emergency appendectomy surgery during submarine duty on the USS Grayback while it was in Japanese territorial waters. It was Dec. 14, 1942, when Roby, a 30-year-old pharmacist's mate without medical or surgical training, used a handful of makeshift tools to make an incision in the abdomen of 22-year-old William R. Jones, a torpedoman from Oklahoma.
The surgery was later dramatized in the movie "Destination Tokyo," starring Cary Grant.During a chat with Roby in his Salt Lake apartment about the heroic event, I found him animated and articulate.
He said everyone on the submarine (about 70 people) referred to him as "Doc" because he tended to the crew's minor health complaints - such as "a toothache, a headache, cold, ingrown toenail or an infected wisdom tooth."
When Jones complained of a stomachache, Roby was unable to help him. After two days, Jones felt as if he had to stay in his bunk and fold his knees. Finally, Roby determined the problem was appendicitis, something he was completely unprepared to handle.
But the commanding officer ordered him to operate, and he said, "Yes, sir." Roby, who years later became administrator of Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, was a hospital corpsman, trained chiefly in first aid.
They set aside a long table in the mess room, and Roby dug out his old British first aid manual. "Under appendectomy it said to keep a man quiet and give him nothing by mouth until he sees a doctor. There was no method of treatment given at all."
So Roby said, "Jones, it looks like we're going to have to do something, but I don't know what to do." Jones, who was in extreme pain, said, "Doc, I don't care - just do something."
Roby found a knife and three hemastats to clamp bleeding, and the cook provided a foot tub that was used to make bread. They poured alcohol into the tub and immersed the knife and the hemastats. "It takes maybe 60 instruments to do an appendectomy. I had three or four."
Someone found him some long-nosed pliers from the engine room, and he flattened some spoons from the galley to use as retractors to keep the flesh pushed back during the examination. They also had a few sutures to try to keep conditions sanitary.
The British manual did provide instruction in the old drip method of administering ether, so they started giving it to Jones, but after a long time he was still not anesthetized.
"Finally, I took what was left of the last can of ether and just poured it into that mask, took a deep breath and hoped it would work - and it did. He went under pretty well, but maybe I could have killed him too, you know."
Before making the incision, Roby, devoutly LDS, knelt down and prayed. "I didn't want him to die. I just asked for help to do whatever needed to be done, to do it successfully for Jones' sake."
In the meantime, the sub had dropped to 100 feet and leveled off. All was quiet, except that the periscope went up every 10 or 15 minutes to see what might be approaching because we were in heavy shipping lanes."
Fortunately, Roby made a successful incision but had trouble finding the ruptured appendix. When he finally located it, it was about the size of his little finger.
After clipping it off, he used "all kinds of alcohol, and I know I pickled him." Roby sprinkled everything with sulfanilamide powder, then closed the cavity with the help of rubber bands and safety pins. It took over an hour to complete the surgery, which today would take 10 to 15 minutes.
In his journal, which he kept in the form of letters for his wife, Romania, Roby wrote, "After the operation I began to notice what a strain I had been under, and I just broke down and cried for 15 minutes." Roby took his Book of Mormon, which he had sealed in a plastic bag, and placed it under Jones' pillow. "That was an instrument of faith."
Jones stayed in his bunk for eight or 10 days, drinking orange juice - and on Dec. 25, the crew had a "nifty Christmas dinner. I went to sit down to eat, and I thought, I'll just go and check on Jones. I said, `How would you like to come out and have Christmas dinner?' He said, `I'd love it.' "
Roby brought Jones in "and everyone was tickled to see him. He sat down to eat - and I went to sit down and I couldn't. I said, `Hey, Jones, how would you like a blessing on the food today?' It had never been done before. He said, `Sure.' I said, `Who do you want to say the prayer?' Jones suggested `the Old Man,' but he said, `Let's have Doc pray.' So I gave a little extemporaneous prayer."
Jones recovered nicely, and Roby got the Navy-Marine Corps medal and a promotion. "I got a letter from Jones many years later, saying he had retired. He was married, with a couple of children, and he was heavily in debt. He said, `Doc, why didn't you let me die?' He has since committed suicide. A lot of people did that, you know. They had shell shock from depth charging."
Roby, who spent 24 years in the Navy, then went into hospital administration, had cultivated a desire to be a surgeon. "I would have loved someone to have sent me to medical school, but I wasn't a kid by the time I got out of there."