Joseph Page Pollard remembered the wounded filling his battle dressing station. As space ran out, stretchers spread into the parachute loft and a passageway. Even there, the work of saving the ship could disrupt treatment: a damaged firefighting hose sprayed the patients, who had to be moved. M62
The forward aircraft elevator offered a way to move stretcher patients down to the hangar deck. Pollard recalled securing its use through the senior medical officer. Moving those men before the next attack mattered because getting them out from higher in the ship would have been harder.
After torpedoes struck and Yorktown listed, the remaining stretcher patients upstairs still needed help. Pollard described using ropes to lower them towards life rafts, assisted by a lieutenant named Wilson. Abandoning ship was not one action completed at a signal. For the wounded, it depended on other people finding a way to move them. M62
A doctor’s perspective
This is a later oral-history excerpt published by Navy Medicine in 2013. The publication does not date the interview. It preserves Pollard’s recollection of treatment and evacuation, not a complete medical return or a minute-by-minute action log.