Camp Swift, July 1945
The medical examination room at Camp Swift smelled of disinfectant and summer heat. Afternoon sunlight pressed through screened windows, turning dust motes into pale sparks in the air.
Captain David Morrison watched a German prisoner named Keith Schmidt attempt to walk from the door to the examination table—a distance of perhaps twelve feet. She moved like someone thirty years older than her actual age of twenty-four. Each step required visible effort. Her legs trembled under her as if they might simply fold.
When Morrison asked her to remove her shoes and socks, and he looked down at her feet and lower legs, what he saw shocked him into immediate action.
It would change medical protocols for every incoming prisoner processed through the camp.
Keith Schmidt had arrived at Camp Swift in June 1945 with thirty other German women captured during the final weeks of the war. She had worked as a clerk in a supply office near Hamburg, classified as civilian auxiliary. She had spent the last six months of the war surviving on progressively diminishing rations as Germany’s infrastructure collapsed.
By the time British forces captured her position in May, she weighed perhaps ninety pounds at five-foot-six.
The British processed her through temporary camps and provided minimal rations—just enough to keep her alive—then transferred her into American custody for transport to the United States. The Atlantic crossing took two weeks. Keith spent most of it seasick, unable to eat even the adequate food provided on the transport ship.
She arrived in New York having lost more weight, so weak she could barely stand through the processing procedures. The train ride to Texas lasted four days. Other prisoners noticed her condition, tried to help her eat, supported her when she attempted to walk.
But the damage was comprehensive. Months of malnutrition had depleted her body in ways that could not be reversed quickly.
At Camp Swift, she was among the first prisoners processed under a new medical intake protocol designed to assess incoming POWs and provide appropriate care.
Captain Morrison was forty-two, a physician from Philadelphia who had practiced general medicine for fifteen years before being commissioned in 1942. He had served in field hospitals in North Africa and Italy. He had treated combat casualties and disease. He had seen malnutrition in liberated populations.
But he had never processed German POWs directly—especially not women from the collapsing administrative tail of a regime that had run out of food.
He expected some malnutrition. Perhaps minor untreated injuries.
He did not expect deterioration severe enough to look like starvation.
Keith entered escorted by a WAC nurse, Lieutenant Sarah Chun. Morrison noted immediately that Keith’s gait was unsteady and her breathing labored from the minimal exertion of walking from the waiting area.
“Please walk to the examination table,” Morrison instructed through an interpreter.
Keith tried.
Three steps. A pause to steady herself. Three more steps. Her legs trembled visibly. Her hands gripped furniture for support. The twelve feet took nearly a minute.
Morrison exchanged a glance with Lieutenant Chun. They both understood: this was not routine malnutrition.
Morrison began the standard examination—height, weight, temperature, blood pressure. Each measurement worsened the picture. Keith weighed eighty-seven pounds. Her blood pressure was low. Her temperature was slightly elevated. Her pulse was rapid and weak.
“I need to examine your legs and feet,” Morrison said. “Please remove your shoes and socks.”
Keith complied slowly, hands shaking as she worked the laces.
When she finally removed her shoes and socks, Morrison felt his professional composure falter.
Her legs were skeletal. Muscle tissue had been consumed by her body’s attempt to survive. The bones of her feet and ankles were visible through skin that looked almost translucent. Her toenails were discolored, several broken. Despite her overall emaciation, there was edema—swelling around the ankles from fluid retention.
But what shocked Morrison most were the pressure sores.
Multiple wounds on her feet and ankles where shoes had rubbed against unprotected bone—ulcers that had become infected. Some were healing. Some were fresh. All of them suggested weeks or months of walking in ill-fitting shoes—too weak to prevent injury, too depleted to heal.
“How long have you been unable to walk normally?” Morrison asked.
“Since February,” Keith said in halting English. “Maybe January. The rations… they became very small. Then there was nothing.”
“And these sores?” Morrison asked.
“From the retreat. We walked many days. My shoes did not fit properly anymore. My feet became smaller, you understand? From the hunger. But we had to keep walking.”
Morrison continued the examination. He checked her teeth—several loose, signs consistent with scurvy. He examined her hair, brittle and thin. He tested reflexes, delayed and weak. Every indicator pointed toward prolonged, severe malnutrition affecting multiple systems.
When he finished, he spoke carefully.
“Miss Schmidt, you are severely malnourished. You have multiple deficiency conditions—likely vitamin C, vitamin D, protein deficiency, and general caloric starvation. Your body has been consuming its own muscle tissue to survive. This is serious and requires immediate treatment.”
Keith looked at him and asked quietly, “Will I recover?”
“With proper nutrition and rest, yes,” Morrison said. “But it will take months. Your body needs to rebuild what was lost. This didn’t happen quickly, and it won’t be fixed quickly.”
That evening Morrison wrote the most detailed medical report of his military career. He documented every finding, took measurements, and outlined treatment requirements. Then he wrote a summary for camp administration and medical command.
Patient Keith Schmidt, age 24, German civilian auxiliary, presents with severe malnutrition affecting multiple body systems. Weight 87 lb at 5’6″, BMI 14.0—critically underweight. Muscle atrophy throughout lower extremities preventing normal ambulation. Multiple pressure ulcers on feet, some infected. Signs of scurvy (loose teeth, gum disease), possible rickets (bone deformation consistent with vitamin D deficiency), hair loss and brittle nails consistent with protein deficiency.
Assessment: Prolonged severe malnutrition, likely 4–6 months minimum. Physical deterioration consistent with starvation conditions, not simple food shortage. Body has cannibalized muscle tissue to maintain vital functions. Condition life-threatening without aggressive treatment.
Recommendation: Immediate hospitalization. High-protein diet with gradual caloric increase—must avoid refeeding syndrome. Vitamin supplementation. Treatment of infected wounds. Physical therapy when stable. Similar examinations recommended for all incoming female POWs from this transport; conditions may be systematic rather than individual.
Morrison submitted the report to Major Thomas Henderson, the camp’s chief medical officer. Henderson read it twice and then called Morrison into his office.
“This is worse than we anticipated,” Henderson said. “We knew there was food shortage in Germany during the final months, but this suggests systematic starvation—or a complete breakdown of logistics.”
“Either way,” Morrison said, “if she’s representative of the group, we need to change our intake protocols.”
Henderson nodded. “Examine the rest of the women from that transport. Document everything. I’ll notify the camp commander.”
Over the next three days, Morrison examined all thirty women from Keith’s transport. The findings were consistent and disturbing.
Twenty-three of the thirty showed significant malnutrition. Fifteen had BMIs below sixteen. Eight had symptoms consistent with scurvy. Six showed edema despite low body weight. All reported dramatic weight loss in the final months of the war.
Their stories repeated the same pattern: rations reduced weekly, then daily. Infrastructure collapsed. Supply lines severed. Administrative personnel—clerks, telegraphers, support staff—received the smallest rations because they weren’t frontline troops. By March 1945 many were eating one thin meal a day. By April, some had days with no food at all.
Morrison compiled a comprehensive report. This was not isolated hardship. It was evidence of societal collapse reaching even the military’s auxiliary staff.
Major Henderson convened a meeting of medical personnel. He presented Morrison’s findings, showed photographs documenting physical conditions, and announced new protocols.
Effective immediately, all incoming POWs would undergo comprehensive nutritional assessments. Anyone with BMI below seventeen would receive immediate supplemental feeding. Anyone showing vitamin deficiency would receive supplementation. Anyone with infected wounds would receive treatment before assignment to standard barracks.
A medical ward dedicated to nutritional rehabilitation would be established. Captain Morrison would oversee it. Additional supplies—vitamins, protein supplements, wound care materials—would be requisitioned.
One officer asked the question everyone was thinking. “Are we equipped to handle this level of medical need?”
“We’ll have to be,” Henderson replied. “These are human beings in our custody. The Geneva Convention requires adequate medical care—and frankly, it’s the right thing to do regardless of legal requirements.”
Keith was transferred to the new medical ward—a converted barracks with twenty beds, full-time nursing staff, and direct oversight by Morrison and his team. Seven other women joined her, all requiring intensive nutritional rehabilitation.
Treatment was methodical. Small, frequent meals to avoid overwhelming compromised digestive systems. High-protein food to rebuild muscle. Vitamin C for scurvy. Vitamin D and calcium for bone health. Vitamin B complex for nerve function. Iron for anemia.
But everything had to be gradual. Morrison knew the danger of refeeding syndrome—electrolyte and metabolic shifts that could kill a starved person who was fed too quickly.
So meals were calibrated:
Week one: 1,200 calories per day, split into six small meals.
Week two: 1,500 calories.
Week three: 1,800 calories.
Slow increases. Careful monitoring. Let the body relearn how to live.
Keith ate mechanically at first, her stomach rebelling against sudden abundance. Nausea. Cramping. Digestive distress. Then gradually the food became tolerable. It became fuel instead of torment.
The changes came slowly—but measurably.
Week two: three pounds gained. The edema began to recede.
Week four: eight pounds gained total. Hair loss slowed. Teeth felt more secure. She could walk the length of the ward without stopping.
Week eight: fifteen pounds gained. The first signs of muscle rebuilding appeared. She could climb stairs with assistance. Skin no longer looked translucent.
Week twelve: twenty-two pounds gained. Weight: 109 pounds. Still underweight, but no longer dangerously so. She could walk normally, participate in light exercise, function independently.
The pace of recovery surprised even Morrison. He expected improvement. He did not expect such a dramatic transformation in three months.
As Keith recovered, she and Morrison spoke during weekly examinations. Her English was better than he’d first realized—she had simply been too exhausted early on to manage it.
“Why did this happen?” Morrison asked one day. “How did the German system allow its personnel to become this malnourished?”
Keith considered carefully.
“The system broke,” she said. “In the beginning of war there was organization. Food rationed but adequate. But as war went badly, as infrastructure was bombed, as transport stopped, rations became smaller. And people like me—clerks, not soldiers—we were lowest priority.”
“You said food stopped in April.”
“Almost completely. Some days we found potatoes. Twice someone brought bread. It was mostly sawdust. We ate grass sometimes. Dandelions. Anything. But there was nothing organized. No system. Just survival.”
Morrison documented her testimony alongside the medical findings.
“Did you know you were starving?” he asked. “That you were at risk of dying?”
“Yes,” Keith said simply. “Many people died. In the retreat. In camps after capture. I thought I would die too. I accepted it.”
Then she looked at him and added, quieter: “Then the British gave us food. Then you Americans gave us more. And my body decided to live after all.”
“I’m glad it did,” Morrison said.
“So am I,” Keith replied. “Though some days in recovery, when my stomach hurts so much from eating, I wondered if dying might have been easier.”
“It gets better,” Morrison said. “Your body is remembering how to process food. Give it time.”
Morrison’s documentation reached War Department Medical Command in Washington and triggered broader review. Similar patterns emerged across the POW system. German military and auxiliary personnel captured late in the war showed consistent signs of severe malnutrition. The collapse was not isolated. It was widespread.
Protocols changed throughout the system. Nutritional screening became standard. Rehabilitation wards were established. Treatment procedures like Morrison’s became policy.
In October, a medical officer from Washington—Colonel James Bradford—visited Camp Swift to review Morrison’s records and interview patients.
“This is remarkable work,” Bradford told him. “You recognized a systematic problem, documented it thoroughly, developed treatment protocols, and achieved measurable recovery. This is the kind of field medicine that influences policy.”
“I was just treating patients, sir,” Morrison said.
“You were doing more than that,” Bradford replied. “You were documenting what happens when societies collapse. This data will be studied for decades.”
Keith, in the midst of her recovery, became an inadvertent witness to those broader implications. Researchers interviewed her about food shortage, symptom progression, psychological impact.
One asked, “Did you know that while you were starving, food in America was abundant?”
“We were told America was poor too,” Keith said. “That everyone was suffering.”
She paused.
“When I arrived and saw the meals, I thought it must be special treatment—designed to make us compliant. Only gradually did I understand: this is normal here. The abundance is real. The starvation was ours alone.”
“How does that make you feel?” the researcher asked.
Keith thought for a long moment.
“Angry,” she said finally. “That we were made to suffer needlessly while somewhere else people ate well.”
Then she added, “But also grateful. That you Americans fed us anyway. That Dr. Morrison cared whether I recovered. That the system here prioritizes welfare even for prisoners.”
In December, after six months, Keith was permitted to write home through Red Cross channels. She had learned her mother survived and was living in Hamburg with relatives.
The letter was difficult. How did she explain that she was healthier as a prisoner in Texas than she had been as a free woman in Germany?
Dear Mama,
I am writing from a camp in Texas. I am alive and well—better than I have been in many months. The Americans have treated me with medical care and adequate food. I recovered from the malnutrition that weakened me during the war’s final months. I nearly died. My legs stopped working properly. I could barely walk. When the American doctor examined me, he was shocked by how much damage hunger had done. But they fed me carefully and helped me recover. I think about you constantly and wonder if you have enough to eat. The letters say Hamburg is very difficult. I wish I could share what I have here with you. It feels wrong to be well-fed while you struggle. I will return when they permit repatriation. Until then, know I am safe and healing. The propaganda about American cruelty was completely wrong. They have been professional and humane.
With love, Keith
Her mother’s reply arrived in April 1946.
My dear Keith, I thank God you are alive and recovering. Do not feel guilty for being fed while I go hungry. I am grateful you are somewhere you can heal. Hamburg is ruins and we survive on minimal rations, but we survive. Come home when you can. We will rebuild together.
Keith stayed at Camp Swift through winter and into spring. She continued gaining weight and strength. By March she weighed 118 pounds—still slender but within a healthy range. She could walk miles, work full days, function normally.
Before her repatriation, Morrison examined her one final time. The transformation was complete: the skeletal woman who could barely walk twelve feet had become a healthy young woman capable of normal activity.
“You’ve made a remarkable recovery,” Morrison told her. “When you arrived, I wasn’t certain you would survive. Now you’re healthier than many people who have never been malnourished.”
“You saved my life,” Keith said. “You and the nurses and the food and the medicine.”
“I won’t forget that,” Morrison replied. “Just doing my job. But I won’t forget you either. You taught me what the body can endure—and what it can recover from if it’s given proper care.”
“What will you do when you return home?” Keith asked.
“I’ll go back to Philadelphia,” Morrison said. “Open a practice. Try to be a good doctor in peacetime the way I tried to be in war.”
“You are a good doctor,” Keith said. “Thank you for seeing me as a patient who needed help, not just an enemy prisoner.”
Keith was repatriated in May 1946 and returned to Hamburg. The city was rubble—ruins and hungry people trying to survive. The contrast with Texas was stark and painful. She found work with occupation authorities, using her clerical skills for reconstruction efforts. The work resembled what she’d done during the war, but now it served recovery rather than destruction.
She wrote Morrison occasionally.
In 1947: she had stable work and adequate rations. Her health remained good.
In 1950: Hamburg was rebuilding. She married a man who had also been a prisoner. They spoke sometimes of the strangeness of being treated better by enemies than by their own government.
In 1955: she had a daughter. When the child asked about the war, Keith told her about Dr. Morrison in Texas who saved her life when her own country had let her starve. She told her that enemies could show humanity—and that remembering that mattered.
Morrison was discharged in June 1946 and returned to Philadelphia. He specialized in nutritional medicine, drawing on his POW experience. He published several medical papers using Camp Swift data with patient permission and anonymized details. The papers became standard references in nutritional rehabilitation for decades.
In a 1978 interview, Morrison reflected:
“The most important case I handled wasn’t a battlefield casualty. It was a young woman who couldn’t walk because she’d been starving for months. Treating her taught me that medicine is about seeing human suffering and responding appropriately, regardless of who the patient is.”
Morrison’s records from Camp Swift—including documentation of Keith’s recovery—were preserved in military medical archives and later used by researchers studying malnutrition, rehabilitation, and the human cost of societal collapse.
Keith lived until 2001, dying at eighty in Hamburg surrounded by children and grandchildren. Her daughter donated letters—including correspondence with Morrison—to an archive.
Morrison died in 1988 at eighty-five. His papers and POW treatment records were donated to a medical history collection.
The examination room at Camp Swift is long gone. But what happened there endured: the shock of discovering severe malnutrition, the decision to treat aggressively and carefully, the documentation that raised standards across an entire system.
In a Texas ward in 1945, a young woman who could barely walk regained the ability to stand, move, and live.
The doctor who treated her did not only save one life.
He changed a protocol, raised a standard, and left evidence behind that even in war, medical care can remain fundamentally human.
