ArtiFacts: Major Hawley’s Improvised Traction Clamp (original) (raw)

physician in the US Army Medical Corps, had a simple mission: lead the medical section of the U.S. Army Engineer Battalion in Nicaragua, created in response to a congressional mandate for a survey of a proposed Transocean canal. The canal was a proposed companion for the recently completed Panama Canal. Just before 10:30 am, Maj. Hawley's mission suddenly changed. A powerful earthquake had just destroyed Managua, the capital and largest city of Nicaragua, in less than 6 seconds, and in the process killed approximately 1000 people. Virtually every building in Managua was leveled to the ground and the city's municipal water and sewage systems were also destroyed. After receiving a cable from Washington DC, Lt. Col. Daniel Sultan (1885-1947), Battalion Commander, organized a relief train with supplies en route to Managua [1]. The train's supplies were desperately needed. Major fires burning in the city would ultimately last into the next day. All the hospitals in the city had collapsed and any medical equipment buried in the ruins needed to be recovered as soon as possible. On board the relief train, Maj. Hawley had nothing to deal with a disaster on the scale he faced upon his arrival in Managua. As a Battalion Linden Lane,