They Trapped Polio Patients Inside of Tubes to Save Them

This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on the show, including your stories.

Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They're some of our favorites. And up next, well, a great history story.

And all of our history stories are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. In 1927, the iron lung was invented. This machine helped keep people alive who were stricken with polio, a disease which today is mostly eradicated. But in the late 1940s, disabled an average of more than 35,000 people a year.

Here's our own Monty Montgomery with the story of this life saving device. In the first half of the 20th century, there was nothing quite like polio. Here's Darren Glassberg of the Mobile Medical Museum with more on that. You know, polio was a really serious virus that affected mainly young children, children between the ages of five and nine through the mid 1950s.

The peak year was 1952 when there were 58,000 reported cases. This is polio, the cruel centuries old quibbler of children, enlarged 77,000 times. These are actual polio viruses. To the University of Michigan campus in 1955 came hundreds of scientists hoping to hear the words that would signal the end of polio's long and ruthless reign of terror.

Fortunately, the vaccine was developed in 1955. But before Jonas Salk discovered that vaccine, the only way to mitigate the effects of advanced polio was through a device known as the iron lung. It's used for when people develop paralytic polio about five out of 1000 cases, and it paralyzes your diaphragm, and you're unable to breathe independently. What it is, is it is a respirator that you are supposed to stay inside, you're strapped down, you're lying on your back, you're immobile, your head is resting on this pillow.

And when this is closed, they lock it up. So no air circulating on the inside of this machine. And this electric motor is going to turn this bellows back and forth.

It has a handle in case the motor breaks down, you can manually operate it. But what that's going to do is create negative pressure on the inside of the machine. And this is actually how your lungs and your respiratory system are supposed to work. But since there's lower pressure on the inside of the machine than the outside, that is going to actually force air through your trachea and into your lungs. And then when you're inside, you stay inside basically 24-7 until you recover.

And meanwhile, nurses are providing care for you through these portholes, washing you off, massaging your limbs, changing your bedpan, there's a wider hole on the other side. They were very costly. Like in the 1930s, one of these cost about $1500, which was as much as a single family home. And you know, this was before health insurance and so not everybody could afford one, but hospitals invested heavily in them. And they were, you know, very common during this era.

It's not meant as a permanent treatment, but some people ended up using it for the rest of their lives because they never recovered. Like Fredric Snipe, who was subject to much media attention at the time due to the iron lung's quote-unquote new factor. Fred Snipe Jr., the man in the iron lung, sees his daughter for the first time. The little girl was born on September the 22nd weighing eight pounds. The Snipe has lived in an iron lung for four years, being stricken with infantile paralysis in Paping.

He married his childhood sweetheart last year and now he's the proud father of a bonny little girl. Zahn Magazine covers, they called him the man in the iron lung. And Fredric Snipe was one of those people who never recovered and he spent the rest of his life in the iron lung until he died of heart and lung failure.

It's very hard on your body to be, as you can imagine, motionless, stuck inside all that time. By 1959, there were still 1,200 people using the iron lung. By 2004, there were 39. And by 2014, only 10 people were still using the iron lung on a daily basis. Today, there's about three. Often we get people that come in here, older people, who remember growing up and seeing somebody who had one of these in their home, somebody being treated in their home in an iron lung.

These are not made or manufactured anymore or serviced anymore. And so if you do get an advanced case of polio, you are more likely to be given a portable respirator that allows you freedom of movement, better access to your caregiver. But these individuals felt that they were getting better results with the iron lung.

And so they were fortunate to have people in their family who could jerry-rig it and keep it running for them and that's what they used on a daily basis. Though close to becoming only a museum piece, iron lungs are a reminder of a dark time in our past. But they're also proof of how far we've come in less than a century. For Our American Stories, I'm Monty Montgomery. And great job as always to Monty who himself is a Hillsdale grad and a special thanks to Darren Glassbrook of the Mobile Medical Museum.

What a piece of history this is, medical history. And all of our history stories are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, where you can go to learn all the things that are good in life and all the things that are beautiful in life. You can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale. We'll come to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to hillsdale.edu.

That's hillsdale.edu. Since 1988, polio cases worldwide have gone down 99%. And the number of cases in 2017 was a mere 22.

Again, compare that to 35,000 a year being paralyzed or disabled just in this country. The story of the iron lung here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to our American stories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.

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Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today. And we continue with Our American Stories. And on this show, we consider it a privilege to honor those who have given their lives in combat for others. And so does Heather McPherson, who is the curator of history at the South Carolina Military Museum.

In fact, it's the reason she's at the museum in the first place. Here's Heather to tell us more. So when I was growing up, my mom had photos on our piano of her uncles. And I was always interested in this one like I want to know his story. His name was Ralph Ferguson. And he served in the 29th Division during World War Two, and landed on Omaha Beach first wave and made it to June 12. Before he was killed in action.

It was about 12 miles in near the El River. So I grew up kind of hearing bits and pieces of that story. And you know, throughout your teenage, you get other priorities when you're a teenager and everything. But you know, I loved history class and stuff like that. But I was kind of, you know, every once in a while I dig into his story a little bit.

And then, you know, after college, I really dove into it. There's so much more available on the internet and getting in contact with people and just kind of made it like a side mission of mine to figure out his story. And I just kind of found some sense of purpose trying to tell his story. The family didn't really talk about it. Brothers didn't want to mention him, the mother. And so my grandma grew up not knowing a lot about what happened to him. And same with his widow didn't really know a lot. So me being able to piece together his few days in country and what he might have gone through and, you know, even finding mentions of him in books and stuff, it was this really incredible journey and just got me more interested in other aspects of World War II and then eventually other military in general.

Yeah, I actually found a mention of him in one of Stephen Ambrose's books. One of the soldiers under his command, he was the second lieutenant in the 29th Division. He was talking like he always felt sorry for him because he had to read his soldier's mail and censor it. And he knew that he was getting really close to these men after having to censor their mail and that he didn't want to lose any of them. And he kind of reminded me of him taking care of his younger brothers and his younger sisters, always being the man of the house because he actually lost his father a year before he got deployed. So he was like, I'm torn.

I want to take care of my men, but I know my family needs me at home. And it's just World War II was just an era where so many people stepped up and did what they needed to do. He's writing letters back home like his mother's learning how to drive for the first time because she doesn't have someone to do that for. And talking to my grandmother like, well, haven't you learned how to drive yet Bertha and help mother fill the car with gas. And I could just sense this pull of him wanting to be in two places at once. And there's no telling what he went through on the beaches of Omaha, along with so many other of our brave men getting separated from where they were supposed to land and just so much going on. And then leading his men across the El River.

I've heard a couple little excerpts of he was probably one of the first ones to kind of go ahead. That's what leaders did. They wanted to keep their men out of harm's way.

And, you know, they took the point. Not sure how he got killed. It could have been artillery, could have been a sniper, but it's one of those things where I started kind of talking about him and my grandmother started sharing stories I'd never heard before. It almost like kind of clicks her memory and like, oh, yeah, well, he used to he worked at a drug store, so he came home smelling like coal pills. I don't know what they were putting in those pills, but he had these little black pills and they smelled like coal.

And I was like, well, it is West Virginia, so everything smells like coal. But yeah, it's just these little stories of that she didn't even knew she remembered. It's definitely been a journey when you spend that many years researching and really getting to know the person that you've never met. Even my mom said, you know, I never really met him, but you've you've almost brought him to life for me. And finally made the pilgrimage, if you will, to Normandy in twenty nineteen and got to see his grave and going to see his his grave site. I was like, why am I getting so emotional about someone I've never met?

But it's like I did know him. And being able to share that with with everyone that I was part of the tour with went with the 29th Division Association. And I was trying to I'll just go by myself, but the tour group was going there. So I'm like, well, then I can't just go and not go see the grave site. So I was like, OK, so all these people are now watching this moment that I've been looking forward to for a while.

And, you know, they actually have an attendee come with you and you can actually rub sand in in the engraved part of the the cross. So the letters really pop and actually signifies, you know, someone who knew this person has come to visit it. So I've got one person standing behind me in this little tour group looking on. I'm like, oh, this is awkward. But it was it just felt like the circle was complete. Like I eventually had time just to go back by myself and kind of say, hey, Ralph, how you doing? You know, it's it's it really is like I know him. And I think it didn't hit me to like maybe a little bit later, like, OK, yes, takes pictures, just make sure. And, you know, I was here. I visited and tell everybody, like, oh, this is his story. But then later on, I was like, OK, that was that was a moment.

And yeah, it kind of weighs on you after it a little bit. But yeah, that was it was incredible. I think that was even more impacted when I went to that actual river where he passed away because it was on June 6th that we had laid some roses down at one of the memorials. So I'd taken that rose. I was like, I'm going to spread some of the petals in the river. I don't know what I was thinking, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

So I did that. And, you know, we were just kind of looking around the river a little bit more. And let's let's head down down a little bit. And those rose petals were there circling. And I was like, well, OK, that's that's so weird. So we stood there for a little bit. And I was like, all right, I guess time to go. And then the rose petals left right when I left. And I was like, OK, that's something something's going on here.

I haven't had really any more experiences like that. But to see those rose petals like waiting on me almost and then leaving as I left, it was almost like Ralph, like, thanks for for keeping my story alive. Staying in bed and breakfast that was literally like two miles from where he was killed. And now that family who runs the bed and breakfast, he also has a tour group. And my great uncle's story gets to be told multiple times throughout the year.

And it's pictures right on the roadside. And it's it's just incredible how it how it all turned out. My voice is cracking because of it, but I'm trying not to. It's hard.

I mean, it's hard. And I think that's why I love working here is because I know how it feels. And so, you know, even yesterday I was talking to one of our donors.

We're going to be showcasing his family at one of our displays. And he's like, I'm just so thankful that you're doing this for us, because, you know, they have the story, but it's almost like they do want to share it. And it's not just for them like, oh, well, I want to share what what these people did. It's like they want to keep that memory of lives. And the more people you tell about it, the more it feels like, you know, well, that person's going to remember that story. It just keeps trickling on. These people who are no longer with us have connected so many other people.

And, you know, from different states, but also from the United States to France, it's like the people I stayed with were one was British, one was Dutch. But now they take care of a marker where my grand uncle died from West Virginia. So it's like these stories bring the whole world together. And it's out of something so horrible, but out of it comes something so great as you connect people and keep these memories alive of good sons and daughters making the ultimate sacrifice.

And it just connects everyone in the world. So you almost forget when you're reading stories that these are people and they had families and a lot of people forget about families even serving today that they were serving just alongside, you know, their men and women in uniform. So it's it's I that's what pulls me in is the stories and keeping them alive because almost like the more stories I keep alive in the museum, that's one more kind of checkmark for Ralph going good job, you know, keeping that story alive. And a special thanks to Robbie for doing that story, producing it, bringing it to us. And a special thanks to Heather McPherson for telling the story.

She's a curator of history at the South Carolina Military Museum. And telling stories is what she does. And telling stories of those who've paid, well, a real price so that we can enjoy the inheritance we have here in this country.

And it's an inheritance, folks, and we didn't do anything for it. So many of us. And my goodness, what a story she told about her great uncle.

And all triggered by those pictures on the top of a piano. Who are those people she thought that curiosity drove her and she got to know Ralph Ferguson really got to know him. Never met him.

But she really got to know him. The 29th Division in World War Two. He stormed Omaha Beach. What a beautiful story about memory and the power of stories. Heather McPherson's story, her great uncle Ralph Ferguson's story, here on Our American Stories.

And we're back with Our American Stories. And here to tell another Hollywood Goes to War story is Roger McGrath. He's the author of Gunfighters, Hollywood Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier. He's also a US Marine and former history professor at UCLA. Dr. McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and is a regular contributor for us here at Our American Stories.

Here's McGrath. Ken C. Cooper was one of Hollywood's most important figures in its golden age. He rose to great prominence in 1933 when he co-wrote, directed and produced the blockbuster King Kong.

Before he retired, he had six credits for directing, 19 for writing and 68 for producing. He worked closely with John Ford, producing such Ford classics as Ford Apache. She wore a yellow ribbon, Rio Grande, Wagon Master, The Quiet Man, and The Searchers. What is generally not known about Miriam Cooper is his service as a US Army pilot in World War I, and then as the organizer of the Kosciuszko Squadron, a group of American pilots who came to Poland's aid and flew with great distinction in the Polish-Russian War of 1920. Miriam Cooper is born in 1893 in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of a prominent attorney. Cooper's line goes back to the colonial era in southeastern Georgia. Rising to prominence during the Revolutionary War is John Cooper, Miriam's great-great-grandfather, who serves as a colonel alongside Kazmyr Polasky, the Polish cavalry commander. After a meeting with Ben Franklin in Paris in 1776, Polasky sails to America and is soon reorganizing and commanding the Continental Army's cavalry regiments. Though his imperious manner causes controversy, the aristocratic Polasky serves with distinction in several battles, both before and after spending the winter of 1777-1778 with Washington at Valley Forge.

While leading a charge during the Battle of Savannah in May 1779, Polasky is grievously wounded by British grape shot. Colonel John Cooper carries Polasky from the battlefield and, according to family lore, is at Polasky's side when the cavalry commander dies two days later. Kazmyr Polasky becomes a hero to Americans, including Miriam Cooper, when, as a young boy, he is told stories of his great-great-grandfather and the Polish general. The young boy's imagination is also fired by hearing of the exploits of his great-uncle, Miriam R. Cooper, who joins the 2nd Florida Infantry of the Confederate Army at the age of 16, fights heroically, suffers several wounds, and is commissioned as a captain at age 20. Moreover, the young Cooper is a voracious reader of tales of adventure, in particular, Paul du Chalou's Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, a thrilling account of Chalou's hunt for gorillas in the forests of the uncharted Crystal Mountains. Chalou's description of two native women being carried off by gorillas leaves a lasting impression on Cooper.

It isn't by accident that, in 1933, Cooper co-writes, directs, and produces King Kong. Cooper's thoughts of adventure turned skyward when, at age 10 in 1903, the Florida boy reads of the Wright brothers' 12-second flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. He vows that one day he will fly airplanes. Upon graduating from the Lawrenceville Prep School in New Jersey, Cooper receives an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. He performs well both academically and athletically, but Cooper has trouble controlling his wild nature and receives demerits for infractions of military discipline.

His fondness for strong drink gets him thrown into the brig during December 1914, and the Academy begins dismissal proceedings. Cooper is only one semester shy of graduation, and he can contest the proceedings, but he feels he has brought dishonor upon himself and his family and thinks it best for all if he leaves. Too embarrassed to return home, Cooper sails to Europe as a seaman aboard a freighter.

He thinks of enlisting to fly for Britain or France, but passport problems interfere. He returns to the United States and works at various jobs, including writing for the Minneapolis Daily News and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. He stops drinking entirely and excels at his jobs, but he does begin smoking a pipe.

In a letter to his father, he says of his pipe, He soothes many, many a hatred, and many a regret. And whenever I have wanted a good stiff drink, the old corn cob has always stuck by me and taken the place of John Barleycorn. In 1916, Cooper joins the Georgia National Guard and quickly finds himself on the Mexican border with General George Blackjack Pershing. Cooper thinks he will soon be pursuing Pancho Villa deep inside Mexico, but his duties are confined to patrolling the border. After several months of unlimited action, Cooper gets orders to the Military Aeronautics School in Atlanta. After a year of rigorous training, Cooper graduates first in his class of 150 cadets. The commandant of the school sends a telegram to Washington recommending the newly minted pilot Mirian Cooper for service overseas, saying, He is the best man in every respect who has yet entered this school. Lieutenant Cooper is in France by October 1917, but is in for several more months of training before being assigned to the 20th Aero Squadron. Injuries and a crash landing and months of heavy rains and fog delay Cooper's first combat flights until September 1918, which occurred during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. Cooper's flying the De Havilland IV Liberty, a powerful and fairly maneuverable plane, though unloaded with a pilot, a bombardier, ordnance, and a full tank of gas, it is considerably slower than the German Fokker D7. Moreover, the Liberty's gas tank is particularly vulnerable to enemy fire, which earns the plane the nickname Flaming Coffin. Lieutenant Cooper flies both bombing and reconnaissance missions.

His luck holds until a bombing mission in late September during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. His flight of De Havillands is jumped by two groups of Fokkers. Cooper maneuvers his plane brilliantly, and he and his bombardier in Leonard shoot down three Fokkers before his own plane is riddled with bullets and set ablaze.

Cooper thinks of bailing out, but he decides to stick with the plane because Leonard is wounded and only semi-conscious in the rear seat. And you've been listening to the story of Marion C. Cooper, and he's the man who gave us King Kong. That's in 1933. When people saw this movie, they ran out of the theater. You can still watch it today, and it's still a remarkable piece of cinema.

And also, my goodness, producing the classic John Ford movies like The Searchers or A Quiet Man or Rio Grande. Always in the lineage of this family, there was war and service. When we come back, more of Marion C. Cooper's story. It's a stem winder here on Our American Stories.

And we continue with Our American Stories. Marion Cooper's airplane is on fire after getting riddled with bullets in a dogfight against two German planes in World War I. He thinks of bailing out, but decides to stick with the plane because his bombardier, Ed Leonard, is wounded and only semi-conscious in the rear seat.

Let's return to Roger McGrath. With badly burned hands and using only his elbows and knees to control the stick, Cooper crash lands the plane in a field. By the time Cooper and Leonard extract themselves from the wreckage, a German pilot who was one of those in the air duel also lands in the field. As described by Cooper, the handsome and metal-bedecked pilot strides over to the wounded Americans, salutes them, and renders aid. German infantry soon arrive, and Cooper and Leonard are taken to a German field hospital for treatment. German doctors save Cooper's hands in Leonard's life. Cooper and Leonard are listed as MIA until the Red Cross sends word early in November that they are alive and recovering from their wounds in a German hospital.

The armistice is signed a week later, and Cooper and Leonard are soon repatriated. Once back in France, and now a captain, Cooper volunteers for a humanitarian mission to Poland. The Poles are starving, their condition made even worse by a Russian Bolshevik invasion. World War One may be over, but the Polish-Russian war is just beginning. Cooper's organization of truck convoys with tons of food and medical supplies endears him to the Poles, especially in East Galicia, now part of Ukraine.

However, he longs to join the Poles in fighting the Russian Bolsheviks, who are able to send more than 700,000 troops into Poland after defeating their white Russian foes. Cooper personally contacts Poland's head of state, Marshall Joseph Politski, asking permission to organize a squadron of American pilots to fight alongside the Poles and repay the American debt owed to Poland for the services of Kazmier Polaski and Tadeusz Kosciuszko, another Polish nobleman who served in the Continental Army with distinction. With Marshall Polaski's approval, Cooper begins recruiting American pilots. The first to join is Colonel Cedric Errol Fauntleroy, a tall Mississippian who flew in Eddie Reicherbacher's famed squadron. Cooper wants a squadron named in honor of Polaski, but Fauntleroy wants Kosciuszko. Since Fauntleroy is the ranking officer, the unit becomes the Kosciuszko squadron. In addition to Captain Cooper and Colonel Fauntleroy, the founding members of the squadron include Captain A. H. Kelly of Virginia, Captain Ed Corsi of New York, Lieutenants Ed Noble and E. P. Graves of Massachusetts, Lieutenant Carl Clark of Oklahoma, Lieutenant Ken Shrewsbury of Virginia, Lieutenant Elliot Chess of Texas, and Lieutenant George Crawford of Delaware, certainly a cross-section of America.

Many more American volunteers will later join the squadron. By January 1920, the squadron is in action, contributing significantly to turning the tide of battle against the Russians. Captain Cooper's in combat whenever weather permits, often flying low altitude missions against the Cossack Cavalry, which is attempting to sweep through eastern Poland and into Warsaw.

The American pilots employed tactics they learned in the World War I battles of San Miel and Argonne. First, they would fly over the Cossack columns at 600 feet above the ground and drop their bombs by hand. Then they would dive down to only a few dozen feet above the ground and fire their machine guns at the now fleeing Cossacks. These bombing and strafing attacks are devastating to the Cossack Cavalry, but also take a toll on American pilots.

Flying at such low altitudes, particularly on the strafing runs, means small arms can bring down a plane. Cooper also flies several missions to Kiev, where he has a beautiful Polish girlfriend. He later recalled, the day I flew down the street in Kiev with a wing almost shot off so I could wave to my beautiful luscious blonde and have her blow a kiss at me.

And if that wasn't worth risking your life for, I don't know what is, particularly as I had a date with her that night. On July 13th, Cooper is strafing Cossack Cavalry when bullets rip through his gas tank and his engine begins to sputter. He switches to his reserve tank, but no luck. As his plane is gliding to the earth, he watches Cossacks galloping their horses to catch up with him. His dead stick landing is smooth, but then his wheels hit a ditch and the plane ground loops. Cooper is thrown out of the cockpit and hits the ground with a thud.

He struggles to his feet, walks a few steps, then passes out. Cooper regains consciousness with the help of a kick from the boot of a dismounted Cossack. Cooper sees he's surrounded by the notorious Russian cavalrymen.

Cooper later says, they look like wild dogs jumping after a piece of raw meat. He endures three days of beatings and whippings before arriving at the headquarters of the Cossack cavalry commander, General Simeon Boudinny. Cooper thinks he will be interrogated and executed, but is surprised to learn Boudinny has a fondness for the Kosciusko pilots. A few weeks earlier, the pilots could have killed Boudinny while he was riding in a train.

However, the Americans saw his wife was with him and decided to fly by without attacking. Boudinny offers Cooper a job as a flying instructor for the Bolsheviks, but Cooper will have none of it and is sent to a prison near Moscow. Now, nutrition and disease take the lives of prisoners week by week. And for various reasons, prisoners are occasionally lined up against a wall and shot. Cooper is chosen for the wall three times, but each time his execution is called off. During the spring of 1921, he and two of his fellow prisoners, both Polish lieutenants, swear an oath to each other that they will attempt to escape or die trying. Days later, when they were among a group of prisoners taken into a forest to chop wood, Cooper and the Polish officers slip away, moving rapidly through the forest. And they have the good fortune to come upon a rail line and leap unseen aboard a freight train headed west.

The train takes them much of the way to the Latvian border, but then it's traveled on foot only by night and only off the beaten path. At one point, Cooper has to cut the throat of a Russian soldier on patrol. When Cooper reaches Warsaw, he is greeted as a conquering hero.

Cooper says all the Kosciuszko squadron did was nothing more than payback for the contributions of Polaski and Kosciuszko to America's freedom in the American Revolution. Once back in the United States, Cooper goes to work as a reporter for the New York Times. After six months, though, he's able to join an expedition led by a wealthy explorer from California, Edward Salisbury, that is sailing to far-off places in search of adventure.

This is something Cooper has dreamed of since he was a little kid. The expedition takes Cooper to the most remote islands of the Southwest Pacific and to those of the Indian Ocean, islands of headhunting, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. Out of the expedition comes hundreds of photographs and hundreds of feet of film, which is turned into a documentary.

Also coming out of the expedition is a book, The Sea Gypsy, written by Miriam Cooper. The documentary and the book take Salisbury and Cooper to Hollywood. Cooper is soon writing, directing, or producing some of the best movies to ever come out of Hollywood. People often say Hollywood doesn't make movies like they used to.

It may be because Hollywood doesn't have men like Miriam Cooper anymore. And a terrific job on the storytelling, as always, by Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Roger McGrath. We love the Hollywood Goes to War series. And my goodness, so many great men served when they didn't have to. There were many other ways they could have gone about helping the effort, war bonds and the like. People like John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable. Gable, at the height of his career, doing this over and over again. The story of Miriam Cooper here on Our American Story.