As it did to most Britons, war brought a drastic change to Sir Archibald McIndoe (rhymes with lackin' dough). He gave up his rich Harley Street practice to head the R.A.F.'s plastic surgery program.
As the Battle of Britain raged, some 4,500 airmen were pulled out of their wrecked and flaming planes. Of the 600 cases that Sir Archibald took care of, 200 needed total reconstruction jobs on their faces and hands. His wartime hospital has developed into the finest plastic surgery center in Europe.
This week Britain's leading plastic surgeon begins a three-month lecture tour in the U.S. and Canada. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., "Archie" McIndoe, a modest, broad-backed man of 48, will address an alumni association filled with old classmates and students. (He went to Mayo from New Zealand on a fellowship in 1924 and stayed on to teach.)
First Names. Some of his patients call Dr. McIndoe "God"—and partly mean it. They have seen him take charred, featureless living remains and remake them into presentable human beings. McIndoe goes about his surgical repairs systematically. First, if it is necessary, he grafts on new eyelids and lips so that the patient can, at least, sleep and eat. Next he makes new noses, chins and ears. As many as 40 operations may be required, over four or five years.
McIndoe's job required much more than surgery; he had to refit his patients for normal life. He insisted on first-name familiarity among patients and hospital staff. He sent groups of his flyers on trips to London, with tickets to the theater and reservations at night clubs. He made sure that his patients had pretty nurses.
Guinea Pigs. One of McIndoe's first patients was a flyer named Paul Hart. Flames had burned away his nose; his cheeks were raw; his eyelids, eyebrows and chin were gone; his mouth was crushed to an ugly, gaping gash. Some 25 operations and 3½ years later, Paul had recovered his face. Today, he and his young wife are running one of the most prosperous bulb farms in England.*
Some 600 "reconverted" men of 16 different nationalities have formed a McIndoe alumni group called "The Guinea Pig Club." The lighthearted lyrics of the club's anthem are a tribute to Sir Archibald's success in salvaging minds as well as faces:
We are McIndoe's Army,
We are his Guinea Pigs:
With dermatomes and pedicles,
Glass eyes, false teeth and wigs.
*Another patient was Richard Hillary, who wrote his highly acclaimed reminiscences of Oxford and the war, Falling Through Space and The Last Enemy, in the hospital, left to rejoin the R.A.F. and was shot down in action six weeks later. His heroics inspired Arthur Koestler's essay, The Birth of a Myth.