Major Harry Weinstock

Harry Weinstock was born on October 19, 1904, in New York, where he grew up in the vibrant, fast-growing world of early-20th-century Bronx city life. From a young age he showed the discipline and determination that would mark his career, pursuing higher education and advanced training that ultimately led him into the profession that earned him the title by which family and friends would always know him: “Doctor” Weinstock.

When the United States entered the Second World War, the country called not only on its young soldiers but also on its trained professionals. In 1942, Harry was drafted into the U.S. Army from his private practice in NYC.

He underwent training in the deep south during 1942 and 1943 and deployed to Liverpool, England in December 1943 as part of the 5th Medical Evacuation Unit.

The 5th Evacuation Hospital played a critical medical support role in World War II, functioning as one of the U.S. Army’s mobile, front-line hospital units designed to treat hundreds of wounded patients per day as close to combat as possible while remaining mobile enough to follow advancing forces. The hospital could set up in farms, fields, orchards, or bombed-out towns within hours.

The 5th EVAC crossed the English Channel on June 12, 1944 to support the Allied invasion of Europe. They followed the wartime action eastward and crossed the Rhine River on March 28, 1945, and continued operations until V-E Day on May 8, 1945.

Hospital staff often worked under extremely difficult conditions—cold, mud, blackout restrictions, enemy artillery, and constant patient overload. Dr Weinstock and other physicians saved countless lives by performing rapid, lifesaving operations that turned fatal injuries into survivable ones. The survival rate of U.S. soldiers in WWII was among the highest in history up to that point—largely because of organizations like the 5th Evac.

After the war ended, Dr. Weinstock returned to New York and resumed his medical career. Over the postwar decades he built a reputation as a thoughtful, caring doctor, serving patients in the greater New York area.

Harry’s personal life was deeply rooted in Jewish communal life around New York. He and his wife, Diane, shared a close family that included children and grandchildren who remained connected to both New York and North Carolina.

In his later years, Dr. Weinstock remained in the New York area and continued serving patients for almost 60 years following his graduation from Medical School. He died on August 15, 1993, at the age of 88. He is buried in Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York—a cemetery that has become the resting place for many Jewish families from the New York metropolitan area.

Dr. Harry Weinstock is remembered as a New Yorker, a physician, a World War II Army veteran, and a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. His life bridged the era of the horse-and-wagon city to the modern age, and through war and peace, clinic and home, he used his skills in the service of others.

Today his legacy lives on in the family who bear his name and in the countless lives he touched through his years of medical practice and wartime service.