Great Britain. Army. Royal Army Medical Corps. - Surgeon at war 1939-45: the Second World War seen from operating tables behind the front line

1. 1 THE DAYS PRECEDING THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
   SEPTEMBERNOVEMBER 1939
2. 2 SETTING UP HOSPITAL IN FRANCE
   The phoney war; setting up No. 6 General Hospital outside Le Trport; visit to Paris; a German agent befriended
   NOVEMBER 1939MAY 1940
3. 3 THE GERMAN BLITZKRIEG ON BELGIUM AND FRANCE
   In forward areas with No. 159 Welsh Field Ambulance near Ypres and elsewhere in Belgium; retreat through France to Dunkirk; rescue by HMS Havant and return to Dover
   MAYJUNE 1940
4. 4 CREATING A HOSPITAL AT DOVER
   From Leeds to Dover and a false alarm
   JUNESEPTEMBER 1940
5. 5 ORGANISATION OF THE RAMC
   No. 6 General Hospital, Luton; to London for course on tropical diseases
   OCTOBERNOVEMBER 1940
6. 6 VOYAGE TO SUEZ
   Embarkation on Clydeside; voyage to Suez and life aboard the Nea Hellas with stopover in Durban
   NOVEMBER 1940FEBRUARY 1941
7. 7 LANDING AT SUEZ
   The vast encampment at El Quassasin; the first of many visits to Cairo
   FEBRUARYMARCH 1941
8. 8 A COURT MARTIAL AND SUBSEQUENT POSTING
   From the witness box in Cairo to duties at No. 64 General Hospital in Alexandria
   APRILMAY 1941
9. 9 NON-MEDICAL DUTIES IN A GENERAL HOSPITAL
   Recreational activities; breaks in Alexandria; visit to the Holy Land
   JUNE 1941FEBRUARY 1942
10. 10 INCIDENTS AT THE HOSPITAL
    Congeniality of the workplace; eccentric colleagues, in particular Major Geoffrey Morley; visit to the Upper Nile
    JUNE 1941FEBRUARY 1942
11. 11 DEPARTURE FOR THE DESERT
    Attached to an Indian casualty clearing station along the coast before being posted to Tobruk
    MARCHMAY 1942
12. 12 THE MOVE TO TOBRUK
    Conditions in the Tobruk hospital; retreat with the Eighth Army; return to No. 64 General Hospital, Alexandria
    MAYJUNE 1942
13. 13 THE EXODUS FROM ALEXANDRIA
    In the desert before the battle of El Alamein; return to Alexandria; casualties at No. 64 General Hospital; victory and the arrival of spring
    JULY 1942MAY 1943
14. 14 WORK IN A PLASTIC UNIT AND NO. 10 CCS
    From Alexandria to a plastic-surgery unit in Cairo; No. 10 Casualty Clearing Station outside Tobruk; return to Glasgow
    JUNEDECEMBER 1943
15. 15 CHRISTMAS AT HOME AND PREPARATIONS FOR D-DAY
    Family reunion in London; to Cambridge to prepare No. 10 Casualty Clearing Station for D-Day; appointed to command No. 14 Field Surgical Unit
    DECEMBER 1943JUNE 1944
16. 16 D-DAY AND ITS AFTERMATH
    Normandy landings, 6 June 1944; CCS set up near Bayeux; dealing with casualties and an incompetent anaesthetist
    JUNE 1944
17. 17 THE ADVANCE ACROSS FRANCE AND BELGIUM INTO HOLLAND
    Keeping up with the advance towards Paris; visit to liberated Paris; on into Belgium; visit to liberated Brussels; entry into Holland; attached to CCS at Nijmegen
    JULYSEPTEMBER 1944
18. 18 ENTRY INTO GERMANY
    On to Eisden then return to Nijmegen; posted to join a Canadian CCS in Germany; rejoining No. 10 CCS at Schloss Wissen; crossing of the Rhine
    SEPTEMBER 1944MARCH 1945
19. 19 UNCOVERING A CONCENTRATION CAMP
    On leave in Paris; return via Brussels to No. 3 CCS; rejoining No. 10 CCS near Bremen; VE-Day amid the horror of a concentration camp near Sandbostel; goodbye to No. 10 CCS
    APRILMAY 1945
20. 20 CLEARING THE WOUNDED IN DENMARK
    To Copenhagen via Cuxhaven; assessing the German wounded in Zealand hospitals; usefulness of cigarettes; goodbye to No. 14 FSU and to Hanover via Flensburg
    JUNEJULY 1945
21. EPILOGUE
    Final posting to hospital in Hanover; return to England; discharge at Albany Street Barracks; back on the wards at Kings College Hospital
    JULYOCTOBER 1945

O n the night before he died, I was sitting at my fathers bedside when he said to me, I dont think I could have done more with my life. It was the reckoning of a man who had reached the end and was trying to evaluate his story. There was something tentative in the statement, which begged the question: Could I have done more? The question was impossible to answer, but it spoke of a deep sense of moral imperative, which evolved in the young man we see ageing rapidly in the pages of this book and that remained a driving force throughout his life. He had resolved to dedicate his considerable skills to the service of medicine, and in the defence of life. But who could measure such a commitment? I felt his love in sharing this reflection with me. I also felt that coming from a different generation, and with over forty years between us, I could never be his judge.

My father wrote this memoir when he was nearing retirement in his late sixties. He was looking back at the man he was in 1939 when he signed up to join the Royal Army Medical Corps in the week after war was declared. He was twenty-eight. He had qualified at Kings College in London with distinction, practised as a registrar and spent one year as a ships surgeon on a merchant ship which sailed as far as the China Sea. At the time, Kings College was not encouraging its staff to enlist, so he left with a sense of duty but without the colleges blessing.

He spent the early part of the war setting up a large field hospital in Normandy, before moving to the front in May 1940. After the invasion of the Low Countries and France, his surgical unit retreated with their wounded to the beaches near Dunkirk. Here they joined the exodus and only narrowly survived the crossing, when they were rescued from their sinking boat, mid-Channel, by the destroyer HMS Havant. Then, after a short course in tropical medicine, he sailed to Egypt in January 1941 as part of the Middle East Force, serving both at the base hospital in Alexandria and behind the front lines in the desert. Over two and a half years later, in November 1943, he returned to England to take part in preparations for the invasion and was sent into France with the British Liberation Force the day after D-Day in June 1944. When VE-Day came, almost a year later, he and his unit were engaged in opening up the Sandbostel concentration camp, near Bremen in Germany. Finally, after some weeks clearing German prisoners of war from hospitals in Denmark, he returned to England and re-entered civilian life in October 1945.

It was an epic journey over seven years and two continents. He lived through changes in the organisation of the Royal Army Medical Corps, in the drugs available (there was no penicillin at first) and the medical equipment. This was the last Western war where doctors would carry out major operations with post-operative wards close behind the front line. Initially, surgeons were organised in small units and dependent on the facilities of the casualty clearing stations to be able to operate. It was not until 1944 that the Royal Army Medical Corps perfected its field service units so that a surgeon with his anaesthetist could function autonomously with their own theatre, a twelve-bed ward, two three-ton lorries and a couple of orderlies.