大象传媒

We had an uneventful trip to Freetown sailing in convoy in an old P&O liner the "NAKUNDA", having found my sea legs in the first few days I enjoyed the journey, sleeping on deck rather than being battered down in the hold - the atmosphere down there had to be experienced one could not describe it. Anchoring outside the Freetown harbour, the town looked very inviting (we could see the palm trees waving in the breeze) but we did not go ashore transferring to an old Irish Channel steamer the "Ulster Monarch鈥�.The Irish captain would not sail in convoy and we were unaccompanied along the West Africa Coast to Lagos, Nigeria. One can imagine how hot and humid this trip proved to be as the Ulster Monarch was well covered - in order to withstand the rough weather usually encountered in the Irish Channel. I did not sleep at all on this journey wondering whether we might meet up with a torpedo from a U-boat.
Our hospital at Kaduna in Northern Nigeria was being built and we spent some little time attached to another West African General Hospital at Abeokuta in the south just up from Lagos. Before the 46th W A General Hospital moved to Kaduna I was transferred to the 36th W A General Hospital based at Enugu as the sergeant in their laboratory was going home as a non-commissioned officer.
This scheme released medically qualified officers from regimental duties.
The two years at Enugu proved to be of great interest, most of us went down with malaria (malignant tertian variety - repeated infections could result in blackwater fever were red cells are destroyed and the patient passes "black water" hence the name) during our tour of duty. The Japanese had entered the war and quinine supplies had been cut from territories involving them. Half of the units were given the quinine substitute Mepacrin to help conserve quinine supplies. Troops receiving Mepacrin could easily be identified by their yellow appearance. To ensure personnel had their anti-malarial drug this was given out on the morning parade. Two cases of small-pox died whilst
I was at Enugu, both were Nigerians. The pathologist obtained permission to perform post-mortems and as the Nigerians refused to assist him (the one disease that really frightened them) I volunteered to help. I shall never forget this post-mortem thank goodness this particular disease has been wiped out.
One would not know there was a war on in Nigeria. The food was excellent with no rationing as at home. Our salad food was grown on the Kano plateau and sent down daily on the Nigerian Railway (this ran
from Lagos in the south up to Kano in the north and then down to Port Harcourt passing Enugu down to the south coast again. There was no direct line between Lagos and Port Harcourt.
We bought oranges or bananas for 12 a penny with a coconut thrown in for free. Hospital work commenced at 6 am and finished at 1 pm, it was too hot and sticky to do much in the afternoons except sleep. At 4.00 PM we showered and played tennis for a short while before eating dinner.
In 1943 I started my journey home, even in war time the West African tour was kept to about 18 months as it was I did 22 months. Taken off the train at Kaduna in the north to be admitted to hospital (my former unit) with malaria and still suffering from boils and carbuncles. I eventually met up with my unit at Freetown some four weeks later - they had been waiting all that time for a ship to take them home. So much for the romantic scene of the coast when we anchored outside of Freetown on the way out - it was a horrible hole, the local church was full of memorials to troops and civilians who had died of blackwater fever, yellow fever, typhoid, cholera and every other tropical disease, making for grim reading. We sailed home in an old Dutch steamer the Dempo.
Having reported sick I was still suffering from the carbuncles, I made acquaintance with the Medical Officer who gave me a job taking blood films from troops reporting sick. These films were stained and examined for malarial parasites.
This RAMC captain was not very old but I have never seen before or after the doctor lying on the couch whilst the patient stood to be inoculated.
After a short leave I found myself with a 600 bedded General Hospital, 9th General Hospital, British Liberation Army, which was forming up to accompany the invasion forces into France.
We were the first 600 bedded hospitals to land in France at Arromanches on D+l1 (11 days after the invasion commenced). Our Colonel, who was aged 76, insisted that we waded ashore although it was not necessary as the engineers had built a landing stage which would have allowed us to walk onto the beach without getting wet. We had a Jewish captain who was rowed ashore as he said it was against his religion to put his feet into salt water. My only casualty was getting my cigarettes wet as they were in a flat tin in the pocket were my first field dressing should, have been.
The hospital, which was under canvas, we set up near Bayeux. It was not very comfortable living and working under canvas especially during the heavy rain and worse still when we experienced land mines being released overhead.
In great contrast to the First World War when wounded could lie in the battle field for days our wounded were flown home 24 hours after receiving emergency treatment. Blood, blood products and penicillin was readily available and recovery was rapid compared with 1914-1919.
As the Germans were gradually pushed back and things quietened down for us ENSA appeared and we had as Jessie Matthews as a patient (suffering from a nervous breakdown) with Noel Coward visiting 鈥� they were doing a show in Bayeux.
Our hospital should have moved on to Nijmegen but the Allies were held up around that district and we eventually landed in Eindhoven housed in an old Dutch hospital.
One of the first things we did was to descend on the hospital laundry putting all our dirty clothing into the machines. Unfortunately we did not separate the whites from, the khaki and out vests, pants and hankies never looked the same again,
Of course Eindhoven is the home of the electronic giant Philips. Soon after we arrived an epidemic of diphtheria broke out and this kept the laboratory busy checking not only on cases but sorting out the carriers - this in addition to all the usual pathology investigations. Four hundred cases were dealt with and to help us to cope with the throat swabs we had a mobile bacteriology laboratory attached.
Doodle-bugs were flying overhead on their way to London - one morning whilst on parade our RSM shouted to us to take cover when one was heard coming. Only he took cover, the rest of us were so interested in seeing a doodle-bug so close, luckily for us it passed on.
The last winter of the war was particularly severe and I went down with influenza but managed to recover sufficiently at the end of January to come home on leave to get married.
VE Day arrived whilst we were at Eindhoven and we were visited by Henry Hall and his band as part of the. celebrations he had two female croonettes (as the singers were then called) one being Betty Driver now firmly established behind the bar of the Rovers Return in Coronation Street. My photograph of her with some of our lads was gladly accepted by her some few years ago.
The Dutch people had had a pretty rough time during the occupation and their delight and relief was shown in the streets of Eindhoven everyone joined in with the dancing and general celebrations.
大象传媒 finished in Holland we travelled through Belgium spending a night in Brussels and then on into Germany reaching Hamburg on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. I can remember losing our advance party and having to look round Hamburg for them, as the cooks were with them it was very important to find them if we wanted our breakfast. It gave us an opportunity to see the damage in Hamburg, three-quarters of the city had been flattened by bombing. It brought tears to my eyes to see a small girl dressed in her Sunday best diving into one of our dixies which had been used for
washing up to pick out bacon rinds, the local people were starving and really down and out. Our transport from Hamburg proved to be an American Liberty Ship; we were on our way to Trondheim in Norway as part of the liberation army. The vessel was relatively large but had a shallow draft to manage even the narrowest of the channels of the fjords - the Norwegians flocked to the coast to watch. How the American sailors manning the ship survived the transatlantic journey puzzled us as they were seasick all the way up to Trondheim via Bergen in the relatively sheltered water of the fjords.
The food was good but difficult to manage the variety at each meal with only two parts of a mess tin and an enamel mug.
When we landed at Trondheim you can imagine our surprise to see armed German steel-helmeted troops patrolling the docks.
The hospital took over the City Hospital; the buildings were surrounded by the City Cemetery.
Our main work consisted of tending former slave workers, mostly Russian As soon as they were fit enough to travel they were taken to Murmansk, whilst in our hands they were travelling in army ambulances and with RAMC orderlies in attendance but apparently when they arrived at Murmansk they were made to walk and herded onto ordinary lorries. These chaps were obviously very grateful for our care, one of them on a ward round by the Lt.Colonel in charge lifted his pillow and pulled out a cod's head and handed it to him as a gift. Many of them were suffering from tuberculosis and were very ill; they had been employed in building the U-Boat pens.
We enjoyed with the Norwegians the best summer they had had for forty years, I can recommend Norway for a holiday.
Some months after being demobbed I received a certificate signed by Prince Olaf thanking me for my help in the liberation of his country. It is only in the last month that I have met someone who also has one of these certificates.
APPENDIX
After escaping from St Nazaire and eventually returning to Bristol I was allowed leave to go home.
I arrived at Cambridge Railway Station to be met by a family friend who gave me news of our house together with several others in Vicarage Terrace, Cambridge had been destroyed by an enemy bomber early that morning. My mother was badly injured and in Addenbrookes hospital recovering, suffering from a broken arm and the loss of one eye. Father was also badly hurt but not bad enough to be admitted to hospital.
My leave was extended to allow me to attend to things before returning to Bristol If I had returned a few hours earlier no doubt I should have been very much involved.
Quite a few of our neighbours had been killed and some of my school pals died in this catastrophe.

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