大象传媒

In 1938 I was working at the Royal College of Surgeons (England) in Lincolns Inn Fields when I was asked to volunteer,together with other members of the Museum and Pathology staff, to join with members of Middlesex Hospital to form an Army Blood Supply Unit in the event of war. During that year before the outbreak of war we had a Spanish surgeon on our research team working on transfusion apparatus, no doubt drawing on his experience of the Spanish Civil War.
The glass bottle, apparatus and rubber closures to be used throughout the war were designed in the College.
At the outbreak of war we were summoned to the College by telegram and from there made our way to Acton Territorial Army HQ to enlist and be sworn in - there were so many enlisting on this morning a dozen with one finger on the Bible were sworn in at a time.
Having enlisted we all moved to Southmead Hospital, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol which was to be the Headquarters of the Army Blood Supply. The first few weeks we were in civilian clothes and did not realise we were in the army, all this changed on the arrival of two regular RAMC staff-sergeants who spent their first evening sewing on Warrant Officer Class 1 badges of rank on their sleeves.
The first few months were spent making up transfusion apparatus from glass and rubber tubing, even making the non-returnable valves by hand. In the February of 1940 I was posted to Dieppe to join the Blood Transfusion and Surgical Research Unit.
Our refrigerator vans designed to carry the pints of blood carried a vampire bat sign on each side with the initials BATS (British Army Transfusion Service)
Things were relatively quiet until early summer when the Germans were pushing through France and we eventually made a hasty retreat to the south of France
Whilst waiting in a Hospital Train by the docks at Dieppe I happened to glance out of the window and noticed an RAMC Sergeant Major sunning himself lying in a hammock reading a book on the deck of a Hospital Ship tied up alongside our train. I had scarcely time to turn away when I heard
a piercing shriek and when I looked back through the window saw the whole ship going up, blown into small pieces and the train was the next target. Scrambling out of the train (half of it was on fire by this time) we sheltered under some goods trucks further from the docks. I remember looking up to see the gravel stones between the lines shooting away madly and suddenly realising they were being hit by machine gun bullets from the German planes which had been dive bombing. Things having quietened down we climbed back on what remained of the ambulance train and eventually arrived at St Nazaire. The Blood Transfusion Unit was housed in a small hotel on the front at La Baule - the war seemed far away with the young ladies performing their exercises on the beach
conducted by their bearded instructors! No wonder the French gave in so easily.
The Germans pushed on and one morning we made ready to board ship for home. As we sailed from St Nazaire I could see the Hospital Ship Lancastria anchored and ready to set sail for England.
She was bombed and sunk with a full passenger list soon after we left. Long after I learned that Mr Rathbone, former Headmaster of the Exning Primary School was a survivor from the Lancastria and had been in the water sometime before being picked up - it is a small world.
We heard of the capitulation of France whilst sailing away from St Nazaire.
All the RAMC personnel from France collected in Leeds and we were in civilian billets parading on the Headingley County Cricket Ground each day until things became a little more organised.
I eventually returned to Bristol but shortly after was posted to No 7 Casualty Clearing Station which was forming up in Wales at Dynever Castle. Walking up the long drive to the front of the castle I rang the front door bell and after a long wait the door was opened by an elderly white-haired lady to whom I explained my presence. Whilst talking to her an even older gent appeared walking slowly down the large staircase into the hall holding an enormous ear trumpet - the scene had to be seen to be believed. It transpired that the unit was housed at the rear in Nissen huts.
The elderly couple turned out to be Lord and Lady Dynever.
One of our Casualty Clearing Stations was situated in Benenden School, near Cranbrook Kent. Beneden School is a ladies school and had been evacuated before the Battle of Britain commenced. Our present Princess Anne was a pupil at this school after the war.
Casualty Clearing Stations were acting as 200 bedded units near the centre of action, they carried a small pathology laboratory hence the reason for my posting to such a unit. It was interesting to hear experiences of the personnel as they had been at Harstadt in Northern Norway and only got out by the skin of their teeth.
The relatively young sergeant major was an enthusiastic rugby player and organised a rugby match, but only one, as most of the rugby players received injuries generally speaking from those who had no experience of playing rugby football. It was a little embarrassing to have half of your surgeons incapacitated.
I was with the CCS for just over a year with a fair amount of excitement during the Battle of Britain with plenty of aerial battles going on overhead. The hop-pickers continued to come from London and were known to be machine-gunned in the hop fields by German planes. The Cockneys were great fun in the local pubs - doing the Lambeth Walk.
The arrival of the Anzacs in this part of the country, what a marked contrast between the Aussies and the New Zealanders - the New Zealanders were gentlemen.
We were introduced to Kentish Cider, very potent and to be consumed with great care. I had applied for a transfer to a General Hospital which would carry a well equipped pathology department compared to the CCS and in 1941 I joined the 46th West African General Hospital en route for Nigeria.
The hospital was forming up at Ormskirk and when I arrived at Lime Street station in Liverpool. I managed to leave my respirator behind there and did not realise this until I got to the other side of Liverpool en route to Ormsklrk and so telephoned back to Lime Street station. At that time the telephone exchange was not automatic and calls were put through manually by a telephonist. During the conversation with the telephonist concerning the gas mask I made a date with her to, meet outside the Adelphi Hotel in Llverpool the following week.
I arrived at the Adelphi hotel at the agreed time to see a young lady waiting and so I went up to her and said "Hello Hilda" and her reply came as a shock when she said "I am not Hilda I am Kathleen". Apparently when Hilda went home after her duty the family were talking over the day's events during the evening meal and Hllda had said some fool of a fellow had been agitating over a lost respirator and in a loose moment she had made a date with him -hastily adding that she had no intention of
keeping the date. Kathleen, her sister had then volunteered to meet me not wishing me to be stood up.
That is how I came to meet my future wife.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.