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Description: | A series of ca 56 well-written ms letters (some incomplete or fragmentary) and 20 postcards from a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) to his family in Whittlesford, Cambridgeshire, May 1916 - December 1918, covering his feelings immediately prior to his embarkation for France and his stay at a camp in Le Havre (May 1916), his service as a nursing orderly at an unidentified (? No 61) casualty clearing station behind the Somme front during the battle (July - November 1916), at an auxiliary military hospital in Lancashire (January - July 1917), at an unidentified hospital in France (August - November 1917) and with the 1/1st South Midland Field Ambulance (48th Division) in Italy (December 1917 - December 1918), with some descriptions of the reception and treatment of casualties and many interesting comments reflecting his strong sense of duty despite his distress at the constant evidence of the suffering which war entailed, his religious beliefs, his speculations about the likely duration of the war, his keen awareness of the stark contrast between his immediate surroundings some way behind the lines and conditions in the trenches and his sympathy with the plight of French and Italian civilians during the fighting; together with five ms and ts letters to Arnold from his mother and sister Amy, August 1917 - August 1918, 11 other picture postcards, the 1917 Christmas Day menu for the 1/1st South Midland Field Ambulance, the 7th Division's Christmas card for 1918 and four photographs of him and his younger brother Eric in uniform.
Cataloguer RWAS
Catalogue date 2000-11 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | 1/1st South Midland Field Ambulance British Army 48th Division Royal Army Medical Corps | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Arnold, A J | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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