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Description: | 127 ms letters (443pp) sent to his wife during his service as a Private and then later a Lieutenant with the Royal Army Medical Corp, between 15 August 1915 and 24 November 1918, relating his duties as a medical orderly at a Military Hospital in Dover which involved mainly preparing patients for operations and dressing wounds, frequently mentioning in some detail the operating theatre where he worked, medical equipment, the unpleasant smell of Chloroform, his perceptions of the other members of staff and in particular the ward sisters as well as his rations, billets and the Zeppelin raids that occurred near the coast; leaving Dover on the 21 November 1915 he goes on to describe his experiences with the 1/3rd Field Ambulance RAMC (East Lancashire) attached to a dressing station on the Front Line at Gallipoli and the hardships of living and working in the trenches, including references to the perpetual artillery fire, muddy conditions and the frustrating lack of news, until his transfer to the Military Hospital at the Citadel in Cairo, Egypt on the 1 March 1916, commenting on his daily routine, living conditions, perceptions of local culture and architecture, the oppressive heat, and his involvement in producing a hospital magazine, continuing with his staff appointment at the Office of the Engineer-in-Chief, General Headquarters on 22 November 1916 where he carried out what was according to him, confidential work, also outlining his promotion to (Acting) Sergeant-Major at the Office of DMS British Headquarters and then his brief attachment to 1/3rd East Lancashire Field Ambulance again on the Sinai Peninsula in June 1917, recounting his new responsibilities and his role in writing an official history of the RAMC in Egypt, returning to England in October 1917 he attended further training at Cambridge, finally announcing his commission to Lieutenant in February 1918 and his subsequent transfer to the 2nd London Sanitary Company at the Duke of York's Headquarters in Chelsea where his duties consisted of revising and correcting the RAMC handbook on Field Sanitation. Throughout the letters he is preoccupied with news concerning his son serving on the Western Front and also his hobbies of bee keeping and writing novels.
Cataloguer CLS
Catalogue date 2008-01-28 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Edwardes, T | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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