Deductions for Burial Groundsheets

[jay dubaya]

Leonard Passiful died from a bullet to the head at 33rd CCS and was no doubt stitched into a blanket which in turn became his burial blanket. Given the cost of a GS Blanket one could suggest a cheaper variant may have been procured and employed for such use. I can't locate an Effects Register entry for him, but as has been mentioned above, nothing in the Effects Register suggests payments were deducted under these circumstances.

I wouldn't want to betray Smiler's memory, but the OP from twenty odd years ago and the resurection post narative's are in a similar vein and sound very much like an old soldier's tale and surreal humour. 

 

[Chasemuseum]

A few years ago the mass grave of BEF & AIF soldiers at Fromelles was excavated. From the debris, the Germans had typically wrapped the bodies in the standard German Army groundsheet/tent quarter, then wrapped telephone wire around the body at 3 points to hold everything together and provide an easy method of lifting the body when moving it on and off stretchers and on and off wagons.

Fresh bodies of battlefield casualties would frequently be in very damaged condition. The soldiers handling the body would have endeavoured to do this in the most respectful manner possible, but would also have done their best to do it in the most hygienic method practical and with the body wrapped so they didn't have to unnecessarily look at the faces or the wounds. I would have expected the BEF handling of bodies to be similar to the German practice. Movie film of Austrian troops dumping bodies in mass graves on the Eastern/Serbian front is less respectful. I associate this with a combination of factors including a greater shortage of resources.

A casualty clearing station and a field hospital would have been supplied quantities of blankets GS to use with casualties as they arrived, and these would have stayed with the caualty as they passed down the casualty evacuation system - ambulances, to ambulance trains, triage, field hospitals, and for the more seriously wounded ambulance trains to the channel ports and then through to hospital in UK. This was all done with the intent of efficiency, to maximise survival and recovery rates. And yes, if done well, the wounded may be able to return to front line service - so the army had a vested interest in doing it well.

My point is that I would have expected that when blankets were used that they were ordinary "blankets GS". That when a soldier died in forward areas between the filed aid post and field hospital, that the now bloody blanket that had been used to comfort him and attempt to keep him from going into shock, now became the burial blanket. That recovery and decontamination of the blanket was a low priority.