Fargo Military Hospital, 1917-1919

[Lochlain]

Thank You Moonraker for your very helpful additions to my understanding. Through Find-a-Grave I have located some references to an Iron Cross at Srugrena Graveyard that is said to commemorate him ("Gravesite Details Private Memorial 4'6 IRON CROSS ON 8" X 20" STONE PEDESTAL" referenced in https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44303176/john-o'sullivan which BTW has a wrong gravestone image attached). I now attach a picture which shows the top of a rusty iron cross in the O'Sullivan family plot at Srugreana that I think is it (there don't appear to be any other Iron Crosses in that Graveyard per the many online photos).

 

Were it not for your comment that there is no record of his burial at Durrington I would have tended to believe this cross was a memorial rather than a grave marker. However, given your point and the fact that the body of his older brother, Eugene a Catholic priest in New Malden, was repatriated to Srugreana after his death in 1948, it seems likely that John O'Sullivan's body was repatriated and buried in Srugreana in 1918.

 

Would you or any other Forum member be able to help me decipher the information given in his Death Registration under Rank or Profession. It states "129153 Private RAMC" which are his Service number and Royal Army Medical Corps and then something that may be a company number "att: II26 CoY M. TIA.S.G". Can anyone confirm if I have deciphered this correctly and maybe you can tell me what the achronym means.

 

Thank You

[Robin Garrett]

Lochlain

 

"att" is the military abbreviation for "attached", so he was attached to 1126 Company (CoY). I think the next letters stand for MT (military transport) ASC (Army Service Corps). The Long Long Trail web site covers these companies - see https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-army-service-corps-in-the-first-world-war/army-service-corps-mechanical-transport-companies/ - but doesn't record 1126 Company, although it comments that the list isn't complete and that there are more companies to be added.

 

Robin

Edited 24 February , 2021 by Robin Garrett

[Lochlain]

On 24/02/2021 at 14:03, Robin Garrett said:

Lochlain

 

"att" is the military abbreviation for "attached", so he was attached to 1126 Company (CoY). I think the next letters stand for MT (military transport) ASC (Army Service Corps). The Long Long Trail web site covers these companies - see https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-army-service-corps-in-the-first-world-war/army-service-corps-mechanical-transport-companies/ - but doesn't record 1126 Company, although it comments that the list isn't complete and that there are more companies to be added.

 

Robin

Thank You Robin Garrett for your insight - the link is excellent and as a great many of the listed known Company numbers from 626 through to 1129 were Motor Ambulance Convoys and 1129 Company is listed as "47 Motor Ambulance Convoy" and the next previous known Company 1091 was listed as "45 Motor Ambulance Convoy" it seems likely that Company 1126 was a Motor Ambulance Convoy. Thank you for your help.

Lochlain

[Moonraker]

I've acquired a small autograph book with entries from patients at Fargo in mid- 1919.

 

It was one time when I put in an over-the-top maximum bid, and I eventually won it for a not-unreasonable price. The entries and autographs/signatures were surprisingly legible and there was a nice colour sketch of a liner at sea, perhaps drawn by an ANZAC patient wistfully thinking of repatriation.

 

This also caught my eye:

 

I was a little surprised at how short the lady's skirt was. I know that hemlines went up during the war, fashion following practicality, but Googling "hemlines 1919" suggests that they were just above the ankle.

 

(Talking of over-the-top bids, I would probably go stratospheric for a postcard photo of the hospital - and one of the original Lark Hill wooden church.)

[exXIX]

On 09/06/2020 at 16:30, Moonraker said:

With the transfer of units from Salonika to France, soldiers returned home with malaria. At the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, the War Office considered and approved a scheme for all cases of malaria in the United Kingdom to be concentrated in each Command in special malaria wards under specially qualified medical officers, advised by special consultants in malaria, charged with giving the best treatment already known (involving quinine) and endeavouring by their own cumulative experience, to produce reliable scientific results as to the best form of future treatment. As soon as a man became fit for category B(ii) (apart from his malarial condition) he was sent of draft leave before proceeding to France. The centre at Lark Hill could accommodate 1,220 men. Two cases at Lark Hill are described by  C W J Brasher et al., "A Report On Two Cases Of Encephalitis Lethargica," The British Medical Journal, vol 1, no  3050, 1919, pp733–73. The first case had been transferred from Southern Command Malarial Centre at Lark Hill, the second had been in the army for a month and was aged only 16.

 

I think that the reference to the centre being able to accommodate 1,220 refers to the overall capacity for all medical conditions. The Barracks Book 1921 refers to the hospital having 1,200 beds. During the 1920s the buildings were used by RAF officers based at the balloon school at Rollestone and by 1929 had been renamed "Fargo Lodge".

 

It certainly looks like the Packway in the photo of the nurse, the telegraph poles being one indicator.

 

Nice pics of inside the hut, by  the way. I'm still looking for one (or more) of the hospital exterior.

 

Just come across your post, you refer to Rollestone Camp, I remember being at Rollestone in the early 80's, most of the wooden accommodation was still in use (by myself as it happens). During the two weeks spent there we found it quite disconcerting as rounds from the artillery battery firing point went over the camp into the impact area on the other side!!...The guardroom was quite familiar to anyone from the Great War and had hardly changed...It's a funny old small world as they say...

[Moonraker]

Another page from the autograph book:

 

 

Ursula L Dyer's record cards don't refer to her time at Fargo. (The hospital at Sutton Veny would have accommodated mostly Australian soldiers.)  I wonder what being a "house member" entailed? (Googling threw no light.)

[Moonraker]

I received the album today, very well packed - and the vendor's description didn't do it justice. More pages than I thought, so more autographs, mostly of British patients, such as Bobbie Birtwhistle of the 3rd West Yorks -though I wonder if "C Melville Million" was a real name? One page has a lovely "silk" marking New Zealand forces.

 

On the first page is a name that looked like "Emil V Stevens"; I thought that Emily was more likely,but the nearest hit on the British Red Cross database was Emily Nancy Stevens, Lady Superintendent at Wormley Bury VAD hospital. Searching for "Fargo" produced Ethel Violet Stevens, a ward maid from Sprowston, Norwich.  No doubt some of the other female names will be on the Red Cross database.

 

I'm very pleased with my acquisition.

[Moonraker]

I've just spent a couple of hours working through the entries in the album (prompting two or three queries that I shall post in new threads) and men of the 3rd West Yorkshire Regiment feature the most. In 1919 the battalion was at Durrington Camp (contiguous with Larkhill, where some members were involved in a mutiny. (See my post of 2010 here .)

[FROGSMILE]

On 22/05/2021 at 15:50, exXIX said:

Just come across your post, you refer to Rollestone Camp, I remember being at Rollestone in the early 80's, most of the wooden accommodation was still in use (by myself as it happens). During the two weeks spent there we found it quite disconcerting as rounds from the artillery battery firing point went over the camp into the impact area on the other side!!...The guardroom was quite familiar to anyone from the Great War and had hardly changed...It's a funny old small world as they say...

Just as an aside, ‘Rollestone Camp’ during WW1 was on the opposite side of the same road that leads to The Bustard vedette (and old pub, now a Christian retreat) and not where it is today.  The original camp was demolished post war and the current one built between the wars.

Edited 2 January , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[exXIX]

7 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

Just as an aside, ‘Rollestone Camp’ during WW1 was on the opposite side of the same road that leads to The Bustard vedette (and old pub, now a Christian retreat) and not where it is today.  The original camp was demolished post war and the current one built between the wars.

I didn't realise that, my recollections of the camp layout were indeed from what I perceived to be the early 20th century, as a posed to the mid 20th...interesting cheers...

Edited 2 January , 2022 by exXIX
factual correction

[FROGSMILE]

7 minutes ago, exXIX said:

I didn't realise that, my recollections of the camp layout were indeed from what I perceived to be the early 20th century, as a posed to the mid 20th...interesting cheers...

I was surprised when I discovered it too, but the locations of the camps are clearly shown on several different contemporaneous maps, and there’s no doubt that it’s accurate.  The current Fargo ammunition compound (if still standing, it was being rundown) was also not on the site of Fargo camp as might have been imagined. 

Edited 2 January , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[exXIX]

Just now, FROGSMILE said:

I was surprised when I discovered it too, but the locations of the camps are clearly shown on several different maps and there’s no doubt that it’s accurate.  The current Fargo ammunition compound (if still standing, it was being rundown) was also not on the site of Fargo camp as might have been imagined. 

I intend going to Hornesy this summer so I will be interested in anything that remains of the camp, most of it had fallen into the sea in 1995, sadly...

[FROGSMILE]

3 minutes ago, exXIX said:

I intend going to Hornesy this summer so I will be interested in anything that remains of the camp, most of it had fallen into the sea in 1995, sadly...

Yes there’s something melancholy about these old WW1 camps left to rot and I always have a sense of the ghosts who passed through them during that period when the entire country was like an armed camp with drab khaki and navy blue seen everywhere.

Edited 2 January , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[exXIX]

4 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

Yes there’s something melancholy about these old WW1 camps left to rot and I always have a sense of the ghosts who passed through them during that period when the entire country was like an armed camp with drab khaki and navy blue seen everywhere.

I agree, the Cadet Training Centre in Barnard Castle used to have the remains of what appeared to be either stores or offices adjacent to the brand new Cadet facility....

[Moonraker]

On 02/01/2022 at 20:57, FROGSMILE said:

I was surprised when I discovered it too, but the locations of the camps are clearly shown on several different contemporaneous maps, and there’s no doubt that it’s accurate.  The current Fargo ammunition compound (if still standing, it was being rundown) was also not on the site of Fargo camp as might have been imagined. 

I can confirm that the original Rollestone camp was east of the road to Bustard. I have a card postmarked 1905 showing tents next to Rollestone Bake Farm. Huts were built on the site early in the war, and various images can be seen on eBay. The RFC established a balloon school on the western side.

See this 1924 map.

 

 

[FROGSMILE]

11 minutes ago, Moonraker said:

I can confirm that the original Rollestone camp was east of the road to Bustard. I have a card postmarked 1905 showing tents next to Rollestone Bake Farm. Huts were built on the site early in the war, and various images can be seen on eBay. The RFC established a balloon school on the western side.

See this 1924 map.

 

 

Yes the first map I ever saw, printed on waxed linen, showed just the camp near Rollestone Bake, on the opposite side of the road from the Bustard Inn, then being used as an RFC Officers’ Mess.

Edited 4 January , 2022 by FROGSMILE