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Remembered Today:

Casualty Clearing Station


AJKXY

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My great uncle was wounded near Croisilles on the Western Front in August 1918. He was evacuated eventually to hospital in Le Treport where he subsequently died. I am trying to find out which Casualty Clearing Station he would have been taken to initially. I have read on the RAMC website that, in general, a CCS was allocated to each division. My great uncle was in 1/13 Londons (Kensingtons) which was part of 56th (London) Division.

Grateful for any suggestions.

Tony

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If you can find the Field Ambulance for 56 [London} Div. There may be a war diary available which might give more info.

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The divisional ccs was not necessarily attached to its corresponding division. Better to look up the ccs by location on the long long trail.

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The divisional ccs was not necessarily attached to its corresponding division. Better to look up the ccs by location on the long long trail.

Not all locations on LLT are correct.

The FA war diary should give a location if it had specific orders for an action. They sometimes give the locations of FA posts, Dressing stations and pick up points for badly wounded and walking wounded.

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Tony,

It would help to know if service records survive; do you have his service details - number, rank and name? Do you know what date he was wounded?

2/2nd London Field Ambulance formed the Corps Main Dressing Station and 3,600 men went through it during this period from 27th Aug 18 at Blaireville. There is no mention of which CCS they fed - they could have fed several which 'opened' and 'closed' when they had capacity or were full. Douglas Haig visited the MDS at Blaireville on 27 Aug.

2/1st London FA ran the MDS up to 27 Aug at Bac au Sud. There is mention of 33rd CCS at this time and the site at B au S taken over by 45th and 46th CCS on 27 Aug.

2/3rd London FA provided an Advanced Dressing Station, bearers and relay posts.

Trying to narrow down exactly where he was wounded, where he went back through and what CCS he went to will be difficult to do without a service record or further information.

Kind regards

Colin

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Thanks to all for great suggestions.

Colin, unfortunately my great uncle's service records are among those destroyed in WW2. However I do have some details. He was Sergeant Ernest Beck. His number was 490208. He was wounded on 28 August 1918 near Croisilles, about 6 or 7 km east of Blairville. He was in the 1/13 London, (Kensingtons), 56 (London) Division.

Since he wound up in LeTreport, I was wondering if it might have been 55 CCS which, according to he Long Long Trail, was at Vecquemont near Amiens at that time. If he was taken initially to the MDS at Blairville, this would have been a fairly direct evacuation route

Best regards,

Tony

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Tony,

Without a service record tracking Ernest's route through the casualty chain will be very difficult.

It is a long shot but you could go through the war diaries of the hospitals around le-Treport to see if there is any mention of where casualties arrived from or what they may have succumbed to. Sometimes base commandant war diaries record who in the garrison died of wounds in hospital. These have yet to be released on the National Archives website and could only viewed at Kew. The 2nd Canadian Hospital is the exception - this can be found online on the Canadian equivalent to the NA.

It will be easier to trace the rough area of trenches where he was wounded - these would be likely be in the area SE of Fontaine-les-Croisilles in the Hindenburg Line - the war diary states a number of trench names which can be plotted on a map.

Kind regards

Colin

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Hi Tony,

I don't know if it helps, but Soldiers' Effects for 505005 Willie Berry of 1/13 Bn. London Regiment shows he died on 1st September 1918 at the 43rd CCS.

Regards

Chris

EDIT: At coming to the above, I did take a quick look at the diaries for 56th Division - ADMS, General Staff, and A&Q, as well as 2/2 FA. The best that I could come up with was to look at the CWGC casualties for the Battalion around the relevant date, and cross match against the Soldiers' Effects records. In terms of James' post below, being sent to one of a number of near by CCS's according to some kind of triage makes sense though.

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I second the suggestion above that the diary of the Assitant Director of Medical Services is a good place to look. Sometimes the diary of the appropriate Corps Deputy Medical Director also helps. When arriving in a new sector or while preparing for an opperation an order is issued detailing the evacuation scheme for wounded. This usually (but not always!) lists the Casualty Clearing Stations to be used. I do not have an example for the 56th Division, this snippet from the 2nd Canadian Division for August 1918 a bit north near Arras might give you a flavour of what might be available.

The CCSs were under Army control rather than of Divisions, and were usually sited in groups. It is seldom possible to be certain which CCS a casualty was sent to. In my experience even when the soldier's service record is available the particular CCS is not always noted. Sorry!

post-75-0-15607400-1439235318_thumb.jpg

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