"Only With Honour" Diaries of medical officer 1915 1916 7th battalion East Surrey Regiment

[RegHannay]

I have just been browsing a thread from 2009 on recruiting Doctors for the front line. Hopefully there are still members about who commented on it.

My Grandfather signed up on a yearly basis. An early entry in his diary reads :- "At first I felt a perfect fraud when I realised that I was getting £1.4s.0d daily and doing practically nothing for it. But now my conscience sleeps and I accept it without bothering and after all, what can one do? What I have done is to ask the ADMS personally to give me the first vacant MO that goes begging. As MO to a regiment one has plenty to do, often far to much and the risk is proportionately greater. Later in the diary he tells of renewing his contract by courier pigeon!!

Dave D 

 

[Clear Bell]

Hi

 

Not sure whether you would be interested but I remember reading a very interesting article published in the WFA's magazine last year about the recruiting and demobbing of doctors and all the issues that surrounded this particular group of men. Lots of sources listed too if you are interested in following things up.

 

Not sure how you can access the WFA archive. So that could be frustrating.

 

 

 

[petestarling]

It was me who wrote the article in Stand To!. Where was he stationed when he wrote that diary entry. Some  doctors did feel that they were wasting their time in some quiet area when the could be doing their bit in the front line.

[RegHannay]

30 minutes ago, petestarling said:

It was me who wrote the article in Stand To!. Where was he stationed when he wrote that diary entry. Some  doctors did feel that they were wasting their time in some quiet area when the could be doing their bit in the front line.

30 minutes ago, petestarling said:

It was me who wrote the article in Stand To!. Where was he stationed when he wrote that diary entry. Some  doctors did feel that they were wasting their time in some quiet area when the could be doing their bit in the front line.  

22 hours ago, Clear Bell said:

Hi

 

Not sure whether you would be interested but I remember reading a very interesting article published in the WFA's magazine last year about the recruiting and demobbing of doctors and all the issues that surrounded this particular group of men. Lots of sources listed too if you are interested in following things up.

 

Not sure how you can access the WFA archive. So that could be frustrating.

 

Thank you Clear Bell. I will try an do more research on the RAMC, so will keep this in mind. The Doctor was wounded end of August 1916 and relinquished his commission exactly two years after signing on, 1st January 1917. Either to save his practice or had a gut full. It must have been a  good position to be in, being able to say "enough" at the end of contract.

Dave D

 

22 hours ago, Clear Bell said:

 

Good morning Pete, thanks for your reply, Reg was stationed near Armentieres having set up a field hospital in a school house. Their twice daily pick ups were from Headquarters farm, Gunners farm and Houplines trench farm. The diaries go into fair detail on a lot of entries, over 400 days covered between June 1915 right through until he was wounded and a little beyond. Hospitalised three times and quoting his words ("Honourably" on the third occasion). I think I have now realised that extracts onto the blog (GWF) are not doing justice to the diaries and they need to be properly published. Have you been following the Blog entries?

Dave D