RAMC Malaria Specialist

[michaeldr]

RAMC in Middle-East during WWII (Mods, bare with me please)

 

This is a puzzle addressed to our medical specialists,

and let me say from the outset that it's a long-shot.....

 

The IWM have sound recordings of an interview with Maj John Frederick Ford who began his military career as a “boy bugler with 15th Stationary Hospital Royal Army Medical Corps at Gallipoli and Lemnos...1915”. At the end of his interview, Maj Ford tells a story about his WWII service in Iraq, when he shared a railway carriage with another RAMC officer.

 

This second officer is of interest to me, but who was he?

 

He was a Lieutenant Colonel who's speciality in the RAMC (and no doubt elsewhere) was malaria, and he was on a trip to wartime Iraq collecting specimens of mosquito to help try and stem the malaria plaque amongst the British troops.

 

The Great War connection is that Maj Ford discovered in conversation with the Colonel, that they had both sailed to Gallipoli on the same ship in 1915; one as a bugle boy and the other as a muleteer with the Zion Mule Corps.

 

Any ideas anyone?

[PRC]

I'm not finding a MiC for him in connection with the Zion Mule Corps, but does Gideon Mer sound a likely candidate.

 

Highlights from Wikipedia entry - so usual caveats apply!

 

"During World War I he was a medical officer in the Jewish Legion, a unit of the British Army, and served at Gallipoli, in Palestine, Syria, and Turkey

 

In 1927 Israel Jacob Kligler founded the "Malaria Research Station" of the Hebrew University in Rosh Pina, where pioneering field work was carried out relating to the eradication of malaria. Two years later he appointed Dr. Gideon Mer as the station manager and together they published a series of articles on malaria.

 

During the Second World War Mer served in the British Forces with the rank of colonel and was malaria adviser to Middle East Command "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Mer

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

Edit: There is a MiC for a 2nd Lieutenant Geronim Mer, Zion Mule Corps. That is the only unit listed in the National Archive Catalogue entry, but the card itself also has a note across the top "R.Fus" so presumably with the 38th or 39th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. His contact address is "Grand Rabbi, Jerusalem".

National Archive: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D4024910

Ancestry: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/1262/images/30850_A001074-01594?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Bky4809&_phstart=successSource&pId=3619539

He also has an entry in the British Jewry Roll of Honour 1914-1918.

Edited 20 April , 2021 by PRC
Typo

[michaeldr]

Peter,

I'm amazed and I'm pretty sure that you have found him. Thank you so much for your help here

Michael

Edited 20 April , 2021 by michaeldr

[michaeldr]

from the Israel War Veterans League site (at web.archive.org) referred to in the Wiki page

 

Prof. Gideon Mer (1894-1961) ... ... ...  A doctor, an international authority on epidemiology and preventive medicine. Immigrated from Russia in 1914. Trumpeldor's adjutant in the mule drivers battalion [Z.M.C.] in Gallipoli, and a volunteer for the Hebrew Battalion at the end of the First World War. Between 1920 and 1921 was a member of the work battalion and of Kibbutz Tel Yosef. Subsequently worked in the Strauss Institute for Malaria Research in Jerusalem. In 1941 volunteered for the British Army. From 1941 to 1943 headed the anti-malaria laboratory unit in Iran and Iraq, with the rank of Lieut. Col. From 1943 to 1945 served in Burma.

[michaeldr]

1 hour ago, michaeldr said:

with the rank of Lieut. Col. From 1943 to 1945 served in Burma.

 

Served as O.C., No.1 Malaria Field Laboratory, S.E.A.C., & awarded the O.B.E. - See WO 373/81: “His unflagging zeal, determination and scientific achievements have been of very material value to the Army.”

[PRC]

Interestingly the MIC for Gironim Mer shows him commissioned by minute, (rather than published in the London Gazette) I've only looked at the British Army List for November 1918. but there is no G.Mer (or Mir), shown in the index and certainly no likely candidates with the 38th, 39th or 40th Battalion. So possibly a local commission only?

 

I can see a commissioning for the RAMC man in the London Gazette Supplement, 14 April 1942, when his name is shown as Gideon Geroni Mer, service number 227124.

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35523/page/1642/data.pdf

 

The Military OBE listing shows him as (227124) Gideon Gerohite Mer, but associates him with Belfast. I suspect that is an error, as the next man on the list is also associated with Belfast.

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/37349/supplement/5572/data.pdf

 

Using Israeli diplomatic papers, a Gideon G.Mer, aged 56, travelled from Southampton bound for New York on the 16th November 1950 aboard the Queen Elizabeth.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24YZ-PGH

 

So certainly seems liked he had a middle name that began with a "G", but as to how it was spelt is something of a mystery.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[michaeldr]

53 minutes ago, PRC said:

So certainly seems liked he had a middle name that began with a "G", but as to how it was spelt is something of a mystery.

 

Being born to a Jewish family in Czarist Russia (today's Lithuania) brings up the possibility of names in at least three or possibly four different languages of various alphabets, and there is no doubt that Prof Mer's names have, over the years, proved very confusing for native English speakers.

 

WO 373/81/34 gives “Gideon Geronim Mer” and Geronim is used on his 1914-1918 MiC [WO 372/13/211235] The British Medical Journal played safe with their obit, and used only Gideon Mer

 

I suspect that Geronim is a Russian (Cyrillic alphabet) name, but seen here transcribed in Latin characters, and in fact it might well translate into English as Jerome, but this is only a speculation on my part – I am no expert on either names or languages.

 

Peter, many thanks again for all your help with this quest.

best regards

Michael

[seaJane]

5 hours ago, michaeldr said:

Geronim

It might also emerge as Hieronymus. Cyrillic having no letter H (the Cyrillic letter with that shape equates to Western N), Russian Cyrillic (can't speak for other countries) substitutes G. Modern hard J when transliterated comes out ДЖ (dzh].

 

He has an entry as 2nd Lieut Mer Geronim in the Zion Mule Corps, here: https://www.jewsfww.uk/roll-of-honour.php; see also p.60.

 

 

 

Edited 20 April , 2021 by seaJane

[michaeldr]

Thanks for that link SJ

 

Regarding the name, we're thinking along the same lines here. The scientific journal 'Nature' in its obit uses the form Geronimo (a western version of Hieronymus) which in turn brings us to the English name Jerome

 

Best regards

Michael

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 April , 2021 by michaeldr

[PRC]

13 hours ago, michaeldr said:

Being born to a Jewish family in Czarist Russia (today's Lithuania)

 

So probably never a citizen of the British Empire at time of the Great War, which is why he couldn't formally be commissioned? My understanding is that the Great War allies didn't take recruits from each others ex-pat communities, (if they wanted to serve they had to offer themselves to their country of nationality, if indeed they weren't subject to conscription), so treating him like an officer in a local levy may have been a way of getting round it. Just speculation on my part, btw

 

Cheers,

Peter