Casualty Evacuation - Would dead and wounded be carried on the same route?

[Buffnut453]

A relative died of wounds on 24 September 1917 at Pont d'Achelles which was the Main Dressing Station operated by 26 Field Ambulance.  He was wounded during a German attack on his unit's positions near La Basse Ville on the night of 23 September.  A number of other personnel were killed instantly during the attack and were buried at Prowse Point Cemetery.

The ADMS War Diary lists 5 evacuation routes for 26 Field Ambulance, two of which include a Regimental Aid Post at Prowse Point.  Is it possible that my relative was evacuated along the same route as his mates who were killed?  

Edited 20 January , 2023 by Buffnut453

[David_Blanchard]

Looking at the CWGC I assume you are talking about 2nd Rifle Brigade and the burial report (from 1920)  says they were buried at the time of death and not concentrated in the cemetery after the war- so you would assume they were carried long the same casualty evacuation chain as your relative before being buried in Prowse Point. 

 

David

[Buffnut453]

14 minutes ago, David_Blanchard said:

Looking at the CWGC I assume you are talking about 2nd Rifle Brigade and the burial report (from 1920)  says they were buried at the time of death and not concentrated in the cemetery after the war- so you would assume they were carried long the same casualty evacuation chain as your relative before being buried in Prowse Point. 

 

David

Hi David,

Many thanks for the response which mirrors my thinking.  I just wasn't sure whether it was common for wounded and the dead to be recovered via the same route.  The positioning of a RAP at Prowse Point, with an adjacent cemetery, does align with a common evacuation route.

 

Kind regards, Mark

[David_Blanchard]

Hi Mark,

 

My area of interest before casualty evacuation was the Aisne Battle of 1918. When I wrote my book on the battle I didn't really look at the medical units. Just downloaded the FAs of the 8th Division and ADMS. I didn't know there was an ADS in the Bois des Buttes on 27 May 1918- more investigation to carry out!

 

 

David 

[Buffnut453]

Yes, it was a complicated business.  If my theory is correct about my relative being evacuated to Prowse Point, then his evacuation route is listed below:

To [Prowse Point] from trenches by regimental stretcher bearers then by tramway to Bunhill Row relay, then tramway to CANTHAC DUMP (near Charing Cross), by wheeled stretcher by road to UNDERHILL FARM A.D.S. then motor to the M.D.S. at PONT D’ACHELLES. 

I've located Bunhill Row (although not the precise location of the relay) and Underhill Farm but am still trying to tie down Canthac Dump. 

From where the 2nd Rifle Bde were entrenched, it would be at least an hour's trudge to Prowse Point.  It literally must have taken hours to get my relative back to the MDS.  I shudder to think what he may have experienced (unless he was unconscious, of course).   

[David_Blanchard]

Some interesting casualty evacuation maps are also included in 26 FA War Diary.

 

 

David

[Buffnut453]

Alas, not in the appendices for the month of September 1917 (at least not in the version I downloaded from IWM). 

Ironically, the 8th Div ADMS diary shows the DADMS visiting the RAP of 2nd Rifle Bde the day before my relative died...but (naturally!) it doesn't mentioned where the RAP was located.  GRRRRRRRR!!!!

Edited 20 January , 2023 by Buffnut453

[WhiteStarLine]

@Buffnut453, EDIT: this post originally showed a speculative evacuation route.  This has been rendered obsolete as David Blanchard has posted the authoritative one from a unit war diary.

 

 

Edited 22 January , 2023 by WhiteStarLine
The official evacuation route is now available 2 posts down

[WhiteStarLine]

This is getting a tad confusing as the OP has now opened another thread asking about 1 of the points in his list above.  An expert has given the location of what is called Canpac Dump - follow Charing Cross up to where a road goes due west.  Now look at the closest tramway point (to the right).  This is where the poor souls were apparently shifted off the tramway for conveyance via wheeled stretcher.  I make this a 1,600 yard journey from Canpac Dump to the A.D.S.

Here is a TrenchMapper map of the Prowse Point Dressing Station, with an inset of the modern location.  Click to enlarge.

[David_Blanchard]

There is this casualty evacuation chain map from November 1917- from the WD of the 26 Field Ambulance.

[Buffnut453]

Wow!  Many, MANY thanks @WhiteStarLine and @David_Blanchard.  You provided some really great information.  I'm particularly grateful for the various maps that explore the options described in the route description.  The sketch map is particularly interesting because it shows Dead Horse Corner which, according to the 26 FA War Diary, was discontinued as a route when 8th Division took over responsibility for that part of the line.  

[Buffnut453]

10 hours ago, WhiteStarLine said:

This is getting a tad confusing as the OP has now opened another thread asking about 1 of the points in his list above.  An expert has given the location of what is called Canpac Dump - follow Charing Cross up to where a road goes due west.  Now look at the closest tramway point (to the right).  This is where the poor souls were apparently shifted off the tramway for conveyance via wheeled stretcher.  I make this a 1,600 yard journey from Canpac Dump to the A.D.S.

Here is a TrenchMapper map of the Prowse Point Dressing Station, with an inset of the modern location.  Click to enlarge.

Hi WhiteStarLine,

Many thanks for sharing this detail.  What's the source of the trench map coordinates for the dressing station?  It looks like it sits right ontop of the reconstructed trench near the Football Memorial at Prowse Point (I visited the location in September 2021).  

Agree entirely that the entire casualty evacuation process must have been torture for the poor sods who went through it.  Over a mile being carried by stretcher, then transferred to the tramway, then onto wheel stretchers...and all this probably happening at night.  I'm intrigued by the sketch map that @David_Blanchard provided which shows a duckboard path leading from the trench to Prowse Point.  Given the muddy conditions in September 1917, I shudder to think of the slipping and sliding that might have happened as the bearers made their way to the RAP.  

[WhiteStarLine]

1 hour ago, Buffnut453 said:

What's the source of the trench map coordinates for the dressing station?

That's a great point and I was a bit hasty and forgot to stipulate the considerable margin of error.  When a trench map is georeferenced, there are usually a significant number of ground control points common to the historic and modern map.  This gives a high degree of confidence that an arbitrary point on either map correlates.

When a sketch map is overlayed on a modern map, unless it was one of the rare ones done by a surveyor or traced, it has a high margin of error.  On TrenchMapper, I used this undated sketch:

Name: Plan of Area of 27th Inf. Bde.
Sheet: 28 SW 4 [parts of]
Scale: 1:5,000
Secret. Not to be taken into trenches. Hand drawn on tracing paper.
Id: ma_002990

You can see it yourself online (restricted zoom for non-WFA members).

Changing the opacity shows it is a reasonable fit to the underlying landscape (for a hand traced sketch), showing the dressing statin sitting around 30 metres east of the reconstructed trench.  However, I suspect the original author sought to place it on the other side of the road.  The main thing is you now have a number of sketches giving you an idea of where all of this occurred.

Cheers,

Bill

[Buffnut453]

1 hour ago, WhiteStarLine said:

That's a great point and I was a bit hasty and forgot to stipulate the considerable margin of error.  When a trench map is georeferenced, there are usually a significant number of ground control points common to the historic and modern map.  This gives a high degree of confidence that an arbitrary point on either map correlates.

When a sketch map is overlayed on a modern map, unless it was one of the rare ones done by a surveyor or traced, it has a high margin of error.  On TrenchMapper, I used this undated sketch:

Name: Plan of Area of 27th Inf. Bde.
Sheet: 28 SW 4 [parts of]
Scale: 1:5,000
Secret. Not to be taken into trenches. Hand drawn on tracing paper.
Id: ma_002990

You can see it yourself online (restricted zoom for non-WFA members).

Changing the opacity shows it is a reasonable fit to the underlying landscape (for a hand traced sketch), showing the dressing statin sitting around 30 metres east of the reconstructed trench.  However, I suspect the original author sought to place it on the other side of the road.  The main thing is you now have a number of sketches giving you an idea of where all of this occurred.

Cheers,

Bill

Many thanks Bill.  I've decided to join the WFA just so I can access all the maps and capabilities available via TrenchMapper.  The free TMapper tool is great but there seems to be a lot more useful info in the full-on TrenchMapper.

I had wondered if the odd concrete bunker near the southeast corner of Prowse Point Military Cemetery might have been part of the Regimental Aid Post.  It's certainly an odd artifact to be sitting out in the open.  Here's a photo I took of it in September 2021:

However, given the sketch map location which puts the dressing station to the east of the road, it seems the bunker had nothing to do with the RAP.  

Edited 22 January , 2023 by Buffnut453

[AOK4]

Isn't that the bunker which was transported here only a few years ago?

There's several articles with pics in La Voix du Nord (search on google with "blockhaus anglais ploegsteert"), unfortunately nothing immediately on the free internet.

It should be properly marked as being as such. Now people seem to think the construction was built there during the war...

Luckily there's the GWF:

 

Edited 22 January , 2023 by AOK4

[Buffnut453]

44 minutes ago, AOK4 said:

Isn't that the bunker which was transported here only a few years ago?

There's several articles with pics in La Voix du Nord (search on google with "blockhaus anglais ploegsteert"), unfortunately nothing immediately on the free internet.

It should be properly marked as being as such. Now people seem to think the construction was built there during the war...

Luckily there's the GWF:

 

We’ll, don’t I feel stupid! 😃  In my defence, I only joined the GWF in 2017 (that’s my defence and I’m sticking to it).

To be honest, the location of that blockhouse never made a lot of sense to me.  It seemed oddly out of place…so thanks for providing the details that explain why my Spidey-sense was tingling.

As a relative newbie to things Great War-ish, I’m grateful for the depth of knowledge on GWF and for the willingness with which it is shared.

Edited 22 January , 2023 by Buffnut453