How to locate field ambulances in a specific area and on a given date

[Daniel DUFOUR]

Hey guys,

Is there a way to know which field ambulances were located in the Ypres salient at a given date or period? Other than finding and reading all field ambulance diaries?

[RussT]

One method is to decide which infantry Battalions were in the vicinity of your interest during a given period of interest.

Then find out which to Division, Corps and Army those Battalions belonged.

Once you know that, download the War Diaries of the Medical Director for each of those hierarchal units for the dates of interest.

Examine those War Diaries and you will be able to reconstruct the complete medical evacuation chain for the locality, including the locations of the Field Ambulances.

You can then download the respective War Diaries of the individual named FAs etc to explore their daily activities.

Regards

Russ

 

[Daniel DUFOUR]

Thanks Russ!

[John(txic)]

You might have trouble doing this, Daniel, as I'm not sure whether the National Archives in London will let you do that because of your location.

 

If you can't, try what Russ advises here: War Diaries of the First World War - Library and Archives Canada (bac-lac.gc.ca)

[Daniel DUFOUR]

I know by experience TNA is accessible from over here

[EDWARD1]

This may be of help Field Ambulances in the First World War - The Long, Long Trail (longlongtrail.co.uk) scroll down to see which FA was attached to which Division

[Daniel DUFOUR]

Thanks Edward!

[ZeZe]

Hi Daniel,

I've just been working on a similar task but only for 17th Field Ambulance.

A suggestion using war grave information – the results will only give a general indication of which Field Ambulance was where and when but it may narrow down which war diaries to download:

Go to the GWGC site (find war dead screen) - enter Royal Army Medical Corps in the Regiment box (tick WW1), this produces 7701 results. Download all the results as a csv file.

Open file and click on Row 1 - (top menu ribbon) select 'Data' - 'Auto Filter'

Now you can tick the 'Cemetery' dropdown (column Q on my sheet) and select those within your geographical area of interest – Tyne Cot Cemetery, Ypres Reservoir Cemetery etc.

I would now copy all the results to a new spreadsheet and save as it a xls file.

Then you can select the 'Unit' dropdown (column L on my sheet) to give you the names of Field Ambulances that were located in the area.

To make the 'Date of Death' column usable select the column (column G on my sheet) and (top menu ribbon) 'Format' - 'Cells' to 'Date'. Now reselect the same column (G) and (top menu ribbon) select 'Data' - 'Text to Columns'.

Now the spreadsheet can be sorted in date order.

Hope this is useful.

regards ZeZe

[WhiteStarLine]

@Daniel DUFOUR, while your query was for FA, there are a few specialist georeferenced maps of the medical evacuation chain in TrenchMapper.  This one shows medical facilities, dressing stations, hospitals, treatment stations etc.. Printed 15/09/1917 and can be found using the Map Jump Id with map wc_0009, then the opacity slider shows modern locations.  Click to enlarge:

 

[Chris_Baker]

The war diaries of the Assistant Director of Medical Services for a division, and the Deputy Director of Medical Services for a corps, are often terrific sources for this stuff. Many include maps, and most give good grid map reference details. If you are only looking at the Ypres area it would also be worth looking at the Director of Medical Services for Second and Fifth Armies.

[Daniel DUFOUR]

2 hours ago, WhiteStarLine said:

@Daniel DUFOUR, while your query was for FA, there are a few specialist georeferenced maps of the medical evacuation chain in TrenchMapper.  This one shows medical facilities, dressing stations, hospitals, treatment stations etc.. Printed 15/09/1917 and can be found using the Map Jump Id with map wc_0009, then the opacity slider shows modern locations.  Click to enlarge:

 

Awesome! I'll go check

[henners1974]

On 01/11/2023 at 14:17, ZeZe said:

Hi Daniel,

I've just been working on a similar task but only for 17th Field Ambulance.

A suggestion using war grave information – the results will only give a general indication of which Field Ambulance was where and when but it may narrow down which war diaries to download:

Go to the GWGC site (find war dead screen) - enter Royal Army Medical Corps in the Regiment box (tick WW1), this produces 7701 results. Download all the results as a csv file.

Open file and click on Row 1 - (top menu ribbon) select 'Data' - 'Auto Filter'

Now you can tick the 'Cemetery' dropdown (column Q on my sheet) and select those within your geographical area of interest – Tyne Cot Cemetery, Ypres Reservoir Cemetery etc.

I would now copy all the results to a new spreadsheet and save as it a xls file.

Then you can select the 'Unit' dropdown (column L on my sheet) to give you the names of Field Ambulances that were located in the area.

To make the 'Date of Death' column usable select the column (column G on my sheet) and (top menu ribbon) 'Format' - 'Cells' to 'Date'. Now reselect the same column (G) and (top menu ribbon) select 'Data' - 'Text to Columns'.

Now the spreadsheet can be sorted in date order.

Hope this is useful.

regards ZeZe

very useful method thanks very much.