Soldiers Fitness

[Guest R P Miller]

I have been to see my aunt whose father was in The Great War with the 2nd Middlesex Regiment.

Information on Medal Roll informs me he was attached to 23rd Div Brigade Headquarters this informastion was recorded twice (did this mean he was wounded etc), His service records did not survive etc.

My Aunt told me that her father had been Gassed and he had lost a lung because of this ?

My question is would he have returned to brigade headquarters with only one lung ?

He was in France until the end of the war because in a Newspaper article about his brother Killed in action Oct 1918 remarked that the parent had a son still fighting in France and thay had only two sons.

[marina]

Could the lung have been removed after the war?

Marina

[ian turner]

I cannot imagine he would have been returned to active service with only one lung, but are you sure the loss of the lung was during the war, or in later life, as a result of his gassing?

Ian

[eltoro1960]

It may be that he enlisted with one regiment, was invalided out, then rejoined another uni,t who for reasons best known to them, passed him fit. There is an example on my local war memorial where the guy joined the Cameron Highlanders was wounded and sent home, declared unfit, then rejoined the Seaforth Highlanders and was subsequently killed in action. I think for a determined man it was nearly always possible to get back to the front.

[Guest R P Miller]

Many Thanks for your Views on my Question.

I dont know if he had a lung removed after the war, but when I get to meet her again I will ask.

This is my view that he died from T.B. in 1933 and considering thats involves the lungs, which the family say he suffered from a possible gass attack and thats why his early death was blamed on the war with bitterness etc. But alas in 1938 his eldest daughter also died at 21 years old from T.B.

Again Many Thanks

[eltoro1960]

My Grandfather was gassed in 1916 and it certainly afffected him in later years, he developed lung cancer and died of pnuemonia in his early 50's having been a fit guy. Gassing certainly had long term health implications for many servicemen.

[auchonvillerssomme]

Wasn't there a case study on Ian Hislops programme 'Not Forgotten' who managed to cover up the fact that he had chronic TB and died shortly after discharge?

Mick

[bob lembke]

This is my view that he died from T.B. in 1933 and considering thats involves the lungs, which the family say he suffered from a possible gass attack and thats why his early death was blamed on the war with bitterness etc. But alas in 1938 his eldest daughter also died at 21 years old from T.B.

There is some controversy on the topic, but it seems that being gassed led to a lot of TB in later life. (Some military leaders disputed this after the war, while the medical types were more likely to think it was true.) Removing a lung is quite an operation, and I think would have been remarkable to have been done during the war; besides, if the reason for the operation probably presented later as the TB developed.

Sadly, his daughter probably contracted the disease from her father, so she might also be considered a casualty. In my family, on my mother's side, living outside of Berlin, two uncles of mine died of TB about 1920; they were about 18-20, had not served in the army, and the family was rich (and communistic, and half English!), so, despite the food blockade, which was continued after the war, they probably had good living conditions and as good food and medical care as could be obtained.

I have posted in other threads how the Yank officer, General Amos Fries, who was head of gas warfare in the AEF and after the war was the head of the US chemical warfare service, wrote a seven page memo to General Pershing in the 1920s, when the latter was Chief of the General Staff, that in the entire world there was not a single veteran that had cronic medical problems due to have being gassed in WW I. (Of course both Fries and Pershing knew that this was a bald lie.) I have held the actual carbon of the memo in my hand (in a rare book room). Fries was literally or figuratively in the pay of the US chemical industry and did not need Pershing's approval; when he wanted to be promoted to Major General he went to his chemical friends, who pressured Congress, who wrote a bill and passed it, and sent it to the White House for signature, totally by-passing Pershing.

Bob Lembke