A handsome oak staircase dominated Lennels entry hall and led under an ornate glass dome to the upper floor, where each officer found his own pleasant bedroom, with windows opening onto the garden or with views of the woodlands and the Cheviot Hills beyond; there appear to have been only about a dozen residents at any one time. The Medical Battalion was a Divisional medical unit developed to furnish medical support for the Infantry Division. BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO > 15 December 1943 27 November 1944 If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small Jack Blane No 3 (BR) Casualty Clearing Station RAMC. Generally arriving at Lennel from treatment centers in London and Edinburgh, convalescing officers were received as country house guests. Each Platoon was capable of operating a Clearing Station, so that it could operate at considerable distances from Company Headquarters. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, May 29th, 30th, and 31st, 1940 Medical Battalion, Infantry Division, T/O 8-15, April 1, 1942 35 Commissioned Officers & 470 Enlisted Men + 101 Vehicles and Trailers. Capt. They were actually pretty insightful, Ling says of the early medics. No list of clinical symptoms, such as the written records preserve, can do justice to the affliction of the shellshocked patient. It is no longer possible to leave messages here. I decided to operate again. Lady Clementines family mixed freely with the officer guests, her youngest daughter, Kitty, who was only 1 year old when the war broke out, being a special favorite. He told me to stay where I was and wait but that I could not take the pack. An ammunition dump went up just close by to add to the variety. They were hectic days in the extreme. We sailed for England from Bari on a lousy, overcrammed ship. Medical Battalion, Infantry Division, T/O 8-15, July 3, 1944 35 Commissioned Officers, 2 Warrant Officers & 407 Enlisted Men + 90 Vehicles and Trailers. For her work at Lennel House, Lady Clementine was made a Commander of the British Empire. This Section also operated under the S-4. Your Privacy Rights Find out how you can use this. Charles Myers of the Royal Army Medical Corps noted the remarkably close similarity of symptoms in three soldiers who had each been exposed to exploding shells: Case 1 had endured six or seven shells exploding around him; Case 2 had been buried under earth for 18 hours after a shell collapsed his trench; Case 3 had been blown off a pile of bricks 15 feet high. Electric heat baths, milk diets, hypnotism, clamps and machines that mechanically forced stubborn limbs out of their frozen position were other strategies. EAST INDIES > 1 January 1942 22 July 1942 This illustration was taken in the Philippines in the closing days of the campaign. The four of us wearily found our way back to the ambulances. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 261814 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible. Case notes from Lennel, however, record that a remarkable number of the neurasthenic officers were casualties of direct, savage blast force: Perfectly well till knocked over at Varennesafter this he couldnt sleep for weeks on end; He has been blown up several timesand has lately found his nerve was getting shaken. In case after case, the officer is buried, thrown, stunned, concussed by exploding shells. The advantage was that a Surgical Hospital was equipped with mobile operating rooms and necessary auxiliary equipment to perform major surgical operations. This could result in nothing short of hand to hand fighting inside the house. Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. My sergeant gave me a big pack of medical record books, then told me to set off to Dunkirk and that on the way the others would help me. EASTERN MANDATES > 31 January 1944 14 June 1944 As the war settled in, and shell shockboth commotional and emotionalbecame recognized as one of its primary afflictions, treatment became more sympathetic. The Clearing Company consisted (1942 data) of 1 Captain, 1 First Lieutenant, and 22 Enlisted personnel. View of a Clearing Station, somewhere behind Utah Beach, Normandy, taken June 6 7, 1944 triage of Airborne casualties and patients . It was said that at the Battle of the Marne, east of Paris, soldiers on the front line had been discovered standing at their posts in all the dutiful military posturesbut not alive. 2/2 Casualty Clearing Station | Australian War Memorial I packed about 100 into the lorries and they really were a grand sight as we wished them good luck as they drew away. Gaze went down with a German guard and drew water and tried his German to great advantage. I was in charge of the second party with three lorries and about 40 men we lost our way and found ourselves up near the Belgian border. Tuesday 4th June 1940 It was a most hair raising drive with the streets almost impassable, many houses in flames in fact the whole night red with burning buildings. Chaps going to England in a shirt, a blanket and bare feet, some with large running wounds in their backs and legs hobbling along on the shoulders of others. Shell shock, the term that would come to define the phenomenon, first appeared in the British medical journal The Lancet in February 1915, only six months after the commencement of the war. SOUTHERN FRANCE > 15 August 1944 14 September 1944 Your proteins, by and large, are immunoglobulins, which basically are inflammatory. In 1901, Maj. Walter Waring, a distinguished officer and veteran of the Boer War and a Liberal MP, had married Lady Susan Elizabeth Clementine Hay and brought her to Lennel House. 15 (Edmonton) Field Ambulance's lineage originates with No. Captain Kyle, for example, age 23 and in service for three years and three months at the time of admittance to Lennel had previously been a Keen athlete, enjoyed life thoroughly, no nerves. Brigadier General McLaren had also been Keen on outdoor sportsalways the benchmark of British mental healthbut had Not very many friends.. We, with some marines, rushed a few of the stretchers mile up the jetty and put them on a boat. Our There would be around 100 other ranks in the unit most of whom would be nursing orderlies and operating theatre assistants. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Here, the casualty was transferred to a Wheeled Litter, and the Litter Squad then returned to the Aid Station to pick up another casualty. No. 4 Casualty Clearing Station in the Great War - The Wartime Memories A telephone line generally connected the Medical Battalion CP with the Division CP. I seemed to be alone and must have fallen asleep. BBC - WW2 People's War - Seven Long Years in the RAMC The Ambulance Section operated 12 x -Ton Ambulances which represented its organic means of transportation (usually subdivided into two subsections of 2 Ambulance vehicles each). We recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and waters. He landed safely. Things were in an awful mess. It gave me the greatest feeling of desolation I have ever had. Picture showing the Seriously Wounded Department, Shock Section, of a Clearing Station. Illustration showing the organization of the Medical Battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment. A few men were killed in the ambulances and others wounded. Diagnosis of TBI is additionally vexed by the clinical featuresdifficulty concentrating, sleep disturbances, altered moodsthat it shares with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychiatric syndrome caused by exposure to traumatic events. T/O 8-15, April 1, 1942, showing the organization of the Medical Battalion, Infantry Division. The COLLECTING COMPANY, Medical Battalion, Infantry Division: Twentyfive pounder guns fired over the hospital all day. They were the connecting links in the chain of evacuation between Infantry Aid Stations and Division Clearing Stations. History. One catches glimpses of them, however, through a variety of oblique lenses. The experience of being exposed to blast force, or being blown-up, in the phrase of the time, is evoked powerfully and often in the medical case notes, memoirs and letters of this era. In the meantime the first casualty was taken to the Collecting Station. Rather, they appeared to be suffering from a remarkable state of shock caused by blast force. The CWGC commemorates more than 580,000 World War Two Commonwealth casualties at our sites and memorials around the world. I did not see any more members of our unit but finally saw a Royal Navy man. There was deep snow and it was bitterly, bitterly cold. It is important to note the subsequent organization of these subsections; for instance, the Litter Bearer Section consisted of 1 Sergeant, 1 Corporal, and 40 other Enlisted Men. The Germans were reported near and might be in tomorrow. In the British Army and other Commonwealth militaries, a Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) is a military medical facility behind the front lines that is used to treat wounded soldiers. The rest of the Headquarters organization included : Detachment Headquarters Section: consisted (1942 data) of : 1 Officer and 16 Enlisted Men. Cookie Settings, Ullstein Bild / Granger Collection, New York, National Archives of Australia (A7342, Album 2), The Real History Behind the Archimedes Dial in 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny', See 11 Breathtaking Bird Images From the Audubon Photography Awards, How One Man Accidentally Killed the Oldest Tree Ever, Forensic Artist Reconstructs the Face of a Teenager Who Lived 1,300 Years Ago, Eight Menacing Saber-Toothed Creatures That Stalked the Earth Long Ago. The Commanding Officer, Munro and Longridge got very busy with evacuation and did many perilous journeys to the Mole at Dunkirk Harbour. We arrived in Dunkirk at 1.00am at the start of an air raid. Motorized Medical Battalion, Motorized Division, T/O 8-65, C-1, July 31, 1942 36 Commissioned Officers & 484 Enlisted Men + 100 Vehicles and Trailers. -6-. shifted back a bit. We all took our hour at the front door and at the back of our minds we were all hoping that a Mills bomb wouldnt arrive first. If you can provide any additional information, especially on actions and locations at specific dates, please add it here. At night all the floors, the dining tables and hammocks, were full of men. Add a Name to this List Picked up two soldiers burnt to a cinder and arrived at the Chateau in Rosendael on the outskirts of Dunkirk. This is more effectively evoked in the dreadful medical training films of the war, which capture the discordant twitching, uncontrollable shaking and haunting vacant stares. The navy had seen nothing of the ships. I told him that conditions were hopeless and that unless we had help all we could do was to prevent 600 wounded from dying from thirst. Kitty came to Cambridge and we had a lovely time, staying with my Aunt Alice. There were Good Times and Bad Times but always Good Friends. 4 Casualty Clearing Station available in our Library These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War. Four doctors and four NCOs took the watches in shifts one of each to stay up for two hours. The wounded soldier was first carried by Hand Litter to a point on a road or trail, designated Litter Relay Post. I am quite unable adequately to express my gratitude to you for your kindness and hospitality to me, wrote Lieutenant Craven, as if giving thanks for a pleasant weekend in the country. In a landmark article, Capt. They were highly mobile military hospitals. Organization of the Clearing Company, showing the 2 Clearing Platoons.. Company Headquarters: An estimated 10 percent of the 1,663,435 military wounded of the war would be attributed to shell shock; and yet study of this signature conditionemotional, or commotional, or bothwas not followed through in the postwar years. As far as I know they got safely on board a boat for England Good luck to them. 111 Casualty Clearing Station | Australian War Memorial British Expeditionary Force: 1940-. Then it was on to the last battle for the 8th Army in North Africa. Certainly one met people who weredifferent, Sir Ilay recalled gently, speaking of damaged veterans he had seen as a boy, and it was explained of their being in the war. Meals were presided over by the officers hostess, the beautiful, diminutive Lady Clementine. The Collecting Company Headquarters consisted of 1 Captain and 17 Enlisted Men. Back into France: 17 May 1940 . On the night of 30th May we had all been told that we were going home at 11.00pm. The major was in uniform for most of the war, on duty in France, Salonika and Morocco, and it was therefore Lady Clementine who had overseen the transformation of Lennel House into a convalescent home for neurasthenic soldiers. The Casualty Clearing Stations were the front line medical units, whose role was to accept the sick and wounded, assess the casualties, carry out emergency treatment and evacuate the casualties to a general hospital behind the lines. The Headquarters Detachment normally set up its installations in vicinity of the Clearing Station and the Medical Battalion CP. It was terrible to see. That Christmas was the last we had together until 1945. Now we were left on the quay with just the last of the French troops filing past and all hope for a hospital ship gone. The symptoms recorded in the case notes, familiar from literature of the time, are clear enough: palpitationsFear of faintingfeeling of suffocation, of constriction in throat; Now feels worn out & has pain in region of heart; DepressionOver-reactionInsomniaHeadaches; nervousness, lassitude, being upset by sudden noise; Patient fears gunfire, death and the darkIn periods of wakefulness he visualizes mutilations he has seen, and feels the terror of heavy fire; Depressed from incapacity to deal with easy subjects & suffered much from eye pain. And there is the case of Second Lieutenant Bertwistle, with two years of service in the 27th Australian Infantry, although only 20 years of age, whose face wears a puzzled expression and who exhibits a marked defect of recent and remote memory. His mental content appears to be puerile. Notes: The Collecting Platoon consisted (1942 data) of 1 Officer (i.e. We drank a few drinks and tried to take count of what we had. One of the gloomiest aspects of those days was the way anyone in authority seemed to forsake his post and jump on a boat for home. There was a first class air fight and we saw two Defiants bring down three enemy planes. Of the 17 officers 3 only were to stay, so my chances seemed quite rosy. This story has been placed in the following categories. -3-. We were back to Nijmegen for the Battle for the Rhine. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not Unhappily, the single term shell shock encompassed both conditions. I, and all our family, are very proud of him. Possibly, it was social training, not medical, that enabled Lady Clementine to assist and solace the damaged men who made their way to Lennel. I can never forget that moment as long as I live. Gaze and I got separated from the rest. It was amazing what this ray of hope did. Litter Relay Posts were therefore established with the aim to shorten the distance of the carry and ease the work of the Bearers. The field ambulances meanwhile, as the name would suggest, were mobile units equipped with Land Rover Ambulances which would support units on the battlefield. A battery of mobile 75mm field guns, the pride of the French Army, could, for example, sweep ten acres of terrain, 435 yards deep, in less than 50 seconds; 432,000 shells had been fired in a five-day period of the September engagement on the Marne. The Navy chap in charge said that when he ordered, Stop, we had to stop trying to get aboard or he would shoot us and I am sure that he would have. In preparation for the daily Last Post Ceremony. Each Clearing Platoon consisted (1942 data) of 5 Officers and 49 Enlisted Men. AIR OFFENSIVE JAPAN > 17 April 1942 2 September 1945 Vehicles included 1 x 1-Ton Cargo Trailer, 1 x 250-Gallon Water Tank Trailer, 2 x -Ton Trucks, 2 x 2 -Ton Cargo Trucks. Someone could have a brain injury and be looking like it was PTSD, says Col. Geoffrey Ling, the director of the DARPA study. Form 53, authorized May 21, 1942 (later superseded by DA Form 8-29 authorized July 12, 1944). It could then relieve or reinforce the Clearing Station in operation, or it could be dispatched forward or rearward to establish another Clearing Station for the care of casualties occurring from major fluctuations of the frontline. LUZON > 15 December 1944 4 July 1945 If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web. Casualty Clearing Stations : World War One Medical Evacuation They hit the ship directly ahead of us, setting it on fire. In the very dim early morning light we sorted out patients and masonry and carried the patients outside. The Company Headquarters was organized to perform the functions of command, administration, mess, supply, and motor maintenance. December 1945 and back in England. They had a great liking for our tinned fruit and milk and demanded most of it. We found a house with the rest of the unit and I slept on the floor of the basement. Straightaway I organised a theatre in the drawing room of the Chateau and within two hours had two operating teams going. It was a sight of great devastation and one drove very fast to lessen the risk of getting hit by shells. The CLEARING COMPANY, Medical Battalion, Infantry Division: I think some of the Germans felt that war was an awful thing when they saw them. galleries are progressively closed from 4 pm. Collecting Platoon: Cocky OShea, the RC padre, drew the papers. I shifted my operating theatre to the cellar with one electric lamp. The burnt cases all seemed to be going off their heads and were really in a deplorable state. PAPUA > 23 July 1942 23 January 1943 So they were ahead of their time., You can never tell how a man is going to do in action, a senior officer had observed in the War Office Committee report of 1922, and it was this searing truth of self-discovery that the patients at Lennel feared. NEW GUINEA > 24 January 1943 31 December 1944 Each unit had 12 officers consisting of a Commanding Officer and his assistant, two surgical specialists, four general duty doctors, a dental surgeon, a quartermaster and three padres. How lucky we were to escape unharmed. Rapidly we learnt the German for such things as Red Cross and Dont Shoot etc. A photograph that had been in the possession of Capt. This exciting prospect of a clinical diagnosis was presaged by the observation in World War I that spinal fluid drawn from men who had been blown up revealed changes in protein cells. In September 1914, at the very outset of the great war, a dreadful rumor arose. People Honours and Awards (7) Collections Photograph (36) Art (4) Share this page 4 Casualty Clearing Station mobilized in December 1939 as one of the medical units of the 1st Canadian Division for service overseas during the second world war. Remark: Almost every meal consisted of bully beef and biscuits and one ate it standing up. After that, we went to Malta for two weeks rest and then it was the invasion of Sicily and into Southern Italy. WESTERN PACIFIC > 15 June 1944 2 September 1945 The CCS receives battlefield casualties from regimental aid posts located in the combat zone. (And if they didnt have one? Here at last was a straw to cling to. They appear to constitute a definite class among others arising from the effects of shell-shock.. But by 1916, military and medical authorities were convinced that many soldiers exhibiting the characteristic symptomstrembling rather like a jelly shaking; headache; tinnitus, or ringing in the ear; dizziness; poor concentration; confusion; loss of memory; and disorders of sleephad been nowhere near exploding shells. If she was unsettled by the sights and sounds that filled her home, she does not seem to have let on. The troops filed past and the Retreat from Moscow was never in it. The Section was subdivided into two small separate groups providing 4 Litter Squads each, it should be noted, that no transportation was provided as an organic part of the Litter Section while the Ambulance Section was commanded by 1 Second Lieutenant (MAC), 1 Staff Sergeant, 1 Sergeant, 1 Corporal, and 26 other EM. He will be featured in the third episode, to be broadcast on February 20th. By centralizing Battalion Headquarters and the Headquarters Detachment close to the Clearing Station, contact was always rapidly maintained with Collecting Companies by means of Ambulance-borne messages. Receiving Department of a Collecting Station in the field. CHINA DEFENSIVE > 4 July 1942 4 May 1945 It operated a Clearing Station which was the last (second echelon) element in the Division medical service. The illusion was so complete that often the living would speak to the dead before they realized the true state of affairs. Asphyxia, caused by the powerful new high-explosive shells, was the cause for the phenomenonor so it was claimed. Every normal attitude of life was imitated by these dead men, according to the patriotic serial The Times History of the War, published in 1916. A number of the letters are written from hotels while awaiting the results of medical boards. I shall never forget those 5 hours before they went trying to look efficient and dont carish and everyone dreading to speak to me.