Page 252 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
outbreak was becoming increasingly difficult to control, there were calls for the Army to intervene for its skills in Command and Control in crisis situations. It was at this stage that the Government conceded to the call to mobilise the Army, and troops were drafted into Cumbria to provide logistical support and expertise to execute the mass slaughter and disposal programme.
During May 2001, over two thousand troops were deployed across the UK in the battle to halt the advance of Foot and Mouth; that was four times the number of troops used during the outbreak in 1967 and represented the largest joint UK military and civilian Operation since the end of World War Two.14
Initially the Army assisted with only Command and Control tasks and the supervision of the disposal of the carcasses, but later this was widened to support all stages of the disposal chain. This included helping with disinfecting, reporting, digging burial pits, notifying farmers, engineering tasks and the culling process itself.
Mobilising the Army was imperative for two main reasons. Firstly, civilian veterinary surgeons were in short supply. As in the first epidemic, once a vet had declared a herd of cattle, sheep or pigs infected they could no longer carry on with their duties as they could carry infection to other locations. Secondly, when FMD became so severe and widespread, the sheer scale of the destruction of animals and the disposal of carcasses surpassed civilian capabilities. The Army provided the administrative, logistic, and additional veterinary expertise. Consequently, once again, the RAVC personnel were well placed to provide a vital element of the Army’s response.
Alongside the general military support, more RAVC VOs were deployed to offer profes- sional assistance particularly in Cumbria where personnel for 2 Division (at the time the RAVC Colonel Commandant’s command, Major General Johnny M F C Hall CBE OBE) were in the thick of the crisis. Amongst the RAVC deployments were both Regular and TA personnel; Brigadier Andrew Roache, Colonel Dougie Macdonald, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Marks, Majors Neil Smith, Mark Morrison, Melissa Bowerman, Captains Beverly Tunley, Jane Rose-Larner and Mary Logan and the RSM WO1 Andy Pedlar. Also, RAVC TA Officers played a crucial role; Major Ann Wood, Graeme Cook and Captain Eric Morgan. One TA Officer was also a Divisional Officer with MAFF at the time and was at the hub of activity in the London
HQ having been transferred from Cumbria only a month or so before the FMD outbreak.
A number of retired Corps personnel also answered the call for veterinary surgeons to step forward to help. Brigadier Geoffrey Durrant, Lieutenant Colonel John Bleby and Major Paul Skelton-Stroud did so and remained on duty with DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) – which was formed in June – in other ways during the summer of 2001.
Many of the animals killed in Cumbria were taken to a disused airfield at Great Orton, where the RLC (Royal Logistics Corps) butchers slaughtered the poor animals. To assist with the heartbreak experienced by the farmers, and, most importantly, to make certain that the cull was conducted in a humane way, Major Neil Smith RAVC, was located at Great Orton and put in charge of the macabre task from the point of opening the site through to overseeing all the stages of the large-scale slaughtering process.
The summer 2001 issue of the Corps Magazine reported on the devastating effect of FMD in the county of Cumbria during the month of February that year, and how it was to have disastrous conse- quences for the already hard-pressed livestock farming community, not to mention the UK countryside in general. One old comrade, who had been in the thick of it, opined that it was the worst disaster to befall the nation since World War Two. Indeed, that might have been true, since not even the war had crippled the countryside and brought the same level of financial ruin that FMD had achieved in a matter of weeks.
In an attempt to control the spread of the disease, vast areas of the countryside were subject to the forced closure of footpaths and other public rights of way. For one thing, this damaged the popularity of the Lake District as a tourist destination for some considerable some time, and many other sites and attractions were to suffer the same fate through shut down or cancellation including that year’s Cheltenham Festival, and the British Rally Championship for the entire 2001 season. These decisions, however necessary, gave no cheer to hoteliers and retailers in many tourist spots. Some may have bemoaned the delay of the General Election by a month, but in terms of a genuine national crisis, the country was in trouble.
Rural Britain was under siege.
By midsummer 2001, the Government reacted to the crisis with the formation of DEFRA which came under the leadership of Margaret Beckett.
14 Soldier Magazine dated May 2001.
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