Page 253 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
Under this development, MAFF was merged with part of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), and with a small part of the Home Office. This new creation and re-structure occurred as a consequence of the real, or perceived, failure of MAFF to deal adequately with the outbreak of the disease15 which lingered on in various parts of the country where the outbreak was still proving hard to be overcome. Farmers whose animals had contracted FMD were compensated, but there were many who relied on rural trading in local markets, and for them, being unable to move their stock around had dire conse- quences. Many never recovered from the financial impact.
Soldier Magazine16 in May 2001 reported the tasks of slaughtering animals and transporting and destroying carcasses through burning, burial or rendering had been carried out by private firms. The magazine reported one million, thirty-nine thousand animals had been slaughtered, a further five hundred and forty-one thousand were about to be killed and four hundred and eight thousand carcasses were awaiting disposal. Commander 101 Logistic Brigade’s Brigadier Malcolm Wood said: “I have been in Gulf War and in Bosnia and nothing I have been involved in personally has been bigger than this logistically.”
And, behind the cold statistics lay the broken lives of many farming families. That is what James Gaskin from Cumbria wrote in the same issue of Soldier Magazine, as he described the difficult role of the front-line personnel who were dealing firsthand with the human tragedy. These Army Liaison Officers worked as part of a team with other agencies visiting farms where FMD was suspected. One of the Officers commented that they were selected for their sensitive approach to the work, and only SNCOs who had the maturity to handle such a delicate situation were chosen for the task. The SNCO liaison officers were often the only people to whom farmers, often in tears, could pour out their hearts. A soldier from 1st Battalion Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire explained the need for total empathy when he said: “If a person in Army uniform explained gently that burning on site was the best option, the farmer would tend to accept this advice, but you always have to accept that this man was losing his livelihood, and he was being told this by a total stranger.”
WO1 Andy Pedlar had the unfortunate task of dealing with the aftermath of a tragic death at
Great Orton airfield. One of the slaughter men involved in culling thousands of farm animals, at the height of the crisis, whilst mucking around put a loaded bolt gun against a colleague’s head. The men had been culling around six hundred sheep an hour when one of the animals proved difficult to handle. Andy Pedlar vividly recalls this, as he was present at the unpleasant incident and comforted the hysterical and distraught slaughter man.17 It was an incident that served, not only as timely reminder to anyone with access to a weapon of any kind, not to not ‘mess around’, whatever the circumstances, however grim the task. It was also an incident that would likely be recognised now as a mental health indicator. The rate of animal slaughter surpassed anything that could be considered normal. The slaughtermen were under pressure. The sheer size and starkness of the operation had aspects of a war zone but in the usually peaceful British countryside. It was trauma like no other.
Ripple effect of FMD:
The impact of the FMD epidemic had a knock-on effect regarding military training. A six-week blanket ban was imposed on routine military training over twenty one areas. This had a second order effect for the Army’s training regiments, and there was, at that time, the possibility of TA annual training camps being disrupted.
In Germany, the Rhine Army Summer Show and the JHQ international Show were cancelled to prevent the disease being spread further. The DAC had to curtail the use of training in rural areas, this impacted on the training of dogs for overseas and NI. As the epidemic was brought under control, military training areas were re-opened where locations were free of infection, and these areas had no animals out grazing. Troops exercising on the areas had to conduct disinfection procedures before and after training.
The aftermath
Letters of Commendation were offered by Brigadier A F Birtwistle OBE ADC HQ (NW) Bde, to Brigadier Andrew H Roache QHVS, relating to VOs Neil Smith and Mark Morrison for their service during the FMD outbreak. As to the latter, the letter states: “for services, notably the higher standards that Morrison set for itinerant slaugh- termen of unknown quality.”
Such was the scale of the problem created by the outbreak, that the veterinary division of DEFRA
15 Wikipedia.
16 Soldier Magazine dated May 2001.
17 Mr Andy Pedlar Ex RAVC WO1 (RSM) interviewed at DATR dated December 2020.
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