Page 13 - The Story of the RAMC

Towards the end of his tenure ominous clouds were banking over Europe and, when the storm burst in 1914, he was recalled from retirement to take over the helm again and he remained as Director General from 1914 until 1918. It gives some idea of the scope of his genius and the magnitude of his task when it is remembered that the Corps, which held about 9,000 other ranks on mobilization, expanded until by 1918 he had under his administration no less than 13,000 RAMC officers and 154,000 other ranks, fighting in France, Belgium, Macedonia, Italy, Palestine, South Russia and Mesopotamia.
It is fitting that one who ruled over the Corps for ten of the most eventful years of its history should be commemorated in Keogh Barracks today.
It would, of course, be quite outside the scope of this small brochure to attempt any detailed description of the work of the medical services in the gigantic struggle of 1914 to 1918. All one can do is, as it were, to shine a torch here and there to light up a few outstanding events in which the Corps was involved.
The first Victoria Cross was won by Captain H S Ranken in September 1914. He died of his wounds and his sword, presented by his family, hangs in the Corps Museum.
At the same time Arthur Martin-Leake was making his way to the seat of war.
Having been severely wounded when gaining the Cross in South Africa he occupied his convalescence in obtaining the degree of Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was holding a high administrative post on Indian Railways, but he contrived to get a passage to France, joined 5th Field Ambulance, and, for conspicuous gallantry between the 29th October and the 9th of November 1914 for the first time in history, he won the Cross a second time.
He lived to a good old age, and when he died he left this unique treasure to the Royal Army Medical Corps. This is the most treasured possession in the Corps as it is the only double VC possessed by any of the three fighting services.
In 1914 Noel Chavasse, the son of the Bishop of Liverpool, was house-surgeon to the great orthopaedic surgeon, Sir Robert Jones, and had a bright future before him. He was also a keen Territorial and left for France with his Battalion, the Liverpool Scottish, early in 1915. He won the Military Cross in 1915, the Victoria Cross in 1916 and died of wounds received while winning a second VC in 1917. By a curious turn of fate he was a patient in the Casualty Clearing Station commanded by Colonel Martin-Leake.
9