Page 14 - The Story of the RAMC

When the Cease Fire sounded on November 11th, 1918 the whole world believed that European wars were a thing of the past and that mankind would never again be involved in such a welter of suffering and bloodshed. Nevertheless during the next 20 years the efficiency of the Corps was maintained at a high level by Generals Godwin, Leishman, Fell, Fawcus , Hartigan and MacArthur. As a result of this when the Second World War threatened Sir William MacArthur had seen to it that the medical services took the field more fully prepared than most of the other service.
Under Sir William and his famous successor Sir Alexander Hood drastic changes were introduced in the war time organisation of the Corps.
It must be remembered that when the First World War broke out on 4th August 1914 most of the transport was horse-drawn, there were no motor ambulance convoys and, of course no air evacuation or wireless communication. The organisation was based on a “Chain of Evacuation “ in which the sick and wounded were passed through a series of posts, the regimental aid post, the collecting post, the advanced and main dressing stations, the casualty clearing station until finally they reached the large general hospitals at Boulogne, le Touquet or in England and it was here that the specialist departments were largely concentrated. It might well be compared to a slow train stopping at every station until it reached the terminus irrespective of the urgent needs of the passengers.
General Keogh and Sir Arthur Sloggett did much to remedy this. At an early stage in the war Casualty Clearing Stations, originally designed merely as sorting stations expanded into the forward areas to take, in some cases, up to 1,000 patients, provided with nursing sisters and all specialist facilities .
In the Second World War General Hood took things a step further for it was he who put the Corps on wheels and in the air. Specialists no longer sat at the base waiting for patients to be sent to them. With their technicians and nursing orderlies they were sent bounding across the desert on a compass bearing to the fighting zones and operating teams dropped from the clouds with the attacking troops.
On the 23rd of January 1945 “A” Troop of 45 Royal Marine Commandos were doing a raid in North West Europe when they met with such a hurricane of fire that they had to withdraw leaving five wounded lying exposed in the open. Lance Corporal Eric Harden, RAMC the medical orderly went out under a hail of rifle and machine gun fire and rendered first aid (he had received his earlier training as a sergeant in the St. John’s Ambulance), he returned slightly wounded, his battle dress torn with bullets, carrying one patient with him. Further attempts were made to bring in the casualties with the aid of tanks and a smoke screen which were unsuccessful owing to the heavy fire of the German anti-tank guns. In the meantime Harden helped by two young
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