This account of service life during the war has been extracted from the unpublished memoirs of Staff-Sergeant "Tug" Wilson, late of the Royal Army Medical Corps
On a beautiful summer evening in 1941, "Tug" Wilson stood on the promenade deck of the troopship Durban Castle, and watched the sun sink behind the hills of Arran as she left the Clyde on her voyage into the unknown.
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Staff Sergeant T. H. Wilson, RAMC, pictured in Colombo, Ceylon, around 1944 |
On board there was also a company of the Highland Light Infantry, whose pipers played reels and strathspeys every evening on the promenade deck, while their officers instructed the Queen Alexandra's nurses in the pleasures of Scottish country dancing. Tug and his comrades watched the display from their own distant outpost on the port side. Apart from the weekly appearances of Captian Fellowes, their company officer, to distribute pay in the mess room, that was almost all they saw of the men and women with whom they were one day to serve. The only exception was the new quartermaster.
On the eve of their departure from Britain, the previous quartermaster had vanished, transferred to reserve on account of his increasing frailty. A fussy, middle-aged Irishman had been newly promoted from staff-sergeant to take his place and he had arrived, carrying his brand new kit, on the dock at Gourock barely one hour before the vessel sailed. After recovery from three days of seasickness, the newly appointed Lieutenant Quartermaster McGlynn arrived on the port deck and presented the three pharmacists with an enormous "invoice" - the fabulous I/1248 of which they had heard so many rumours. It was as big as a mail order catalogue, to which it indeed bore a close resemblance, and it contained a priced list of every single item of medical and surgical equipment authorised for use in a field hospital, from safety pins to an X-ray machine weighing three quarters of a ton. This document had to be transcribed by hand into the pages of a loose-leaf ledger which weighed a couple of stones, and this was to occupy Tommy Wrigley's working hours for the next three months.
The 35th BGH did nothing at all for three weeks in the suffocating heat of the military barracks at Colaba, Bombay, before they were transported through the Persian Gulf on a converted pilgrim ship to Basrah in Iraq, where it was even hotter. On a sultry evening at the end of August they boarded a train at the railway terminus, bound for Baghdad. The single track railway and its rolling stock had been built by German engineers before 1914. Some first-class coaches at the front were reserved for officers and nurses. At the rear of the train were the baggage vans and the second-class coaches for other ranks. Hard, slatted wooden seats were arranged along a central aisle. These were small and close-fitting; it was not possible either to sit or to lie comfortably anywhere on them or under them. The train jolted through the close tropical night while Tug and his mates attempted miserably to find some comfortable position in which to rest.
Dawn broke near a wayside halt surrounded by dry barren hillsides. This was dignified by a board that announced they were now at Ur Junction - all that now remained of the once mighty Chaldean Empire. The train shunted into a siding and the weary troops dismounted, stretching to ease the stiffness from their backs and limbs. The cooks opened the baggage vans and broke out some "dixies" - metal hayboxes that held two gallons of hot food, prepared before they left Basrah. The men lined up to fill their mess tins with hot, sweet tea and a breakfast consisting of tinned bacon, bread and butter. At seven o'clock the heat and the flies were already unbearable. All at once, the regimental sergeant major (RSM) became aware of an apparition which had descended from first class, closely attended by Captain Fellowes.
"Ten-shun!" RSM Lagrue bawled, "commanding officer!"
The scattered crowd of orderlies and NCOs attempted with varying degrees of success to appear to be adopting the position of attention while precariously balancing their mess tins in either hand. A very tall, very thin gentleman, whose sparse white hair was cropped close to his skull, dressed in immaculate khaki drill shirt and shorts, was approaching.
"Come along Fellowes!" the Colonel urged in clear ringing tones. "We must see how the animals are gettin' on."
Tug heard the words distinctly, as most men in the company must have done. This was the first time many of them had set eyes on their commanding officer. The full Colonel RAMC, honorary physician to King George VI, with 40 years' service in France and in India, must either have been unaware of the offence his remark would cause to men who remained largely civilians in uniform, or else he intended to be offensive and did not much care. He addressed a few words to Paddy Lagrue, inspected the rations which had been provided and expressed his approval, then said, "Carry on, Sar'major," before turning on his heel and departing with long strides while the company officer strove to keep pace with him.
Quartermaster Sergeant Nobby Clark was the unit's chief clerk. As such, he had to work with the commanding officer every day. Nobby was an old soldier, a Cockney from London's East End, with a dry sense of humour. One day at lunchtime, Nobby humorously remarked in the mess: "The Old Man don't 'arf make you laugh sometimes with his funny ways. He had me on the carpet this morning."
Nobby mimicked the Colonel's affected drawl as he continued: "‘Doncher know better than that, QMS,' he says to me. ‘Yer cawn't refer to the regimental chaplain in official correspondence as The Padre. Yer might as well refer to me as Doc!'"
It was about that time when the 35th BGH began operations in a collection of marquee tents set up in a cultivated field just off the Damascus Road by Washash Bridge. Staff-Sergeant Harry Ward, the senior pharmacist, had been invalided home from Bombay with amoebiasis and no replacement was obtainable. Tommy Wrigley and Tug worked 14 hours a day trying to supply the requirements of the 300-bedded hospital for medicines, antiseptics, dressings and surgical requirements, while at the same time operating a dispensary for all the sick soldiers and airmen between Mosul and Kermanshah. During the first three days they expended their entire stock of medicine bottles and they were compelled to dispense liquid medicines in beer bottles discarded from the NAAFI canteen. Washing bottles wasted hours every day and they were running out of every conceivable resource - including patience. Eventually, even the quartermaster could no longer withstand the two pharmacists' bellyaching. Taking his courage in his hands, he stood before the officer comanding and requested a couple of orderlies to assist in the dispensary.
Next morning, the tall figure bent almost double as he stooped under the flap of the India Pattern tent which served as the hospital pharmacy. Tug was so startled that his nerveless fingers almost dropped a four-ounce glass measure. The distinguished surgeon surveyed the organised chaos inside the tent with the disdainful air of a stork investigating some rotten fish. Finally he addressed Tug: "Quartermaster McGlynn seems to think you fellers need some extra help."
Tug's passionate protest made absolutely no impression on the colonel. He strolled around, examining the stacks of Red Cross boxes which functioned in lieu of shelving. Finally he remarked in languid tones: "I can never understand all the fuss you fellers make about your job. All you have to do is pour medicine out of one bottle into another. Carry on, sarn't."
Stooping under the tent flap, his commanding officer left Tug speechless with indignation. This was not simply a colonel addressing a sergeant or a "regular" speaking to a civilian in uniform. It was a calculated insult from a member of one profession to another. It was quite beyond Tug's own experience. But the following morning, two defaulters were detailed by the RSM to collect empties from the NAAFI and wash them to be used again. It gave them a small respite enabling Tommy and Tug to devote more time to their professional activities.
Six weeks after the hospital opened for business, they were given four days' notice in which all the patients were discharged to other units and all equipment had to be repackaged for transit to some unknown destination. The allies were now at war against Japan and the buzz was that the 35th were bound for Singapore. Less than two weeks later, the company were back where they had left nine months earlier, in Colaba Barracks. If they really had been destined for Malaya, they had missed the bus. All their baggage and equipment was unloaded into godowns on Victoria Docks, Bombay. Then it had to be loaded again aboard the TS Rhona, a 7,000ton troop carrier. Tug asked Nobby Clark: "Where d'you reckon we're going next?"
Nobby would have lost his bet. Rangoon fell to the Japanese on the very day when the 35th were carrying their kitbags up the gangplank of TS Rhona in the sweltering heat that precedes the spring monsoon.
Colombo in 1942 was a delightful city with smart hotels and shops that had catered to the many wealthy tourists who visited the lovely Island of Ceylon. Broad avenues, where rickshaws and tongas plied among motorbuses and lorries, basked in tropical sunshine. Streets of elegant bungalows surrounded by cool verandahs nestled beneath the shade of graceful coconut palms. On all sides, gardens blazed with the astonishing brilliance of scarlet and mauve bougainvilleas. At midday on Easter Sunday, carrier-borne Japanese warplanes raided the port. Apart from that solitary episode, the Second World War might have been happening on some distant planet.
The hospital was re-established in a fine new public school for boys. A few hundred yards distant lay "Millionaires' beach" - the local nickname for Mount Lavinia. The medical and nursing officers were accommodated in comfort in a row of civilian bungalows just outside the hospital compound.
"The animals" (as their colonel had named them) were less comfortably accommodated in rows of marquee tents which they themselves erected on what had been the school cricket ground. Beds were not provided. They were allowed to sleep on their groundsheets, under mosquito netting, laid on the earth. Ceylonese hawkers arrived with supplies of cheap lattice beds - strong lightweight cages, like chicken coops, made from the interlaced ribs of palm fronds. Within days of their arrival the South-West monsoon broke.
On an afternoon of appalling heat, Tug lay on his palm-frond bed dressed only in a pair of shorts and listened to the far-off rumbles of thunder out at sea. Large single spots of rain as big as a half-crown piece appeared on the canvas above his bed making a noise like machine-gun fire. A distant hissing noise swept across the tops of the palm trees, becoming a waterfall of sound as a curtain of rain hid the nearby gardens from view. Within seconds, the air temperature plummeted 20 degrees and floods of muddy water began to stream through the tent. Panic ensued. Everyone scrambled to lift their belongings off the earthen floor and on to their beds. Torrents of rainwater cascaded from small rents in the canvas roof as well as fiom gaps where the canvas panels had not been securely laced.
The week that followed was undiluted misery. Nobody had told Tug that the monsoon had been known to continue for as long as six weeks. Fortunately, the pharmacy was situated in a glass and concrete building which had formerly housed the science laboratories. It was the only place where Tommy and Tug could be reasonably comfortable. Whenever they had to cross the hospital compound, their only protection was a solar helmet and a rubber-lined cape-groundsheet. Inside a few yards, they would be soaked to their skins. Tug groaned with envy when he saw the officers wearing their fine English trench coats. Although the temperature was still that of a fine spring day in Sussex, they felt perpetually chilled. The dampness seeped into their bones. The tents leaked and it was always muddy underfoot. At night Tug wrapped himself in a couple of blankets, covered with his groundsheet, and shivered on the hard framework of his native bed until he fell asleep from exhaustion.
It was no sort of consolation when the old hands gleefully remarked that what they were enduring was ideal preparation for jungle warfare!
One morning, goaded into action by Captain Fellowes and RSM Lagrue, the commanding officer was persuaded to make a bored inspection of the other ranks' sleeping accommodation. He defied the monsoon in gumboots and a mackintosh from his Jermyn Street tailor. They waited in suspense for the great man's comment. It came in the tired affected drawl of an upper class male.
"They had better get busy digging themselves ditches," he uttered.
In their off-duty hours, tired angry soldiers dug drainage channels around their marquees to draw off some of the surface water (something that the Indian army pioneers would cheerfully have done). Meanwhile, the heavens continued to weep for them. Inside the tents, buckets stood to collect water from the leaks. Every half hour they needed to be emptied.
Unexpectedly, the colonel left the 35th BGH to take command of a hospital for skin diseases at Deolali, India.
His successor, Colonel Greene, was a stout, genial man of middle height. He was horrified when he saw the state of the men's lines. Within days, civilian brick bungalows had been requisitioned for the entire company. By that time, the monsoon had given way to soft, balmy breezes.
Tom Wilson, now retired, practised as a pharmacist for more than 50 years in London and the south east