Description
Content description
Bound ts transcription (347pp, 2002) of his letters (July 1940 – July 1944) and diaries (August 1941 – June 1943) as a Medical Officer (Harrow and Oxford University) with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in Greece, India and the Middle East July 1940 – July 1944), including the voyage on the QUEEN MARY from the UK to Trincomalee in Ceylon via Cape Town in South Africa, and then on the KARAGOLA to Bombay in India and then to Palestine (July 1940 – August 1940); active service with the 26th General Hospital at Sarafand, Jerusalem and Netanya in Palestine (September 1940 – November 1940); Kephissia near Athens in Greece (December 1940 – April 1941), and the evacuation to and temporary attachment to the 7th General Hospital on Crete (April 1941 – May 1941); the evacuation to Cairo (May 1941); service with the 12th General Hospital near Jaffa in Palestine (June 1941 – July 1941); active service with the 61st General Hospital on the voyage from Palestine to Bombay, India (July 1941), including the journey across India to Calcutta for a Himalayan trek (August 1941) and the voyage in the LANCASHIRE from Bombay to Basra, Iraq (September 1941 – October 1941), and at Shuaiba in Iraq (October 1941 – December 1941); taking over the medical wards of the 26th Combined General Hospital at Ahwaz in Iran (December 1941 – April 1942); 21st Combined General Hospital in Dezful, Iran (April 1942); 34th Combined General Hospital (PAI Force) in Tehran and Meshed, Iran (April 1942 – December 1942), including acting as medical liaison officer to the Polish refugee staff and as physician to the consulate staff; his journey from Iran to the Lebanon (December 1942); an Instructor with the Middle East Ski School at the Hôtel des Cedars above the village of Becharré in the Lebanon (January 1943 – May 1943) and the Mountain Warfare Training Centre at the Cedars in the Lebanon (May 1943 - June 1943); 140th Field Ambulance in Egypt (June 1943 – July 1940); attached to HQ 4th Armoured Brigade (July 1943) and the 44th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) (August 1943 – September 1943) in Sicily; Physiologist with the Mountain Wing, Mountain Warfare Training Centre at the Cedars in the Lebanon (November 1943 – July 1944); and commenting on life on a troopship; army life, notably his duties and routine, his pay and allowances, his fellow officers (including Indian officers), the nurses, the rations, the conditions, exercises, inspections and his off duty entertainment including cabarets, cinema, climbing, concerts, dining, ENSA shows (Alice Delysia and Harry Robbins), reading, riding, shooting, shows (notably Josephine Baker), sightseeing, skiing, sport; the improvements made by Jewish settlers in Palestine; domestic news; his patients and their treatment; dealing with skin cases and VD which was "a serious problem" and setting up a licensed brothel to cut down the incidence; shortages of medicines; the Greek fear of fifth columnists; the Larissa earthquake; German air raids; treating the wounded including German prisoners of war (POWs); an epidemic of dysentery amongst British troops; an outbreak of typhus amongst Polish troops; life in the desert; scorpions; the mail; celebrating Christmas; religion; the experiences of Poles who had been held in Russia, notably the camps in Siberia; relations with the Russian troops in Iran; the local populations of India, Iran, the Lebanon and Sicily; the corruption in Iran; suffering from sand fly fever and dysentery; the poor physique of the infantry who come "from the slums of the great industrial cities"; the German occupation of Norway and Greece; life in India; his attitude towards the bombing of Germany; food riots in Tehran; and the progress of the war; and mentioning the treatment and death of General Ioannis Metaxas; a visit by Anthony Eden.
History note
Cataloguer SNR
