Description
Object description
Notebook used as photograph album containing prints relating to the service of Lieutenant F G Chandler with the 19th Field Ambulance, RAMC, and as Medical Officer to the 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on the Western Front, 1914-1915. For the 19th Field Ambulance there are photographs of the mill at Bar St Maur, where the unit was located in November 1914, and of 'B' Section billets and ambulance wagons in the Institution Saint Jude at Armentieres. Also taken in Armentieres is a photograph of the Field Ambulance cookhouse in the grounds of the Jesuit College and one of civilians at 43 Rue Nationale, who were employed as maids and mess servants. A number of prints also depict the unit's time at Houplines showing the site of an Advanced Dressing Station in a brasserie, shell damage to the local brewery, the view from the Mairie towards Frelinghien, a destroyed bridge over the River Lys at Le Bizet, a group of 19th Field Ambulance personnel who assisted civilians during the German bombardment of Houplines on 6 December 1915 and two photographs of eight civilians killed in an estaminet during the shelling. The album also contains two photographs taken at Ploegsteert showing wounded being brought into the village from Ploegsteert Wood and a lorry-mounted anti-aircraft gun. Photographs of named personnel from 19th Field Ambulance include Staff Sergeant Bean at Bar St Maur, and three officers (Hampson, Harbinson and Balfour - the latter being Medical Officer to 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) in the Place in Houplines.
Covering Chandler's time as Medical Officer, 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, are a number of images showing the battalion both in the front line and at rest. The former include photographs taken on Christmas Day 1914, which show men round a trench fireplace and officers in a farmhouse. Also included are images of men eating dinner in the line, a fire trench showing covers over entrances to dugouts, the Battalion HQ trench and the interior of a Company HQ dugout. Other 'front line' photographs include a view over no-mans-land from breastworks manned by 1st Battalion, The Buffs, and a view of the same position taken from in front of the breastwork (these photographs are dates 31 January 1915). From Rue du Bois, also dated 31 January 1915, are photographs showing Lieutenant Moir (2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) at a sandbagged barricade covering a level-crossing, and buildings damaged by German artillery fire. Similar images of destruction to buildings at Bois Grenier are also included in the album. Other locations photographed by Chandler include La Vesee: a howitzer battery in position, dugout for artillery officers, Lieutenant Scott (2nd Argylls) in support trenches; L' Armee: howitzer named 'Mother' in a camouflaged position; Lesser Billet Farm: Lieutenants Moir and Macintosh (2nd Argylls) outside the farm and Captain Purves of the battlion reading a newspaper. The album also includes two posed photographs set up by Chandler proporting to show men of the 2nd Argylls in action. Chandler's caption states he intended to send these to an illustrated newspaper as a joke to see if they would be published as images of real action. Another interesting photograph in the album show French farmers ploughing a field close behind the front line.
The collection also includes a number of group and individual portrait photographs of named members of the battalion. These are: the commanding officer Colonel Gore, Major Hyslop (second in command), Captain Kennedy (adjutant), Thomas Stewart (chaplain), Captain Thorpe DSO, Lieutenants Moir and Lothian, Chandler (including one with him wearing a sheepskin jerkin), and the battalion stretcher bearers: Staff Sergeant McGiechen, Corporal Fraser, Lance Corporals McKilligan, Tanner and Terriss, and Privates Brasier, Caldwell, Hepburn, Howard, McGill, Sandiford, Smith and White.
