Description
Object description
British civilian trolleybus driver in Ipswich, GB, 1939-1943; private served as stretcher-bearer with 11th Light Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps in North West Europe, 6/1944-5/1945 including liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1945-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in GB, 1914-1939; family; childhood; employment with engineering firm; joining Royal Army Medical Corps unit in Territorial Army, 1930 including attending training camps and promotions. Aspects of period as trolleybus driver in Ipswich, GB, 1939-1943: question of Reserved Occupation as trolleybus driver on outbreak of Second World War, 3/9/1939; effect of war on bus services and recruitment of women; German air raids on Ipswich; duties as firewatcher and with Suffolk Home Guard. Aspects of period as stretcher bearer with 11th Light Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps in GB, 1943-1944: call-up to Royal Army Medical Corps, 1943; training and preparations for landings in Normandy, France, 1944.
REEL 2 Continues: five day training exercise at Petworth House and review of parade by King George VI, Generals Bernard Montgomery and Dwight D Eisenhower; opinion of General Bernard Montgomery; story of friend Private George Hogan's premonition of death. Recollections of operations as stretcher-bearer with with 11th Light Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps in North West Europe, 6/1944-4/1945: crossing English Channel and landing on Sword Beach, Normandy, France, D-Day, 6/6/1944; conditions and treatment of casualties on Sword Beach, Normandy, France, D-Day, 6/6/1944; reason for not displaying Red Cross on vehicles; types of wounds treated; friendly fire incident; story about British soldier's act of retribution; summary of movements through France, Belgium and Netherlands; burial of dead; treating wounded in the Falaise Gap, Normandy, France and the Ardennes, Belguim.
REEL 3 Continues: description of artillery barrage and crossing of River Rhine at Wesel, Germany, 3/1945; reaction of British troops to destruction of Wesel, Germany; move to camp at Osnabruck, Germany; duties in cook house; attitude to rumours about German concentration camps. Aspects of period as stretcher-bearer with 11th Light Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1945-5/1945: arrival at camp and setting up facilities; story of friend Private Frank Phillips being killed when unit was strafed by German Air Force, 21/4/1945; layout of camp; entering camp against orders; conditions in camp and removal of dead; story of carrying three bodies on a stretcher due to emaciated condition; effect on troops of working in camp; state of health of surviving inmates; reaction of inmates to seeing film about camp; incident of British troops shooting German civilian at Bergen; story of British troops being ordered to stop killing Germans in camps.
REEL 4 Continues: reaction of local population to liberating troops; burning of huts in camp, 21/5/1945. Reflections on service in Second World War: post-war visits to France and Belgium; story about troops being given set of memorial photographs after liberating Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany; story of being asked to speak in schools about experiences at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany; service in Norway, 1945; opinion of work of Brigadier Hugh Glyn Hughes at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany.