Description
Object description
British nursing orderly served with 15th Casualty Clearing Station, Royal Army Medical Corps in North Africa and Italy, 1940-1944; served with 3rd CCS, RAMC in GB, 1944; served as medical orderly with Headquarters, 105 Reinforcement Group in North West Europe, 1945-1946
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Petticoat Lane area, London, 1918-1940: Jewish family background; social circumstances and means tested benefits; education; work for various wholesale tailors, 1932-1940; activities with Labour Party League of Youth; story of clash with British Union of Fascists and subsequent evasion of police; work on family eel stall; rumours of events in Germany; communal baths; awareness of approach of war; question of volunteering for Territorial Army; basic training with First Aid Section, ARP, 1938-1939; air raid alarm on outbreak of war, 3/9/1939; ARP duties; temporary dismissal from work; background to call up for Royal Army Medical Corps, 1/1940.
REEL 2 Recollections of conditions of service, lifestyle and daily routine during training as 3rd class nursing orderly at RAMC Depot, Boyce Barracks, Cookham, 1/1940-3/1940: reception; barrack room accommodation; kitting out; volunteering for orderly duty; food rations; drill; absence of weapons training; lectures and practical first aid training; PT; question of role of stretcher bearers; vaccinations; canteen; avoidance of politics; question of anti-Semitism; relationship with recruits and story of soldier seeking discharge; relationship with instructors; recreations; examinations and qualification. Period as 3rd class nursing orderly at 14th and 15th Casualty Clearing Stations at Cotham Convalescence Home, Redcar and Highington, 3/1940-8/1940: formation of unit; continuation training; hospitalisation with measles; transfer to 15th CCS; move to Heighington; qualification as 2nd class nursing orderly. Voyage aboard Franconia to Alexandria, Egypt, 8/1940: conditions.
REEL 3 Continues: submarine watch duties; route; visits ashore and relationship with South African civilians at Capetown and Durban, South Africa. Initial period in Alexandria, 9/1940-10/1940: first impressions; duties as medical orderly on troop train; diarrhoea; question of acclimatisation to climate; tent accommodation; food rations. Recollections of operations with 15th CCS, RAMC in Western Desert, ca 11/1940-4/1941: organisation of unit and assignment to light section; movements; travelling in lorries; prior experiences in facial injuries ward; view of columns of Italian POWs; role as 1st class nursing orderly in charge of ward; triage assessment of casualties; question of fatigue; behaviour of patients; equal treatment of wounded Italian and German prisoners; daily routine; requirement to stay with wounded.
REEL 4 Continues: situation during retreat to Tobruk area, ca 4/1941. Period in Tobruk area, ca 4/1941-5/1941: assignment to hospital in barracks near coast; tea; fly problem; food rations; German air raids including personal morale and story of leaving patients to tend to wounded friend; question of lack of promotion and anti-Semitic attitude of officers; sleeping in sangars; evacuation by destroyer to Alexandria. Period detached to hospital ship Belray on voyage to Suda Bay, Crete, 1941: situation; visit to Crete village; embarking wounded; voyage carrying wounded to Alexandria; German air raids; dispute with wounded officer over cabins; conditions; reception on rejoining unit. Aspects of operations in Western Desert, 1941-1943: detachment to newly formed surgical teams operating near front lines; nature of wounds treated; duties as nursing orderly; administering morphine; anti-Semitic attitudes of surgeon.
REEL 5 Continues: loss of kit; rejoining main unit; situation and question of remaining with wounded during retreat through Quattara Depression, ca 1942; reactions to fall of Tobruk, 6/1942; advance with armoured unit, 10/1942; Italian POWs; booby trapped corpses; advance to Tunis, 1943; re-equipment in Suez Canal area, 1943. Aspects of operations in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944: landing at Syracuse, 7/1943; meeting Montgomery during advance to Catania; kit carried during landing at Reggio Callabria; advance to Campo Bosso; disbandment of unit, 1944. Period with 3rd Casualty Clearing Station, RAMC in GB, 1944: voyage back; train journey to Cambridge; prior German air raid at Taranto; leave; retraining for operations as part of 'beach brick'; development of symptoms of shell shock and treatment at rehabilitation centre; question of refusal of permission to rejoin unit. Period as medical orderly with Headquarters, 105 Replacement Group mainly based at Bruges, Belgium and Germany, 1944-1946: role of unit.
REEL 6 Continues: role of unit; duties; billets; relationship with Belgian civilians; daily routine; stories of practical jokes; VE Day, 8/5/1945; move into Germany; demobilisation, 7/1946.Post-war career: return to work for wholesale tailor; question of effects of war service; membership of Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women.
