I Was Lucky: Memories of the Royal Army Medical Corps

The Editor

In 1939, at the beginning of the war, I was working in a mental ward at a workhouse, but volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps although my Dad had been killed in Arras in the First World War. I was in France within a month, in a Field Ambulance, although a corporal at the recruiting depot in Norwich had told me “not to volunteer for this section!”. They gave me no choice. An amusing incident occurred when I was in the Field Hospital, there was an outbreak of a disease caused by the lads going with some naughty French ladies and a Brigadier came down to make some enquiries. He asked one young boy where he came from, “Bolton, Sir”, the lad replied. “Would you pick a girl in Bolton and straight away make love to her?”. “No, Sir” the lad replied. “Well why the bloody hell did you do this in France, how much did you pay her?” the Brigadier asked. “Nothing”, the lad said. “Well you got something for nothing didn’t you then!”

I was lucky as I was one of the last to go on leave before the Germans broke through the French lines. So I missed Dunkirk but had to go back to France and was on the last boat to leave there. The Lancastrian was sunk as we left St Nazaire and one of my pals was on board. While waiting for the boat home we had to do guard duties at nighttime. One lad who was also in the RAMC complained as a member of the Medical Corps he should not do guard with men who had rifles, he said if the Germans find us they will shoot us straight away. A corporal in the Engineers said “Show them your pass book then if they shoot you they will get into real trouble”. We helped to load the wounded on to the boats for Britain. I recall one young pilot on a stretcher asking me to light his cigarette, as I did so I could not see his eyes as they were in a pool of pus. The day we left we noticed some of the lads running from the canteen carrying boxes in their arms. We asked what was happening and they told us the NAFFI was packing up and leaving everything behind, my pal and I hurried down there. I dived under the tent wall and grabbed three or four boxes and we ran to our tent to share our spoils. Imagine our disappointment as we found all we had obtained were thirty nailbrushes.

We were posted to Cornwall and opened a hospital in a large country house. I was billeted in a farmhouse in the village. The lady of the house was called Betsy and was a friendly soul but the farmer himself just ignored me. My wife came down and stayed with me and Betsy asked her is she would like to help with a Sunday dinner as she found out Maud was fond of cooking. At home we would have Yorkshire Puddings made in small bun tins which Maud did. The farmer came in, did not say anything, but picked up the carving fork and scattered each pudding all over the room. No one spoke but we felt sorry for Betsy. At Christmas the farmer was not around so we asked Betsy where he was. She told us he had been in the Cornish Light Infantry in the First World War and had been gassed. Every year in the winter he had been forced to stay in bed for several weeks because he could not breathe. I brought him home some Mist. Expect and some Friars Balsam. I managed to get him to take the cough mixture but had no luck at first with the inhalations, but managed it in the end. Within a week he was up and I could do nothing wrong, he told the people in the village I was a Medicine Man, we got on well afterwards.

After four months of returning to England I was transferred to the 80th British General Hospital, which was being formed in Leeds and went to Scotland where I stayed for four months. I went on detachment to a hospital in Glasgow where I reported the Sergeant Major for ‘being unfair to my room-mates for punishing us for something we did not do’. A silly thing to do because Sgt Majors always win and within three days he had me on a charge again, trumped up, but I was given seven days detention. There were two of us and the first night I picked the easiest job, scrubbing the floor of the Sgt Majors office. The next night we were offered the choice of fatigues either in the hospital kitchen or the Company kitchen. I knew them both so said “I had the easier task last night so I will do the Company kitchen”, “No you don’t” said the other lad “I’ll do that”. I went to the hospital kitchen and the ATS Sgt asked me what I wanted, I told her “I have come to do fatigues”. “Well”, she said “There is nothing to do really, but rinse those two saucepans and wash down the sink and I will cook you some supper”. While I was eating two eggs, some chips, sausage and tomatoes, the other lad came in “What are you doing?” he asked. “Eating my supper,” I replied. He said, “I have got three pails of spuds, about forty carrots, and a sink full of onions and sprouts to clean”. I said I was sorry for him but as I was tired I was going to have an early night.

Soon after this we left Scotland on the luxury French liner The Pasture and stayed in Durban for three weeks, then sailed on a Dutch tramp ship, which was a tramp in all descriptions. When the sea was rough the contents from the toilet passed through the bakehouse, the smell during the night was so bad I took my hammock up on the top deck.

We eventually arrived in Bombay but the docks were closed because of the Ghandi riots, my pal and I walked along Quay and eventually found a gate open so walked through. It was like being at a pantomime, you could not move only by going with the crowd. Eventually we arrived at a bazaar where you could buy everything while you waited. A haircut and shave with a manicure, a pair of sandals made to measure, the prettiest girl in India or a present for the memsarb. We stopped at a snake charmers pitch and he played a pipe and out came the snake, then he produced a mongoose which he kept on a chain, it made a dart for the snake but the charmer pulled it back. A lad in the crowd called out “Let the mongoose catch the snake”. The charmer replied “Ki di gig!” I knew no Indian then but this struck a chord. I was up country a week or two after this when it came to me ‘Ki di gig’ is Welsh for “Shut your mouth”. I learned this from a Welsh lad we had in hospital back home.

I had not been in India long before I was promoted to Corporal and a month after to Sgt. I was very lucky as I was on detachment for most of the time while I was out East. First three of us went to a hospital where they had about twenty men waiting to go home because they had mental problems. I took one young lad to see a Consultant and suggested we call and get a cup of tea. There were several patients at the hospital with skin problems, one of the ladies serving asked the lad if he was a skin case “No, I bloody aren’t” he said, “I’m mental”. It was a crime to suffer from a skin disease, as it was so difficult to cure out East. I have seen some poor lads covered with four or five different coloured ointments. When we had taken the lads to Poona we returned to the hospital and the Major in charge told us he had contacted our Colonel and asked if we could stay there as he was so short of staff. He told us he wanted someone in charge of catering, someone in charge of the convalescent Ward and someone in the office. I said I did not know much about catering but would give it a go. “Oh” he said “We have a good Havaldar (Indian for Sgt) who would do the menus, all I had to do was ensure the cooks did not steal to much of the rations.” On the first day I told Corporal cook not to cut up the meat when it arrived, as I wanted to check it. I went away for a cup of tea and when I returned no meat, so I said to the cook “meat not here then cook?” “Oh yes Sarb, but so many rogues around I cut it up and put it in icebox”. I told him I would have shot him but he said, “Who would do the cooking?” He knew I could not, but he also knew I would not be a soft touch after that. He did try it one day, he said to me, “You give me the key to the store while you are away and I will make you a Ramsammy”, Indian for party. I told him “no keys and no Ramsammy, but as you have been so good I will give you some meat to take home”.

One morning I heard such a noise coming from outside the store, I went out and the Havaldar and the cook were almost fighting. I asked the Havaldar what was wrong, he replied “Corporal cook has ran out of gravy browning and I have none in the store, I have told him to go home and get some from his house which he had stolen”, he said “I will if you promise to give me it back when you get some in”. I told corporal cook to go at once, get gravy browning, or I would get very angry. “No sarb, the cook said I do not like you when you are angry”. When I left he wanted me to take him with me.

I went to Poona several times taking patients for their discharge home with psychiatric problems. We always had problems. Once I had three lads to help me, one slept across the door, one was on the bottom bunk, while I and the corporal took turns to keep the peace. Another occasion was while coming back an elderly Indian man walked straight across the line and the train cut both his legs off. I had an Officer with me that time and we jumped down and he gave the old chap a big shot of morphine and of course he was dead in minutes. On another occasion I had to take a young Officer to Poona and had a lad with me whose home was Bombay and when I told him we would be staying the night here he said we could stay at his sisters home. That evening we were there, his brother-in-law told us they going to a party and asked if we would like to go with them. We said yes and we were eating and drinking all night until the early morning. On our way home we went along the sea front and at one stage the driver turned right round and said “This is a very dangerous piece of road”, the next minute we were halfway up a lamp post. We were all thrown all over the car, I hit my head and it was the only time I had been out for the count. When I came round I was on the ground and my face was covered in blood and I was surrounded by natives. As we were not supposed to be staying in Bombay I hurried away, I did not know where the house we were staying at was but awoke the next morning in the bed there, I told them I had walked into a lap post on Poona station.

One morning we were told we were on the move again and I was on the advance party. We travelled about 70 miles and came to a reservoir where we stopped so they could let the water out so we knew our mission was important. We cut down some trees and put up a half dozen tents. The next morning the rest of the unit arrived. More tents were erected to complete the hospital. Next day we were told who our patients would be. They were a special infantry of Americans, a number of them came from the Guarda Canal battle where most of the unit had been killed. This had been strengthened by new recruits under the command of Brigadier General Merriel. I palled up with a Top Sergeant in charge of catering. His problem was his love of alcohol and he was on strict bread and milk every house. One day he was missing and I asked one of the other patients where he was. He told me he had gone to their lines about half mile away to get his beer rations. When he came back I told him if he did that again I would have to report him. Two days after he discharged himself and was back on the bottle again. He came over during the night and made us a wonderful sponge cake in a frying pan. We had a huge Russian American corporal in as a patient and he spent most of his time gazing at a Sister in the next tent, I was a bit concerned and pleased when he was discharged. A week after that I was on nights and one of the lads came over and said there was an American corporal and he was looking for a Sister. I went out and of course it was the Russian corporal and he was the worse for drink. I told him the Sisters did not live in these tents and not to make so much noise as he would wake our Colonel. With that he pulled out a knife and placed it near my throat saying “Tell the Colonel you are frightened of me”. I straightened up to my six foot one and tried to not look afraid but he was about six foot seven and twice more than me across the chest. I did in the end get him to see sense and he went back to his lines. About a fortnight after that I was still on nights and one of the boys said a big American corporal wanted to see me but could not wait and he left me an ankle length fur coat which I kept until someone borrowed it in Bombay.

For Xmas 1943 I decided to form a concert party. I had formed one back home at the hospital. We had about 8 volunteers and someone on the piano, a violin and two Americans who played the banjo. I was compere and gave two acts, one of a local country lad and a parson. One fellow dressed up as a girl singing ‘you made me love you’ which brought the house down. We had to have two shows, some of the American patients had their friends over to see it. I had a letter the other year from a soldier who was attached to the hospital at the time and he said it was his best Xmas of the war.

I had no leave all the time I was out East so I decided to go up to Kashmir for a month. They say Kashmir is next to heaven and they are not far out. The lakes are covered with water lilies as big as pails and the shrubs surround them are all colours of the rainbow. Three of us went and we hired cycles and went to the Shalamar Gardens. This is built in terraces and seem to go up into the heavens. You can imagine the song Pale Hands I hold across the Shalamar being sung amongst those flowerbeds.

When we went into the town there were dozens of people, mostly men, selling gifts, mainly made of wood. One old boy gave me a card which I found rather amusing. It read ‘I am the biggest rouge in Kashmir, my name is Chippendale’. When I questioned him on this he said “Sarb, every other salesman says, ‘ I am honest’, but they are rogues, I say I am a rogue but I am honest”. I have some of his work at home.

We also visited the Prison and the mental hospital attached to this, and run by the Warders. It was certainly an eye opener. The patients were treated like prisoners, one old fellow did not speak but scratched on the concrete in English with a piece of chalk ‘please bring us some food but do not give it to the cooks, they will spoil it’ he wrote he had learned English working on the docks in Bombay.

We met an Englishman who was in Kashmir as a doctor and missionary. Whilst chatting with him we said we were surprised at the large number of native ladies who were having babies. He asked us how we got that information and we smiled and said that we had seen so many with big tummies! He laughed out loud and explained that their big tummies had nothing to do with pregnancy. He showed us a metal object with holes around the sides. “These are the ladies ‘babies’”, he said. They were in fact called ‘sigrees’. Charcoal was put inside and lit and the ladies carried them under their garments to keep themselves warm. I later used one myself in the wintertime when I was working through the nights.

We also visited an island where patients suffering from leprosy were looked after. Although this disease is highly contagious there were many relatives who lived with their diseased loved ones for a number of years. When their loved ones died they were able to return to their own communities.

I have not written much about the front line I was mostly on detachment all over the Country and plenty of words have already been written about active service already and I was mostly on detachment, why I was chosen I do not know. One morning the Colonel had all the senior NCOs together telling us we had been chosen to take part in the invasion of Japan. I said to my pal, if that is good news what to him would be bad. Lucky fur us but bad for the Colonel, they dropped the Bomb which finished the war.

When coming home on the boat I was talking to a Canadian Major and he asked me if I had been with the Canadians. I said no but I had been with an American unit. He asked me who they were. I told him Brigadier Merriel’s unit. They had disappeared overnight while I was with them, we assumed their medics had been replaced. He told me I was lucky, they had been dropped behind the Japanese lines and had to walk for days to take important positions and had been killed or died from malaria, typhoid and dysentery and only a handful had made it in the end. After the war they were known as ‘Merriel's marauders’ but they never received their full honours.

Tom Chipperfield.
Note: I have recently written a book about my life, including my war experiences. The book has proved popular – I have already sold over 200 copies. If anybody should want to discuss my experiences or buy the book please contact me through this website..

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