'Stretcher-bearers': (2) The Beginnings with some accounts of Joining up

11 Field Ambulance, RAMC: The Beginnings

"Mob Stn.. 9 Coy. Colchester
1st BEF contingent Dep. So'ton 30/9/39
Arrived Cherbourg 1/10/39
9/5/40 Tourcoing 4 Div II Corps

Locations 12/39 France.
12/40 Christchurch
12/41 Aldershot
12/42 ???
12/43 North Africa
12/44 Cent. Med. Italy"
This was the laconic army reply to a request for information about 11 Field Ambulance. Two personal accounts of the early days of the unit follow.

Joining up: some accounts

Account of H.A.B. White

Between the ages of ten to fourteen as a choirboy from 1930-34, I came to see plenty of First World War veterans. Every year our choir would make its procession to sing at the London Cenotaph. There were also our services in Westminster Abbey, when war veterans, their medals clinking, would fill the pews.
Like thousands of others in 1939, I was about to go up to Cambridge when war was declared on September 3rd, 1939. The new term started in October. In general, third year undergraduates, those about to enter reserved occupations and women were advised to complete their studies. The rest of us were to continue studying for the time being and expect to join the forces as required.
Recruiting centres sprang up and many of us had enlisted before a year had passed.
I knew exactly where I wanted to serve and opted for the Royal Army Medical Corps, applying for a Field Ambulance unit, which seemed to offer useful, positive work.
. At the age of sixteen I had met an owner of a Victoria Cross, Private Samuel Vicery. He won his VC for "bringing in a wounded comrade" back in 1897.
When I first met him, he was serving as a doorman at Cardiff main post office.
Two of my uncles, both doctors, had served in RAMC Field Ambulances in the First World War and I remembered being annoyed on learning that the wartime diary of one of them had been thrown out with the rubbish when my grandparents' house in Portsmouth was being demolished to make way for an electricity power station. Come what might, I would keep a wartime diary.
At the recruiting centre in late 1939, the presiding clergyman strongly advised me to join the Royal Army Service Corps. He explained that there were better chances of promotion than in the Medical Corps, where most commissioned officers were qualified doctors. I had already wrestled long over the problem and its implications.. Eventually he realised that I was adamant and recommended me for a Field Ambulance unit which I joined in August 1940.

Account of George Gordon

George Gordon who served in 11 Field Ambulance from before the war started until after it finished in Austria.

I was a student male nurse at Derby Mental Hospital On June 15th 1939 I attended for an interview and physical examination and was told I could train with the R.A.M.C.
On July 15th, 1939 I was called up for six months'' military training and reported to the R.A.M.C. Barracks, Crookham Camp, Aldershot.
Seven weeks later war was declared. We were digging air raid shelters in the officers' quarters. We just threw down our picks and shovels into the trenches and went back to our huts. We had learnt to salute with our left hands when carrying sandbags on our right shoulders!
The following Monday we appeared before the training officer who told us we would be posted the next day as near to our homes as possible. I and several others were posted to 20 Company, Tidworth.
For ten days I worked in the operating theatre until all militia lads were posted to Colchester, where in September 11 Field e was being formed.
Most of the company commanders were regulars, but some general practitioners had joined the unit. All the clerks and cooks were regulars. Most of the N.C.O.s were also regulars, except for a few territorials.
No-one seemed to want the militia boys, but eventually the B Coy commander said he would take them. Hence we formed most of B Coy.

Account of Donald MacKenzie

Donald Mackenzie served in Eleven Field Ambulance, R.A.M.C., from 15.12.39 until after the war in Europe finished in Austria, 1945.

I was conscripted into the army on 15.12.39 and sent to the RAMC training depot at Newbattle Abbey, near Edinburgh.
I passed out of recruit training on 20.2.40 and was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force. We sailed from Southampton to Le Havre and thence to a holding area near Nantes.
While there and waiting for posting to a unit we underwent the usual army routine: parades, route marches, P.E. and certainly plenty of spud peeling.. I recall a long, tedious journey in a French railway truck, well known to both First and Second World War troops, proclaiming accommodation for "huit chevaux ou quarante hommes", and was eventually posted to 11 Field Ambulance.

Account of W. Laverack

I joined the TA (Territorial Army) 150 Field Ambulance, 50 Division, in May, 1939 and was called up on September 1, 1939.
15 of us were too young to go to France, so we were sent to a CCS (Casualty Clearing Station) in Durham for about two weeks. Then we were posted to different places in Scotland.
In September, 1940, I went across to Aberdeen for about a year, running an MI (Medical Inspection) Room and Sick Bay.
After a spell in Edinburgh Castle I joined 11 Field Ambulance at Alloa and were then on our way for the landing at Algiers, 8 November, 1942.

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