![]() ![]() Winnie was very tame, and would follow soldiers around the camp. He named her Winnie and kept her by his side during the trip across the Atlantic, ending up in Salisbury, where she became an unofficial pet to the HQ unit of the Second Canadian Infantry Brigade. On the 24th of August 1914 a Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Harry Colebourn, rescued a female black bear cub. The real Winnie the Pooh on Salisbury Plain Marillier was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) post-war for this work, and for developing the adjustable cots, which allowed for a combination of both sitting and lying patients, thus improving comfort. REAL WAR HEROES FULLIn total, such trains could carry 306 lying and an average of 60 sitting patients, and between 36 and 40 medical personnel.Ī total of 12 full hospital trains were built at the Great Western Railway's Swindon Railway Workshops (Wiltshire), with many of the coaches being converted from passenger types in the coach works department, managed by Frank Marillier, who was also Chairman of the Technical Committee for Ambulance Trains in England, France, and the United States. ![]() The remaining coaches were a pharmacy and treatment car, sitting infectious car, kitchen and personnel mess car, personnel car (other ranks), brake van and store car." The following 8 coaches were 'ward cars' with 36 beds in each. No 1 coach was a brake van and lying infectious ward No 2 a staff car with lavatories, dining and sleeping rooms for sisters and medical officers and No 3 a kitchen and 'sleeping sick officers' car'. heated by steam from the engine, and fitted with electric light and fans. At the end of 1917, the general organisation of a standard train was. In ‘The Official History of the Australian Army Medical Service’ (Vol 2, pp 393-4), Colonel A G Butler notes that by the end of the war on the Western Front, " there had been specially constructed. ![]() The 3-cot system he instigated allowed stretchers to be placed directly on-board, which saved soldiers a possibly painful transition from stretcher to bed. The trains would be used in Britain, to transport casualties back from the coastal ports, or in France, to bring them from the Front to the Channel ports. REAL WAR HEROES PATCH‘Harry’ Patch now lies at peace at Monkton Combe close to his home area of Combe Down, Somerset.įrank Marillier received formal recognition for his efforts during the war towards improving hospital trains - with an OBE and a CBE. ‘Harry’ Patch now lies at peace in the English countryside that he fought to keep free, at Monkton Combe close to his home area of Combe Down, Somerset. He did, however, serve as a volunteer firefighter in World War Two, and even worked as a maintenance manager at the US army camp, helping with the preparations for D-Day. Life at the Front really did end for Harry that day, as he was invalided home to Southampton and, though he was not demobilised until the end of the war, never returned to the trenches. Harry was struck by a piece of shrapnel in the groin, and endured the agony of it being removed without anaesthetic. On the 22nd of September 1917 came the worst day of the war for Harry, the day when a shell burst over his Lewis Gun section, killing 3 of his friends. In the end the kindly bullet wasn’t needed, as by the time Harry had his gun ready the man had died, with a surprised and joyful cry of “Mother” on his lips. He did, however, stop for a young man who was lying ripped open from shoulder to waist, begging to be shot. ![]() In one of the most moving passages of his book, ‘The Last Fighting Tommy’, he recalls crawling past men crying for help all around, both English and German, without being able to stop and help them. There, he watched in horror as men from the Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiments were ordered to charge over the top into No-Man’s Land, only to be unceremoniously mown down by the enemy machine guns. Harry Patch was conscripted in October 1916, and by June 1917, aged just 19 years, he found himself on the Front at Passchendaele, serving as a Lance Corporal with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and operating a Lewis Gun. With him died the living memories of the trenches of World War One, for he was the last survivor who served on the Western Front. On the 25th of July, 2009, Henry John ‘Harry’ Patch passed away at the age of 111. Private 7297 Joseph Viles of the Somerset Light Infantry, first British soldier to die after Britain went to war ![]()
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