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J R Army Med Corps 1920;34:518–22 This paper was published in 1920 and covers the author’s experience as Deputy Assistant Director Medical Services of the territorial forces in the Eastern Division, including the buildup to World War 1 and service at Gallipoli. It covers the issues arising during peacetime training, and the changes occurring upon the move to mobilisation and war. This included the desire to attract volunteers with education and trades (butchers, cooks, carpenters) and the difficulties encountered therein. He also describes the difficulty in officer recruitment, particularly the awareness of the potential for the less successful (and by inference, less competent) doctors to apply, as a way to a career!
Colonel Freeman bemoans the fact that early on, equipment and locations for training were scarce. He also criticises the segregated training and lack of large-scale divisional exercises, with integration of medical units into infantry training, and the lowly position in the pecking order, for resource allocation, held by medical units. He extolled the need to train with units who were dependant on their medical expertise, so as to gain their confidence, and the recognition that line units were sceptical about the medics and their usefulness.
Having regular officers and senior NCOs posted to territorial units as training teams, has been, and remains the tried and tested formula for peacetime training. It also facilitates integration between reservist and regular units on exercise and operations. Recruitment continues to be the main difficulty experienced by reservist units today, but Colonel Freeman’s article demonstrates that this is not a new problem. It is a mark of the man that he had the vision to see this and put forward radical ideas to secure that only the highest quality candidates are recruited into reservist medical units. Are we not going to have the same issues as we move forwards, with much greater use of reservists in general, and in the RAMC in particular?
The traditional ‘inducements’ used by the armed forces, however, may not need to be tailored just towards the individual, but may now actually be aimed at the employer who is going to lose an individual for many months of a year in some cases!
THE AUTHOR
Freeman makes clear his frustration that despite training for years and having a detailed plan for mobilisation, at short notice, the war office, in their wisdom, had suddenly changed the ‘plan of working’. The original plan was scrapped and a new one drawn up and hurriedly instituted. Despite this, they ‘mobilised without a hitch’ and the remainder of the article focuses on the chaos of deployment to Gallipoli. This included working with voluntary aid detachments, such as the Red Cross, and disease prevention by vaccinations and assistance to the local medical infrastructure.
MEDICAL RESERVIST FORCES TODAY The RAMC of today is vastly different to that during the First and Second World Wars, and there continues to be huge reliance on reservists. Instead of dedicated reservist divisions, reservists now augment the existing medical structure rather than represent a separate force. We no longer see any environment, other than the Special Forces environment, as unsuitable for women, even though combat roles are still male-only. Female medics and nurses are now routinely deployed forwards and patrol with their male colleagues. Brigade and Divisional headquarters now routinely have embedded senior medical input which was a novelty in 1915, and rather than being seen as an irritation, medical support is now high on commanders’ priority list when planning operations. Operations being delayed or postponed due to lack of evacuation assets is not uncommon, a somewhat different situation from 100 years ago. i56
Colonel Ernest Carrick Freeman RAMC, was born in 1860 and qualified from St Thomas’ hospital medical school.1 He joined the RAMC in 1887 and subsequently served in the South African War (1899–1901). He was specialist Sanitary officer to the Eastern Command 1904–1907, at which stage he retired as a Major before rejoining the RAMC. He was subsequently appointed Deputy Assistant Director Medical Services (ADMS) (Territorial Forces) Eastern Division, in 1915, and shortly afterwards to be ADMS East Anglian Division in the rank of Colonel.2 He served in Gallipoli and Egypt, being mentioned in dispatches and created CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) for his work. Andrew S W Bruce Correspondence to Lt Col Andrew SW Bruce, Department of Orthopaedics, Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Doncaster, DN2 5LT, UK; [email protected], [email protected] The original article can be found online as supplementary file. To view please visit the journal online (http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jramc-2014-000286). Competing interests None. Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
To cite Bruce ASW. J R Army Med Corps 2014;160(Supp 1):i56. J R Army Med Corps 2014;160(Supp 1):i56. doi:10.1136/jramc-2014-000286
REFERENCES 1 2
Obituary: E.C. Freeman. C.M.G., M.D. BMJ 1932;2:653.4. The London Gazette: (Supplement). 25 Dec 1917.
Bruce ASW. J R Army Med Corps 2014;160(Supp 1):i56. doi:10.1136/jramc-2014-000286
Downloaded from http://jramc.bmj.com/ on August 10, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
Andrew S W Bruce J R Army Med Corps 2014 160: i56
doi: 10.1136/jramc-2014-000286 Updated information and services can be found at: http://jramc.bmj.com/content/160/Suppl_1/i56
These include:
Supplementary Supplementary material can be found at: Material http://jramc.bmj.com/content/suppl/2014/05/20/160.Suppl_1.i56.DC1. html
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Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
J R Army Med Corps 1920;34:518–22 This paper was published in 1920 and covers the author’s experience as Deputy Assistant Director Medical Services of the territorial forces in the Eastern Division, including the buildup to World War 1 and service at Gallipoli. It covers the issues arising during peacetime training, and the changes occurring upon the move to mobilisation and war. This included the desire to attract volunteers with education and trades (butchers, cooks, carpenters) and the difficulties encountered therein. He also describes the difficulty in officer recruitment, particularly the awareness of the potential for the less successful (and by inference, less competent) doctors to apply, as a way to a career!
Colonel Freeman bemoans the fact that early on, equipment and locations for training were scarce. He also criticises the segregated training and lack of large-scale divisional exercises, with integration of medical units into infantry training, and the lowly position in the pecking order, for resource allocation, held by medical units. He extolled the need to train with units who were dependant on their medical expertise, so as to gain their confidence, and the recognition that line units were sceptical about the medics and their usefulness.
Having regular officers and senior NCOs posted to territorial units as training teams, has been, and remains the tried and tested formula for peacetime training. It also facilitates integration between reservist and regular units on exercise and operations. Recruitment continues to be the main difficulty experienced by reservist units today, but Colonel Freeman’s article demonstrates that this is not a new problem. It is a mark of the man that he had the vision to see this and put forward radical ideas to secure that only the highest quality candidates are recruited into reservist medical units. Are we not going to have the same issues as we move forwards, with much greater use of reservists in general, and in the RAMC in particular?
The traditional ‘inducements’ used by the armed forces, however, may not need to be tailored just towards the individual, but may now actually be aimed at the employer who is going to lose an individual for many months of a year in some cases!
THE AUTHOR
Freeman makes clear his frustration that despite training for years and having a detailed plan for mobilisation, at short notice, the war office, in their wisdom, had suddenly changed the ‘plan of working’. The original plan was scrapped and a new one drawn up and hurriedly instituted. Despite this, they ‘mobilised without a hitch’ and the remainder of the article focuses on the chaos of deployment to Gallipoli. This included working with voluntary aid detachments, such as the Red Cross, and disease prevention by vaccinations and assistance to the local medical infrastructure.
MEDICAL RESERVIST FORCES TODAY The RAMC of today is vastly different to that during the First and Second World Wars, and there continues to be huge reliance on reservists. Instead of dedicated reservist divisions, reservists now augment the existing medical structure rather than represent a separate force. We no longer see any environment, other than the Special Forces environment, as unsuitable for women, even though combat roles are still male-only. Female medics and nurses are now routinely deployed forwards and patrol with their male colleagues. Brigade and Divisional headquarters now routinely have embedded senior medical input which was a novelty in 1915, and rather than being seen as an irritation, medical support is now high on commanders’ priority list when planning operations. Operations being delayed or postponed due to lack of evacuation assets is not uncommon, a somewhat different situation from 100 years ago. i56
Colonel Ernest Carrick Freeman RAMC, was born in 1860 and qualified from St Thomas’ hospital medical school.1 He joined the RAMC in 1887 and subsequently served in the South African War (1899–1901). He was specialist Sanitary officer to the Eastern Command 1904–1907, at which stage he retired as a Major before rejoining the RAMC. He was subsequently appointed Deputy Assistant Director Medical Services (ADMS) (Territorial Forces) Eastern Division, in 1915, and shortly afterwards to be ADMS East Anglian Division in the rank of Colonel.2 He served in Gallipoli and Egypt, being mentioned in dispatches and created CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) for his work. Andrew S W Bruce Correspondence to Lt Col Andrew SW Bruce, Department of Orthopaedics, Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Doncaster, DN2 5LT, UK; [email protected], [email protected] The original article can be found online as supplementary file. To view please visit the journal online (http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jramc-2014-000286). Competing interests None. Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
To cite Bruce ASW. J R Army Med Corps 2014;160(Supp 1):i56. J R Army Med Corps 2014;160(Supp 1):i56. doi:10.1136/jramc-2014-000286
REFERENCES 1 2
Obituary: E.C. Freeman. C.M.G., M.D. BMJ 1932;2:653.4. The London Gazette: (Supplement). 25 Dec 1917.
Bruce ASW. J R Army Med Corps 2014;160(Supp 1):i56. doi:10.1136/jramc-2014-000286
Downloaded from http://jramc.bmj.com/ on August 10, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
Andrew S W Bruce J R Army Med Corps 2014 160: i56
doi: 10.1136/jramc-2014-000286 Updated information and services can be found at: http://jramc.bmj.com/content/160/Suppl_1/i56
These include:
Supplementary Supplementary material can be found at: Material http://jramc.bmj.com/content/suppl/2014/05/20/160.Suppl_1.i56.DC1. html
Email alerting service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
