TO camp they came---men from all walks of life and women from the hospitals. They did not come to carry arms, but to be trained to relieve suffering and to save the lives of their comrades who would be wounded and maimed by the missiles of the war which was just beginning. They knew they would have the sick to nurse back to health, and that some would have to educate the troops to keep themselves fit and free from disease.
They were to come to be known by all, and best known to those for whom they were to do the most. Although their main task was the care of individuals, their presence helped to build up morale and their ministrations to conserve the Division's manpower in the field.
They had their share to give in the common on cause. Little did they know that, along with other Allied medical units, they would be commended by Lord Montgomery in Berlin in 1945 as 'those whose contribution to victory has been beyond all calculation'.
When they joined the Army they did not doubt that they would be victorious, but they could not know how long-delayed victory would be---six years, each longer than the last, filled with strangeness and travel, adversity and monotony, joy and success, but throughout which they were to feel a constant sense of satisfaction in their work for their fellows.
The New Zealand Medical Corps' contribution to victory began in the mobilisation camps in September 1939. It was then that the first of the medical units went into camp at Burnham---parts of 4 Field Ambulance and 4 Field Hygiene Section. After them there came into being in Burnham 5 and 6 Field Ambulances, and in Trentham 1, 2, and 3 General Hospitals and 1 Convalescent Depot. In Trentham, too, all the medical units' reinforcements were trained. Other units, such as the Casualty Clearing Station, were formed overseas.
The Corps was a mixture of men of many ages and occupations, some with military experience, the large majority with none. There were some, mainly the senior medical officers, who had seen service in the First World War; a few had served in the Middle East in Egypt, Palestine, Salonika, and on Gallipoli.
There were many, especially in the First Echelon, who had had long and recent Territorial experience. The medical officers, nursing sisters, dispensers, and some others brought with them professional training for the work they were to do. Plumbers, electricians, and mechanics provided other useful skills, and trained and educated men filled positions as clerks, storemen, and orderlies. The medical units required a great variety of trained personnel to enable them to give full medical service under varying conditions, especially when few of the accepted civilian amenities and no adequate buildings were available. All had to adjust themselves to Army life in all its facets and to the most diverse surroundings and circumstances.
The choice of personnel---officers, sisters, and men---was therefore of the utmost importance, and it can be said that in that respect the New Zealand Medical Corps was singularly fortunate.
Newly-arrived recruits were always an odd-looking group in a military camp. Their civilian clothes and habits seemed out of place, but attired in uniform and accustomed to camp life they began to look more like soldiers.
The transition stage from civilian comfort, independence, and privacy to communal Army life, with its roughness and rigid discipline, was a painful process. All members of the Corps, however, soon recovered from the first shock and acquired a notable adaptability during their war service. Eating, sleeping, and drilling together, the men became comrades and developed a unit spirit which was to inspire them to unselfish and sustained work during the long war.
Queueing was to become an Army habit. Recruits were usually initiated into it in their first few days in camp, when they were shepherded along and halted under a large notice ' Camp QM'.
Diffidently they passed through the store to collect, in a cavernous kitbag, socks, shirts, vests, underpants, towels, palliasse, boots a keen hiker might be proud of, mugs, plates, cutlery that dropped in with a crash, blankets and groundsheet, denim jacket and trousers, and then, rather more acceptably, battle-dress tunic, trousers, and greatcoat. The clothes that did not fit at first became presentable after a gradual process of exchange. And when they had broken in their heavy boots the new recruits felt happier.
Then there were the first parades. To begin with, all had their own ideas about drill and how it should be done, but gradually the newcomers were convinced that there was only one way---the Army way. Morning after morning they attended company parades, standing in more or less straight lines while the sergeant-major explained patiently that 'the markers only move'. Sometimes there were thorough inspections by the Officer Commanding or by Company Commanders, and then woe betide the sluggard who had lain in bed instead of getting up promptly and polishing his buttons and brass---a natural temptation when units were in camp over the winter. As a rule, when company parades were over there was quick marching or 'running on the spot' until all were warm again.
Split into various sections they learnt the elements of 'One-stop-two', how to bind up the wounded and tend the sick, how to carry a stretcher or purify water. There were also fatigues in the cookhouses and messrooms.
Lectures opened up a vast world of learning wherein all were introduced to the parts of the human body, how they work, and how to keep them in good working order. Some took shifts at the camp hospital and there were taught by nursing sisters who had joined the NZANS, and who were to wear the grey and scarlet uniform overseas with pride, as their sisters of 1 NZEF had done 25 years before. The men were able to put theory into practice, to learn how to give hypodermic injections by sticking needles into Oranges, how to sponge patients, to make beds, and generally to minister to the comfort of the sick.
Route marches were a welcome diversion. On the marches the men felt they were ' getting somewhere' (although when those at Trentham passed 'Quinn's Post' some thought they were going too far),. It was a release from the monotony of squad drill, and even marching in the rain seemed good fun. Bagpipes sometimes provided the marching tune, but more often the men would sing well-known songs although not perhaps from a classical repertoire.
In Burnham, training in all departments of field ambulance duties was carried out. After men had learned how to tie a reef knot, to apply bandages, to carry stretchers, to understand something about the anatomy of the human body and to drill efficiently, they graduated to field exercises of wider scope to gain some idea of possible battle conditions. Field days were held-near Springfield and Motukarara---during which schemes for the evacuation of battle casualties were carried out. Improvised shelters, dug in and sandbagged to a height of four feet, were prepared for the wounded.
All gained a sound knowledge of the method of evacuation of casualties, and of the work of stretcher-bearers and clerical and nursing staffs at advanced and main dressing stations. Much time was also given to training in field cookery and hygiene.
When the men of the hospital units at Trentham were ready for advanced work, it was decided to carry out exercises as a field ambulance attached to an infantry brigade. These exercises were carried out at Mangaroa Valley and in the Pahautanui-Judgeford area. For actual hospital work, a very useful exercise was performed by 2 General Hospital close to Haywards railway station. Here a small tented general hospital was established. All departments of a military hospital were set up---administration, reception, medical and surgical wards. A railway carriage, representing an ambulance train, was lent by the Railways Department. 'Patients' were admitted and despatched to their appropriate wards, the staff performing their duties as they would in actual warfare. The men spent the night in tents and next day practised the evacuation of casualties.
When 2 General Hospital was in camp at Trentham it had its own separate quarters, kitchen, messrooms, and quartermaster stores, which enabled a proportion of the men to become accustomed to handling equipment and feeding troops. At the Wellington Public Hospital a number were trained in the duties of nursing orderlies.
Friday was the great day of the week. It was pay day, and after pay came leave. The crowds on the Burnham and Trentham platforms would decry the belated arrival of the train to take them to Christchurch or Wellington. On the return journey there would be sleepy figures, sprawling figures, not-so-steady figures, rowdy figures, before all bundled out into the cold black night for the nightmare walk from the train to the camp, trying to avoid the mud and puddles, to find their huts and get to bed.
As the period of training ended and the time for departure overseas drew near, final leave was granted. It was a period of seclusion from the unit and the Army and was all too short, though the sad business of family farewells could not be unduly prolonged. Then came farewell parades through the cities of Wellington and Christchurch, followed, a few days later, by the moves to the ports of embarkation. As the men marched to the troopships the crowds cheered and bands played. On board, after the troops had been conducted to their quarters, they swarmed over the deck to every vantage point to watch for friends and relatives in the crowd on the wharf below. Everybody shouted and sang and gave voice to the excitement common to all. Then the cable was slipped. The ship moved away from the wharf. It was a stirring moment when feelings could not be expressed in words. On the land were loved ones; over the horizon lay great adventures.
Pioneers of 2 NZEF Medical Services in the First Echelon were 4 Field Ambulance, 4 Field Hygiene Section, 18 nursing sisters, and a regimental medical officer for each combatant unit.
The advanced party of 4 Field Ambulance and 4 Field Hygiene Section arrived in Burnham, military camp on 26 and 27 September 1939. The stony fields behind the bluegums on the Canterbury plains were in a rough state at this time. Huts were being built, and roads and areas for parade grounds were being formed and graded. This primitive untidiness, combined with a spell of wet weather, made the camp appear somewhat dismal to the first arrivals.
The officers and NCOs reporting for service in 4 Field Ambulance were mainly from 1, 2, and 3 Field Ambulances of the volunteer Territorial Force, in which the majority had seen several years' continuous service. The officer appointed to command the unit was Lt-Col J. H. Will.(1) Five of the other officers---Majors A. A. Tennent(2) and P. V. Graves(3) Captains J. P. McQuilkin,(4) R. A. Elliott(5) and J. K. Elliott(6)---were later to have command of a field ambulance, and one (R. A. Elliott) was to become ADMS of 2 NZ Division in Italy. Sergeant-Major C. H. Kidman,(7) of the Permanent Staff, acted as instructor, as he did for all the medical units formed in New Zealand and their reinforcements.
For the first week officers and NCOs went through a refresher course at the Southern District School of Instruction. The highlight of this course was the march past at the end of the day's work, the salute being taken by the School Commandant.
The main body of the unit began to arrive in camp on 4 October 1939, the men being accommodated in tents because of the shortage of huts. Included in the main party were men of 4 Field Hygiene Section, who were later placed under the command of Capt B. T. Wyn Irwin,(8) and men posted as drivers; these were later transferred to NZASC and attached to the unit. An influenza epidemic in November interfered with training, claiming half the unit as victims, but the enthusiasm was such that the unit made good progress.
Fourteen days' final leave was granted in the second half of December, all the men being enabled to spend Christmas with their .families before returning to camp. On 3 January 1940 the medical contingent marched in the farewell parade through Christchurch, and two days later embarked on HMT Dunera at Lyttelton. The strength of 4 Field Ambulance, including dental and ASC personnel, was 14 officers and 230 other ranks, and of 4 Field Hygiene Section one officer and 28 other ranks.
The First Echelon had left New Zealand only a few days when the military camps began to fill up again with volunteers for the Second Echelon. It had been decided that a military general hospital should now be formed, a primary object being the complete treatment of New Zealand sick and wounded by their own kith and kin. Thus 1 NZ General Hospital came to be formed; its first members began to assemble at Trentham on 12 January 1940, under the command of Col A. C. McKillop.(9)
These men were the nucleus of the NCOs of the unit. A few had had some Territorial training but most were new to Army life. They had much to learn, but a limited period of five days only was available before the main body of the unit began to assemble. This placed the NCOs and the unit under a handicap at the start---they lacked military knowledge and had but a smattering of the duties which they would have to perform. Yet, to the credit of all concerned, these difficulties were surmounted.
The hospital staff were quartered for a time in tents but were later allotted new huts close to the new camp post office. For messing they were attached to an infantry training battalion, and this arrangement meant that much valuable experience in the supply and feeding of troops was denied to the quartermaster's branch. As many men as possible were employed at the camp hospital as nursing orderlies, and there they were given lectures by sisters of the NZANS.
By the time of their final leave the original assortment of men and officers had become an efficient unit. The keenness shown by all ranks had assisted greatly in attaining this. The staff of the hospital contained many senior medical men and some with long service in 1 NZEF. Three became Consultants---Lt-Col T. D. M. Stout(10) was later Consultant Surgeon 2 NZEF, Lt-Col J. R. Boyd,(11) Consultant Physician 2 NZEF, and Capt E. G. Sayers,(12) Consultant Physician 2 NZEF IP. Capt R. D. King(13) became CO .of a field ambulance and Assistant Director of Medical Services, 2 NZ Division. Maj H. K. Christie(14) and Capt D. G. Radcliffe(15) became COs of general hospitals, and Maj L. J. Hunter(16) became CO 1 NZ CCS.
Final leave was all too short, but on the other hand everyone was itching to see service overseas, expecting that they would soon join their companions of the First Echelon in the Middle East. When the unit entrained for embarkation on the evening of 1 May 1940, little did they guess that they would follow such a roundabout route to the Middle East or know what a wealth of experience they would gain in the meantime. The strength of the unit was 21 officers, 37 sisters, and 145 other ranks.
The Convalescent Depot assembled at Trentham with the Second Echelon under the command of Col F. M. Spencer,(17) whose enthusiasm soon made it a smart military unit, recognised as the best drilled unit in Trentham. It was a pleasure to see it on the parade ground. A full programme of lectures and training was carried on[ by the five officers and 49 other ranks in the unit. Col Spencer was promoted to command 2 NZ General Hospital, and the command of the Depot was handed over to Lt-Col. N. F. Boag(18) before the Second Echelon embarked.
Another medical unit came into being to take 4 Field Ambulance's place in Burnham Camp. Its commanding officer was Lt-Col H. S. Kenrick,(19) and its officers and NCOs underwent a training course between 8 December 1939 and 6 January 1940. The CO was later to become ADMS 2 NZ Division and afterwards DMS 2 NZEF. The second-in-command (Maj J. M. Twhigg [20]) was later CO of the ambulance and DDMS 2 NZEF IP. Another officer (Capt F. P. Furkert [21]) became CO of a field ambulance and ADMS 2 NZ Division.
Volunteers to make up the body of 5 Field Ambulance began to arrive in camp on 10 January 1940. Most of them were new to medical work as well as to Army life. During their period of training route marches were also undertaken, the distances ranging from four to 22 miles.
Final leave was granted late in March---fourteen glorious days---and then the unit came back to camp to be told that, because of shortage of shipping, another month's training would be done. In the last week of April the Second Echelon units at Burnham marched in a farewell parade in Christchurch---down High Street to Cranmer Square, where the salute was taken, then over the Bridge of Remembrance to the King Edward Barracks, where the parade was dismissed. The unit (244 strong) left Burnham for Lyttelton on 30 April and embarked that evening on the ferry for Wellington for departure overseas with the Second Echelon.
The staff of 2 NZ General Hospital assembled in Trentham Camp on 17 May 1940. Some of the officers and prospective NCOs had entered camp a month earlier.
Most of the unit will remember the prize known as 'the cup' (sometimes qualified with an adjective). Nearly all the activities counted for points in the cup competition---drill, fatigues, lectures, work on field days. Beautiful thresholds appeared in front of the huts, 'fancifully ornamented and bordered with whitewashed stones. Dust was ejected from obscure corners of the huts, and hut orderlies, who swept and garnished their domains both inside and out. jealously guarded their work against the encroachment of muddy boots and untidy inmates.
On the theatrical side there was activity, too. A party from the unit staged a concert in a packed camp theatre. An unusually varied programme was presented---sketches, a choir, recitations, piano, accordeon, tap dance, and last but by no means least, ballet girls' with the inimitable Wally Prictor as leading lady.
In charge of the unit was Colonel Spencer, a forceful and vigorous personality and an able administrator., who was later to die of sickness in North Africa. One of his officers (Lt-Col P. A. Ardagh(22) became DDMS 30 Corps and was in the United Kingdom preparing the medical plan for the Second Front when he died. Two others, Lt-Col D. Pottinger(23) and Capt J. E. Caughey(24) became COs of general hospitals, and one (Maj A. L. de B. Noakes [25]) CO of the Convalescent Depot.
On 27 August the unit marched from the train in Wellington to embark on the Mauretania for the Middle East. Its embarkation strength was 18 officers, 39 sisters, and 148 other ranks.
Early in February 1940 25 men arrived in Burnham to form the nucleus of 6 Field Ambulance. They were soon in training to become NCOs of the unit. A month later the commanding officer, Lt-Col W. H. B. Bull(26) with eight other officers, arrived at the School to complete their course of training before the main body was drafted into camp.
On 14 May the unit came into being as a third field ambulance for the New Zealand Division overseas. Though the training was hard and much of it dull at first, the new life was not without compensations. Training as a separate body, the unit had its own block of huts, ablution benches, parade ground, square, and orderly-room offices. Leave at the weekends was generous, and within the camp were several huts and canteens where the men could find occupation for spare time in games, reading, or writing.
Frequently there was a cinema show in the camp and concert parties also entertained the troops.
After a few weeks the unit was ready to go into the field and set up dressing stations under varying conditions. Combined exercises were frequently held with the infantry. In the construction of a large underground dressing station just behind the training school, officers and men wielded picks and shovels with a will; it was dug in trenched sections some 120 yards long and its construction was at times as much a picnic as an exercise. With these exercises came some sense of realisation of what lay ahead, and the unit developed and matured until, when it came to final leave in mid-August, a spirit of unity and goodwill existed.
After a false start, the formation of a third general hospital remained tucked away in the back of the minds of the military administrators until 11 October 1940, when instructions went out to the Districts to proceed with its mobilisation. Each District was required to provide a certain quota of orderlies, storemen, dispensers, clerks, and specialists. The Commanding Officer, Col G. W. Gower,(27) and the Registrar, Maj J. Russell,(28) arrived in Trentham Mobilisation Camp on the evening of 27 October, right in the middle of a trial air-raid alarm---a forerunner of the trials and unexpected events to be faced in the days to come. During the following three days the remaining members of the unit entered camp. On its strength were 14 officers, 48 sisters, and 143 other ranks.
At first personnel of 3 General Hospital were quartered in the main part of the camp, but later they moved to the racecourse and utilised the tea kiosk and the upper part of a grandstand as billets. On 16 November the unit was inspected by the Director-General of Medical Services, Brigadier F. T. Bowerbank,(29) and sufficient proficiency in marching had been attained by this time to evoke praise.
Two days later members of the unit left on final leave. On 30 November, leave completed, it was learned with mixed feelings that departure had been delayed. A 'farewell' parade of all 4th Reinforcements through the streets of Wellington took place on 14 December. Despite this official leave-taking., training continued until 23 December, when the unit departed on special Christmas and New Year leave. This unexpected visit to families during the festive season was welcome, but the strain of saying farewells again was trying to most.
On return to Trentham in the New Year, the unit was moved from the racecourse to tents in the western area of the camp, a move necessitated by the holding of a race meeting. The accommodation provided proved far from satisfactory; tents of 1916 vintage were incapable of turning even a light shower and were quite inadequate for the torrential downpours experienced on several nights.
At dawn on 1 February 1941 the staff of the hospital rose to prepare for embarkation. Everything moved smoothly, and 3 NZ General Hospital left Trentham as part of 3rd Section, 4th. Reinforcements. It was a clear and sunny day and, with the band playing, Col Gower marched at the head of his men to the railway station, where the troops entrained for Pipitea Wharf. The vessel that was to carry them to the Middle East was the Nieuw Amsterdam, 38.000 tons, the most modern of the Holland-America Line.
As the troops went aboard, they quickly deposited their kits in the quarters allotted to them and returned to the decks. As soon as all were embarked the crowds were permitted to move on to the wharf. and an address was given by the Prime Minister, the Hon. P. Fraser. Then, in the early afternoon, amid the cheers of friends gathered on shore, the ship pulled out and the long voyage began.
THE 4 Field Ambulance and 4 Field Hygiene Section embarked on HMT Dunera at Lyttelton on 5 January 1940. The Dunera was a regular Army troopship owned by the British India Line and was used before the war to take drafts of British troops to Indian and Eastern stations. The other five transports conveying the First Echelon overseas were passenger liners---Orion, Strathaird, Empress of Canada, Rangitata, and Sobieski---and on them were medical groups, each including three nursing sisters chosen by the Matron-in-Chief, Miss I. G. Willis,(1) to run the ships' hospitals. The naval escort for the first stage of the voyage was HMS Ramillies, HMAS Canberra, and HMS Leander.
The spacious promenade and sun decks which catered for the former tourists on these liners were lacking on the Dunera, with the result that the space available for both training and recreation was limited. Cabins were allotted to officers and senior NCOs, but most of the men were less happily accommodated in troop decks. Here the men were divided into messes at long wooden tables, averaging from 14 to 18 men to each mess. At night they slept in hammocks slung above the tables. The hammocks were stowed away, Navy fashion, at reveille in lockers in the ship's hold. Officers and senior NCOs fed in dining rooms, where they were attended by Indian waiters in a picturesque uniform of long flowing blue coat over a spotless white gown, complete with a broad waist sash and turban. In the men's messes conditions were not nearly so comfortable.
In their leisure time on the ship the men read books, played card games or 'housie' (the only form of gambling with official sanction), wrote letters, played deck quoits, sunbathed, or leaned over the ship's rails watching the sea. Canteens did a brisk trade in cigarettes, tobacco, chocolate, and beer.
After the men had got over the seasickness induced by the heavy seas as they passed through Bass Strait into the Australian Bight, they began to settle down to shipboard life. When the liners pulled in to the wharves at Fremantle, almost everyone was given shore leave. It was a brief stay, but the people of Perth, a few miles inland, did their utmost to make it a full one and threw their city open to the visiting troops. They took men to their homes or drove them in cars around the city and its picturesque surroundings. They provided refreshments and meals, and in the evening numerous dance halls were filled with the city's attractive girls. Few will forget Perth's warm welcome. Throughout the war this hospitality was given to all New Zealand troops on their outward and homeward voyages, especially to those on the hospital ships.
An announcement on 23 January that Egypt was the destination of the First Echelon put an end to many shipboard rumours. Lectures on Egypt, the religion and customs of its people, and the precautions to be taken against disease in that country proved very interesting.
The convoy anchored at Colombo on 30 January. No sooner had the transports moored than they were surrounded by swarms of small boats laden with a varied assortment of curios and fruit. For most of the troops it was their first experience of native vendors and their wiles. Sales were made after much haggling. Shrewd practices in the boats below drew a bombardment of pineapple tops from the troops on deck---after that the pineapples were sold with the tops removed. Men from the Dunera had shore leave on 31 January, after a long wait for passenger lighters to take them from the roadstead. Most spent the greater part of their leave sightseeing or strolling around the native quarter looking for bargains in poky little shops. Another popular leave diversion was rickshaw racing.
The voyage across the Arabian Sea from Colombo was calm and uneventful. In the Red Sea the troops could see stretches of bare, rugged coastline on each side Eritrea and Arabia. On the run to Port Tewfik the convoy increased speed, leaving the Dunera, the slowest ship, to bring up the rear. At Port Tewfik a swarm of Egyptian hawkers tried to dispose of oranges, cigarettes, wallets, Turkish delight, and toffees. Besides the warnings given in medical lectures, the dirtiness of the boatmen and the filth on the wharf deterred most of the troops from making purchases. Scrambling amid the dirt and refuse on the wharf, small children and adults begged baksheesh from the troops and fought for coins and cigarettes thrown down to them. Most of the men were weary of life on board ship and were glad when orders came to disembark.
When 5 Field Ambulance and 1 General Hospital embarked with other units of the Second Echelon at Wellington on 1 May, they went aboard the Aquitania and Empress of Britain respectively. The other ships in the convoy were the Empress of Japan and Andes. The naval escort consisted of HMAS Canberra, HMAS Australia, and HMS Leander.
At 6 a.m. on 2 May the Aquitania and Empress of Britain moved away from the wharves and out into the stream. It was a quieter farewell than the First Echelon had received. After waiting all night in the hope of a last glimpse of the men going overseas, relatives and friends were allowed on the wharf for a last-minute exchange of goodbyes. The Trentham Camp Band farewelled each ship with 'Roll Out the Barrel', popular at that time.
Rough seas in the Tasman for the first two days of the voyage caused some seasickness amongst the troops. The men were given time to settle down before training was begun, the first parades on board being for the allotment of boat stations and boat-drill practice.
On 5 May the convoy was joined off Sydney Heads by the Queen Mary and the Mauretania carrying part of the Australian contingent, and on 7 May by the Empress of Canada from Melbourne. In excellent weather the troops carried out shipboard training, consisting largely of deck games and physical drill. Lectures were frequently given on medical subjects. Entertainments, including concerts and community sings., were held regularly throughout the voyage.
The convoy anchored off Fremantle on 10 May. The biggest ship of the New Zealand section, the Aquitania, lay at anchor in the roadstead two miles off shore, while the other ships berthed at the wharves. By special arrangement a pleasure steamer, a tug, and a Dutch oil tanker were obtained to transport the men on the Aquitania to the wharf, although it was impossible to give all of them leave.
As with the First Echelon, the people of Perth and Fremantle were again generous in their hospitality. At a number of halls in both cities light refreshments were made available. free to the troops, cars were lent for sightseeing tours, dances were organised, and the men welcomed to private homes.
At midday on 12 May the convoy sailed from Fremantle, headed north-west for Colombo. On the 15th, when the ships were just south-west of Cocos Islands, orders were received for the course to be changed. The convoy then steamed in a westerly direction towards South Africa. Naturally this change in course gave rise to a great deal of speculation on board: whether the convoy had been diverted because the troops were needed in the United Kingdom, or because the ships were needed in the Atlantic, or because of the dangers of the Red Sea passage in the likelihood of war with Italy; there were rumours, too, of the presence in the northern Indian Ocean of an enemy raider.
When Cape Town was reached on the morning of 26 May, the Aquitania was again unable to berth and seas were too high for the troops to be taken off by launch, so with the Queen Mary the ship sailed on the 27th for Simonstown, about 25 miles away. The men on these ships could not be granted as much leave as those on the transports berthed at Cape Town. Here Lt-Col Kenrick left 5 Field Ambulance, flying overland to Cairo to take up the position of acting ADMS, 2 NZEF (ME), during the absence of Col K. MacCormick(2) in the United Kingdom to make medical arrangements for the Second Echelon. Maj J. M. Twhigg took over command of the unit.
At Cape Town everyone enjoyed leave during the four days spent there and all were most hospitably entertained. Just before setting sail once more, eight sisters transhipped from the Empress of Britain to the Mauretania to assist in nursing the Australians, amongst whom an epidemic of measles had broken out. A lighter arrived at the ship's side and, with little ceremony, they were hustled off. It was a very choppy sea, and when they arrived alongside the Mauretania they found they were to clamber aboard , in true sailor fashion, by means of a rope ladder. From the lighter it seemed miles to the top of that ladder. Their hearts sank within them, and with a final look at the ship's heaving side they decided it couldn't---and wouldn't---be done. Kind-hearted sailors finally lowered a bosun's chair and in this, one by one, the sisters ascended to the deck, feeling that medals had been awarded for less hazardous episodes.
The convoy left Cape Town and Simonstown on 31 May without the Empress of Japan, whose troops had been transferred to the Empress of Britain and the Andes. Hotter weather was experienced as the ships headed north and the Equator was crossed on the evening of 5 June.
At Freetown, Sierra Leone, the ships anchored in the stream on 7 June, but no leave was granted. A diversion was caused by the natives who came out to the ships in bumboats and dived for coins. They greatly appreciated the cheese sandwiches thrown to them, but foamed at the mouth when soap was substituted for the cheese.
Italy's entry into the war on 10 June did not affect the convoy's course to the United Kingdom. Between the Canary Islands and the Azores on 14 June, an escort consisting of HMS Hood, the aircraft-carrier Argus, and six destroyers joined the convoy. At one time the ships took evasive action against submarines thought to be in the vicinity, and the destroyers were very active. Passing through St. George's Channel, between Wales and Ireland, on 15 June, all ranks had deeply impressed on them their nearness to the war zone. Early in the morning the convoy passed a large quantity of wreckage, and at midday a large blazing tanker was sighted.
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, 16 June, the convoy arrived safely in the Firth of Clyde and came to anchor at Gourock. The first glimpse of Scotland was magnificent on this lovely sunny day. The sparkling waters of the Clyde, backed by the old buildings of the town, and the rolling downs of the green hills, with an old castle on the point, painted indelible pictures on the memory. In the evening the long twilight softened the colours and added to the allure of the lovely scene, while a rising moon made magic of the night.
As units of the Third Echelon, 6 Field Ambulance (234 strong) embarked on the Orcades on 27 August 1940 and 2 General Hospital (205 all ranks) on the Mauretania. Also in the convoy was the Empress of Japan, and the escort was the cruiser Achilles. Later they were joined by the Aquitania, from Sydney.
On board the Orcades it was a lazy life, neither training nor duties being at all heavy. There were roll-call parades and occasionally a short period of physical training, but it was more or less a do-as-you-please existence, and the ship's two swimming pools were very popular, particularly when the convoy neared the tropics. The staffing of a ship's hospital and a general treatment room did not call heavily on the unit and duties were taken in rotation.
After a neighbourly welcome at Fremantle, the voyagers had their first contact with the East when one morning the convoy sailed into the open harbour of the peninsula on which stands Bombay. The country was flat with a few quaint hill features and dotted with palms and banyan trees. The city itself presented a contrast. Its mosques and domed roofs were Oriental, while beyond the city itself tall, smoking chimneys and factory buildings gave an industrialised western appearance. All around in the harbour and in the open sea were many long-masted dhows and other small craft, and as the liners steamed into the harbour natives in these small boats came alongside to barter, throwing up small articles in ebony or ivory for coins thrown down to them.
At this time Italy had not long entered the war, and with bases in East Africa her air force and navy could prove troublesome to transports in the Red Sea and in parts of the Indian Ocean. As it was thus not advisable to risk the large liners of the convoy on the final stage of the journey to Egypt, a new convoy of smaller transports replaced them. In the new convoy room could not be found for the whole contingent, and 6 Field Ambulance, together with a draft of 550 reinforcements, was obliged to wait at Bombay until transport could be arranged.
On the two-mile march along the waterfront in the tropical heat to quarters in the Brabourne stadium, those new to the countries of the East who took their living conditions at home for granted received a shock. The evident poverty, filth, and stench in many places were appalling, and maimed and starved beggars in rags seen along the route brought feelings of revulsion.
Troops on the Mauretania and Orcades were transhipped to the Ormonde and Orion respectively. The staff of 2 General Hospital were ferried across to the Ormonde and the patients from the little ship's hospital on the sun deck were settled into the new ship. The unit fitted itself with a struggle into Section 11, E Deck---their dining-cum-sleeping quarters for the next two weeks.
Then there was a rush for leave. By taxi and gharry men travelled to the city, sampling the cool drinks and ices at the Services Club, and then sallying forth to new sights, sounds, and smells. Some bought postcards, sandals, shorts, fly swats; others fathomed the relative values of rupees, annas, and pies in the Bazaar---a foretaste of the economics of the Mousky in Cairo; some went past the stadium to the seafront with its streets of modern flats. A tropical storm caught many in its deluge and prompted an early return to hammocks on the Ormonde.
The more crowded and less comfortable quarters on this ship were not popular with the men, although the staff of 2 General Hospital were relatively fortunate in their billets. As a protest against their living conditions and the food, a demonstration by the troops on the Ormonde delayed its departure from Bombay with the rest of the convoy on 19 September. However, the complaints were adjusted and the transport rejoined the convoy next day. The course was then west. Distant land rose on the skyline and the Red Sea was entered. Brown headlands and islands showed up. Mail closed on board---a sure sign that a port was near. On 28 September the anchor was dropped at Port Tewfik. In the harbour the troops stayed until 1 October, with nothing much else to do than look over the side at the oil tanker and water-boats replenishing the ship.
The ten days 6 Field Ambulance spent at Bombay were, for most, very uncomfortable. Plunged suddenly into a hot, sticky. and trying climate, the men were without proper tropical clothing, their sleeping quarters on the stadium steps were provided with quite inadequate toilet facilities, and the food was deplorable, almost uneatable. To make things more uncomfortable, a monsoon downpour turned the sleeping quarters into a cascade. It rained solidly for a day and a half and there was no option but to move out of the flooded stadium. The covered stand of the Aga Khan race. course a few miles out provided dry quarters, even if they were otherwise little more satisfactory. The officers were more comfortably off as most of them were accommodated in hotels in Bombay.
Some delay was still expected before transports would be available, and so, to avoid the trying heat of Bombay, the unit was moved to a camp at Deolali, about 100 miles from Bombay, in the hill districts, where conditions generally were very much more satisfactory. Here they spent another fortnight. Within a short time of their arrival, another downpour thoroughly soaked everyone and everything before the men had been allotted their tents, but it was the last of the rains. The climate at Deolali was much more agreeable than that of Bombay.
After the luxury conditions on the Orcades, the men were not prepared for those prevailing on the Felix Roussel when they embarked in October. This ship was dirty; its Lascar crew were dirty, too, and conditions were in every way deplorable. As there was little ventilation to the troop deck, the men slept out on the open decks, but here they were caught by torrential rains and thoroughly soaked. In the fore galley cooks from the unit made a gallant attempt to provide meals, but they were incapacitated during the first few days of the voyage and everyone had then to be content with hard rations.
Off Aden the convoy was joined by another twenty ships and the escort of armed merchantmen was reinforced by the cruiser HMS Leander. In the Red Sea Italian planes made repeated bombing attacks on the large convoy. They were over almost every afternoon, but with little success. Then, in the early hours of the morning of Trafalgar Day, two Italian destroyers attempted an attack. The cruiser and merchant cruisers slipped off into the night and gunfire was heard well in the distance. Next morning the destroyer Kimberley was towed back to the convoy by the Leander with a gaping hole amidships, having sunk an enemy destroyer, damaged another, and silenced a shore battery that had joined in the action. The convoy kept steaming on slowly and safely.
The Felix Roussel left the convoy to call at Port Sudan for a few hours to take on water. While she was at the wharves, two Italian planes came out of the sun, and almost before anyone was aware of their appearance a bomb had shattered a goods shed on the wharves with a terrific blast and scattered the natives in all directions. One bomb fell in the sea just beyond the water barge alongside the Felix Roussel, shaking the ship with the blast as if she had been hit and throwing men off their feet, while another also fell into the water close by. The experience was shaking, but the troopship resumed her journey unscathed and steamed up the Suez Canal alone to Port Said.
The staff of 3 General Hospital were a small group of 205 among the 4300 troops comprising the third section of the 4th Reinforcements. Most of the unit were in eight-berth cabins on the Nieuw Amsterdam, while about fifty were quartered in a large lounge. Some were not so fortunate, having to sleep in hammocks in somewhat cramped conditions. So large was the number being carried that meals had to be held in three large sittings; purchases at the canteen, wet or dry, meant hour-long waits in endless winding queues.
The voyage to Australia was uneventful, the troops gradually settling down to shipboard life, with its attendant discomforts and advantages. After a brief call at Sydney, with the famous bridge as the main sight, the Nieuw Amsterdam joined a convoy consisting of the Queen Mary, Aquitania, and later the Mauretania. In this exalted company she sailed into Fremantle. Perth hospitality, which by now had become renowned among members of 2 NZEF, was sampled. On the first day in Fremantle no leave was granted to other ranks, but the sisters were permitted to go ashore, provided they were escorted by the CO. Much interest was displayed by all other personnel on the ship at the sight of Col Gower leading a long single file of sisters down the gangway on to the wharf; thence, in and out of various obstacles, to buses, waiting about half a mile away.
After leaving Fremantle the Queen Mary left the convoy to take Australians to Singapore. Bombay was reached on 22 February 1941, and by the 24th all members of the unit had disembarked, the sisters being quartered at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, while the male staff travelled to the Rest and Leave Camp at Deolali. They welcomed the opportunity to visit Bombay and see the sights of the city, but conditions at Deolali were greeted with little enthusiasm. This introduction to other than European modes of life did not impress any of the unit with the ways of the Eastern native. Views of 'The Gateway to India', Malabar Hill, visits to Narsik, or haggling in the bazaars were events to he remembered amidst the vivid contrasts between beauty and sordid filth, colour and drabiness.
Deolali was left on 11 March, and the unit embarked on the Empress of Australia at Bombay. One of the other ships of the convoy was the Nieuw Zeeland---loaded with Australians!
As the convoy steamed up the Red Sea, all eyes were turned towards the African coast. The even tenor of the passage, in fierce heat, was broken on only one occasion by an alarm for 'Action Stations', with a warning of enemy planes in the offing. The alert passed, however, without incident. Port Tewfik was reached on 23 March. Some 74 ships were counted in the harbour, confounding shipboard rumours that heavy raids had put the port practically out of action.