R.A.M.C.

Does anyone know iwhere there is a nominal roll of RAMC personell who assisted in the recovery of victims of Concentration camps, It could be narrowed down to the 11th Armoured Div.

regards to all
max

 

was it personnel or the specific uits that you were looking for ?

you could ask at the AMS museum
Pete Starling, the curator, may be able to help.

Other options

contact the belsen memorial, The Bergen-Belsen Memorial or
Colin who runs the Hohne camp museum, or
2 Medical Regiment RAMC in Hohne Camp - they have a history folder that has some info on the units there from 1945 onwards

 

11 Armoured Division RAMC units listed from June 44 to May 45

18th Light Field Ambulance RAMC
179th Light Field Ambulance RAMC
7th Field Dressing Station RAMC
Field Hygiene Section RAMC

However, on doing a quick 'Google' I found the following which suggests that units were also brought in from elsewhere.

The Relief Operation ~April 1945 - June 1945

It became immediately apparent that the liberation of the two concentration camps at Bergen-Belsen would provide the British Army with a humanitarian problem of the kind it had never before encountered. In total the main concentration camp (Camp No.1) and the overflow camp in the Bergen-Belsen (Hohne) Wehrmacht barracks (Camp No.2) would provide 45,000 disease-ridden and starving prisoners for whom the British would need to provide immediate care. The very poor condition of the barracks in Camp No.1 meant that over the next few months the Wehrmacht barracks at Bergen-Belsen (Hohne) would need to become one massive hospital complex to accommodate the survivors.

Turning the barracks into a hospital was a task that would fall to the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC),various voluntary relief organizations, inmates with medical experience and to German doctors and nurses. Brigadier Llewelyn Glyn-Hughes, Deputy Director of Medical Services (DDMS), Second Army, was to take control of the relief operation. He had arrived at Camp No.1 with the liberating British Army units on 15th April 1945, and, realising that the situation was beyond the resources of these units, dispatched a message to VIII Corps Headquarters asking for immediate medical aid.

RAMC units were ordered to the camp and appeals were made to the Red Cross and United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA). The front line was still only a few kilometres away and it took a couple of days for the RAMC units to arrive. So it was on the 17th April 1945, 32 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS), 11 Light Field Ambulance (LFA) and 30 Field Hygiene Section (FHS) arrived to make a start on this huge task.

That evening, the first of the many conferences took place between the heads of the various medical units and organizations. Lt. Col. Johnstone RAMC, (CO 32 CCS), Lt. Col. Gonin, RAMC, (CO 11 LFA), and Major Fox RAMC, (CO 30 FHS) were to decide how the evacuation of those in Camp No.1 would proceed, and assign duties to the units involved.

It was decided that 11 Field Ambulance would be charged with seeing to the evacuation of the very sick from Camp No.1 to the new hospitalisation area in the Wehrmacht barracks, to nurse and feed all inmates in Camp No. 1 until ready to evacuate, and the removal of the dead from all hospital areas. 32 CCS would oversee the cleaning and setting up of the new hospital areas, and take care of the sick once accommodated in the new hospital areas. They would also recruit doctors and nurses from the inmates and oversee the Hungarian Army personnel who were present in the barracks when they were liberated.

Under the terms of the truce between the German and British armies of 15th April 1945, all Wehrmacht troops were to return to their own lines on 20th April, they were under instructions to leave the barracks in full working order. However, there was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the camp's water supply and this postponed the evacuation of Camp No.1 for 24 hours.

On 21st April 1945 the evacuation of Camp No.1 finally began. Inmates moved into the newly established hospital blocks or clean barrack accommodation. While the evacuation was in progress, efforts were made to improve conditions for the thousands forced to remain until space became available for them in the hospitals. As each hut was cleared it was burnt down in an effort to rid the area of Typhus.

The evacuation procedure began when inmates were picked by Medical Officers, who by sight would choose those they thought would be the most likely to survive. Those chosen had their forehead marked so that the stretcher-bearers would know who to take. Once chosen the inmates would be stripped naked and their clothes burnt. Then wrapped only in a blanket they would be taken from Camp No.1 by ambulance to the Wehrmacht barracks. On arrival, they were taken to what became known as the "Human Laundry". The "laundry" was set up in one of the former cavalry stables and was staffed by sixty German nurses and orderlies from the military hospital, all under the supervision of No.7 Mobile Bacteriological Laboratory. Here the inmates would be thoroughly cleaned in order to rid them of the typhus-carrying lice. Hair was shaved; bodies were scrubbed clean and then dusted liberally with DDT powder. Once this was completed, the inmates would be taken to the hospital accommodation. In the course of the twenty-six days it took to evacuate Camp No.1, over 11,000 patients were dealt with.

The barracks were designated Camp No.2 and Camp No.3. The main hospital area would be situated in Camp No.2, whose squares containing five blocks would accommodate approximately 700 patients. Each square was under the control of one RAMC Officer. Each block within the square would have one UK or Swiss volunteer, internee or German doctor in charge. Each square would have only one or two British nurses with the remainder being made up of internee or German nurses. The patients housed in these squares were in the main treated for starvation.

On 22 April, 1945, Colonel V P Sydenstricker, Head of the nutrition section of UNRRA Health Division, Dr C N Leach of the Rockerfeller Foundation and senior RAMC Officers from 21st Army Group visited Belsen to confer on the best way to organise the treatment of inmates suffering from starvation. Supplying food for the prisoners was not the main problem but supplying the correct type of food was. The normal diet of the British soldier was too rich for the inmates and in the very early days of liberation probably killed many of the prisoners.

It was decided that to deal with this problem, one team under Dr Janet Vaughan from the Medical Research Council and another led by Dr A P Meiklejohn of UNRRA were sent to Camp No. 2. Their solution to the dietary problem was to administer the patients with the Bengal Mixture. This had been used as relief during famines in India and consisted of dried milk, flour, sugar and molasses.

Camp No.3 was to accommodate 8000, made up of relatively healthy inmates who were able to walk and generally look after themselves. This was situated in the blocks towards the northern end of the barracks. Pregnant women and children were sent to the Children's Hospital that was located in the RB blocks. RB 5 was the gynaecological hospital, while RB6 and RB7 were used to house maternity patients, sick children and the many orphans that survived.

The building which housed the Offiziers Casino (Officers Mess) and which became known as the Roundhouse was pressed into service as a makeshift hospital. Once made ready it was used for the care of advanced cases of pulmonary TB patients who were suffering from Typhus. Packed into every spare space, the Roundhouse, including corridors, cloakrooms and even the Grand Ballroom became a 300-bed hospital ward.

Outside the camp on the west side was a military hospital. The 1200 German military patients found there on liberation were quickly evicted to other local hospitals. One wing was soon opened to care for the British and other medical personnel who contracted typhus in the course of helping the inmates. In time the other wards were opened up and held over 2000 patients, squeezed into every available space. This soon became known as the Glyn Hughes Hospital.

While the death rate continued at between 400 to 500 per day for the first couple of weeks after liberation, the hard work put in by the military medical units and civilian relief organizations soon managed to put this into reverse, and by the 11th May, 1945 the rate was down to below 100 per day. Evacuation of Camp No.1 was completed on 19th May 1945, all former inmates now housed in Camps No.2 and.3. A ceremony took place on 21st May 1945 at Camp No.1 where the last prisoners' barrack block was burnt to the ground marking the end of the first phase of the relief operation.

By June 1945 the Bergen-Belsen barracks had become a Displaced Persons' camp with a largely Jewish population. Over the following years, the barracks housed a self-governing Jewish community, which was the largest in the British Zone of occupied Germany. Part IV of this history of Bergen-Hohne will look at how these survivors lived and created a flourishing cultural life within the camp.

Was Canadian Army unit at Bergen-Belsen?

Phil

 

was it personnel or the specific uits that you were looking for ?

you could ask at the AMS museum
Pete Starling, the curator, may be able to help.

Other options

contact the belsen memorial, The Bergen-Belsen Memorial or
Colin who runs the Hohne camp museum, or
2 Medical Regiment RAMC in Hohne Camp - they have a history folder that has some info on the units there from 1945 onwards
Thanks for info, most helpfull .I will get on to that. The reason for the search is to find out where the Man whos medals I have worked at that time.

 

Thanks Phil for the detailed reply, max

 

Max, glad to be of help. If you post the individuals comppany / regiment details, someone may be able to help more.

P

 

Max, glad to be of help. If you post the individuals comppany / regiment details, someone may be able to help more.

P
Hi Phil Details are 7518735 Sgt Daniel Alexander STALKER . His paybook has record of employmet as an Army Tradesman, but its just numbers and letters

 

Max, not much to go one, but it may be worth giving these guys a try

AMS Museum - Research
Home

 

Max, not much to go one, but it may be worth giving these guys a try

AMS Museum - Research
Thanks Phil will Scan the Photos I have ,and see what I can find out there , one which has writing on the back relating to a concentration camp near Hamburg called ( by what I can make out of the writing) Samsbostel. I cant find it on the Camp lists. The photos are original enough

 

Max, Sandbostel was subcamps of Neuengamme, which was the name of the main Hamburg Camp.

Also know as Stalag XB

Dokumentations- und Gedenkstätte Sandbostel e.V.

From what I can see, the camp was first attended by the following units.

168 Field Ambulance
No. 31 Field Hygiene Section
10th British Casualty Clearing Station

 

Max, Sandbostel was subcamps of Neuengamme, which was the name of the main Hamburg Camp.

Also know as Stalag XB

Dokumentations- und Gedenkstätte Sandbostel e.V.

thats good info . will look further
max

 

Hi,

My late mother, MARY JOYCE PAUL was a nurse (possibly auxilliary) with the ATS, attached to the RAMC during WWII. She trained at Pontefract, Yorkshire and then was billeted in Cossington, nr Bridgwater, Somerset, before being sent to work at Southmead Hospital, Bristol. She originally came from Manchester, Lancs.

Can anyone advise me where I can get information regarding her training? Why would she have been sent to Cossington, Bridgwater - was there a barracks, etc nearby? She could not have commuted to Bristol every day, but I am curious what was at Cossington - seing as its in the middle of nowhere!

Any information gratefully received!

 

Would anyone know if the 3rd British Division was involved in Belsen? The RAMC part of this division in particular?
Thanks