Turner Donovan Military Books - The world’s finest selection of rare and out-of-print books on British military history from 1800 to 1945
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RAMC   14 Books
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On Active Service: 54th Field Ambulance R.A.M.C., A.T.N. (18th Division) 1915-16-17-18. 1st Ed., 38pp. Norwich: Jarrolds. 1918  #66944
[HLMainPic] A brief history of their movements with complete nominal roll (including attached ASC), Roll of Honour. Orig. wheat cloth, somewhat stained, o/w VG with pencil ownership inscrip. of Pte. J.G. Atkinson 22971 54th Field Amb. France. Scarce. See illustration on our website.   £65
Royal Army Medical Corps Training. 1911. ix+453pp., num. figs./diagrams (several in colour). HMSO. 1911  #67950
[HLMainPic] Training in duties in the Field, care of sick & wounded, first aid, nursing &c. Orig. green cloth, gilt, worn, sound. See illustration on our website.   £20
The 2/1st London Field Ambulance: An Outline of the 4 1/2 Years Service of a Unit of the 56th Division at Home & Abroad during the Great War 1914-1918. 1st Ed., 104pp., portrait frontis., 8 photos., 2 fldg. maps. Morton, Burt & Sons Ltd. 1924  #66927
[HLMainPic] Inc. Battle of the Somme 1916 when thousands poured through their ADS located at Hebuterne (of which there are several interesting photos.) & back to the MDS at Couin. Later at Arras in 1917 & 1918, Third Ypres, March Retreat &c. Locations of MDSs &c. shown on fldg. map. Roll of Hon., awards. Sp. & corners little rubbed, some splitting to spine, original ownership inscrip. on front paste-down heavily obliterated with black ink, generally sound, superior edition bound in full brown morocco, gilt to front. Rare. See illustration on our website.   £95
Two Years After, or Twelve Months of Armageddon: Some Reminiscences of A Temporary Regimental Sawbones 1915-1916. 1st Ed., [v]+105pp. Printed for Private Circulation Only. 1918  #67840
[HLMainPic] Interesting & exceptionally rare privately printed memoirs of "N.D.M." [i.e. N.D. Mackay], serving at a General Hospital in France then attached as MO to the London Scottish (1st Bn. 14th London Regt.) in Oct. 1915. Immediate recollections of service & episodes in France 1915-16 in two main sections: "A Winter in the Loos Salient" & "The Lighter Side of War," the latter in three parts, "At Home & at the Base, B.E.F.," "In & Out of the Trenches" & "In & Out of the Trenches (concluded)." Orig. blue cloth, gilt to front & sp., VG with ink author's initiald to ffep & neat pencil notes of errata in his hand to rear ep. Orig. blue cloth, gilt to sp. & front, sp. dull o/w VG. See illustration on our website.   £245
With the 1st/1st South Midland Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance: Egypt, Gallipoli, Palestine, Salonica 1914-1918. 1st Ed., [iv]+63pp. No imprint/date, but label to rear paste-down of Globe Printing & Binding Works, Aston, Birmingham. [c.1920]  #65951
[HLMainPic] Arriving at Alexandria in April 1915 the Ambulance spent several months dealing with streams of wounded from Gallipoli. A detachment served at Gallipoli as reinforcement to 2nd Fd. Amb., another section served in Salonica (there is an account of these sub-units' experiences in the text) while the main body took part in the Senussi campaign. Roll of Hon., awards. Orig. red cloth, gilt to front, VG & rare. See illustration on our website.   £145
With The Forty-Fourths: Being a Record of the Doings of the 44th Field Ambulance (14th Division). 1st Ed., 83pp., portrait frontis. (of five officers), several sketches, 4 maps, diagram of the method of evacuation of wounded from front line to base. Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. 1922  #66926
[HLMainPic] With the 14th (Light) Div. throughout the war: from training in the UK to Ypres Salient 1915, Somme 1916, Arras 1917, March Retreat &c. Nominal roll (noting those killed & wounded). Deluxe full maroon morocco binding (has also been seen in printed wraps.), VG & rare in any form. See illustration on our website.   £125
[ALLAN (Robert Marshall) Ed. by his father, James Allan] Letters from A Young Queenslander. 2nd Ed. (enlarged), [v]+157pp., portrait frontis., 3 plates, map. Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson & Co. Ltd. 1916  #67122
[HLMainPic] Letters of Robert Marshall Allan (1896-1946), a doctor born in Brisbane, from September 1914 when he was posted to the 9th (S) Bn. KRRC in training at Aldershot until November 1915. After just a couple of weeks with the KRRC - inoculating the men, &c. - he was posted to France where in January 1915 he joined a Field Ambulance in the Lahore Division of the Indian Corps. He remained with the Indians throughout 1915 including participating in the Battles of Neuve Chapelle, second Ypres, the Indian diversionary attack during the Battle of Loos, &c. For several periods he was attached to the Connaught Rangers as MO. Interesting letters describing his experiences with observations on Indian troops &c. His letters were privately published by his father in 1915 & this second edition (augmented by further letters) in February 1916. Both editions are rare (two copies on JISC/Library Hub [formerly COPAC]), both the original 1915 edition. Note: when the Indian Corps left France he proceeded with it to Mesopotamia, the subject of a second volume of war letters published later in 1916. Modern green cloth, gilt title to sp., VG thus. See illustrations on our website.   £225
BROWN (James) Turkish Days & Ways. [A Medical Officer's experiences as a prisoner of War in Syria & Asia Minor.] 1st Ed., [ix]+288pp., ep map. VG in dw. Sydney: Angus & Roberston. 1940  #66093
[HLMainPic] Sleeve note states: "A medical officer in the R.A.M.C., he was captured by the Turks not far east of Suez in April 1916. There followed a painful journey to Damascus with wounded British prisoners who received treatment from the Turkish ambulance & hospital services... the author was taken to Aleppo - thence through the ancient land of Cilicia to Tarsus, Bozanti, Konya, & finally to Afyon Karahisar in the heart of Asia Minor. Here he was interned until the signing of the Armistice in 1918. Dr Brown tells vividly, yet with admirable detachment & restraint, of his ordeal & of the ordeal of his companions in an unsanitary, vermin infested house in Afyon; he presents living portraits of Turks, Armenians, Russians & Frenchmen - and especially of the temperamental commandant and the wily interpreter whose mood and whims governed the lives of their charges." At the time of his capture at Romani Dr Brown was "a very junior officer in a field ambulance, serving a brigade of yeomanry which had been posted to the desert from the Suez Canal in order to guard the railway recently constructed from the Canal to Duidar..." Orig. brown cloth, titles in black, VG in little worn dw. Rare in any form, especially in dw. See illustrations on our website.   £345
DEARDEN (Capt. Harold, RAMC) Medicine & Duty: A War Diary. 1st Ed., [iv]+xi+234pp. Heinemann. 1928  #66128
[HLMainPic] Doctor at a base hospital in France then MO to 3rd Bn. Grenadier Guards from mid-1917 to 1918. "Mr Dearden, a well-known writer, served as a medical officer on the Western Front. The chief fault to be found with his diary is that it is in fact not a diary at all, for the entries are undated. Otherwise it is good. The little trivial incidents of life in a base hospital, 'the daily round, the common task,' are described in an interesting way. The operating ward is dealt with impressively but with dignity. The later sketches of the line are equally good. Mr Dearden writes well & thinks sanely" - Falls. Orig. red cloth, gilt, little worn, generally VG & uncommon. See illustration on our website.   £65
GASCOIGNE (No. 7921915 Staff Sgt. William E., RAMC) Behind the Wire. Unpublished carbon. ts, paginated in four parts, 159pp. in all (43,000 words approx.), 4to (267x210mm), with several small ink corrections by the author, evidently written-up from diary notes &c. soon after the war & including rare & informative of accounts of the campaigns in Greece & Crete in 1941 followed by PoW life at Lamsdorf camp in Germany until liberated by American troops in 1945, reaching Tilbury Docks in April.  #64394
[HLMainPic] Gascoigne, a veteran of the First Great War, embarked with the RAMC Field Ambulance to which he belonged at Liverpool per SS Orcades on 17th November 1940 for the MEF. After a brief stopover at Durban (where welcomed & entertained by the inhabitants) on the last day of the year that disembarked at Kantara from where they travelled by train to a desert camp near Tel El-Kebir where, inter al, their vehicles were camouflaged for desert warfare. In the evnt they embarked with 1st Armd. Brigade for Greece, landing at Piraeus on 7th March 1941. There followed seven weeks participation in operations until evacuated "with the German Army at our heels" & sailed to Crete. Spent three months on Crete until taken PoW during the disastrous & confused campaign, then a further two months there as a PoW of the German. Then moved to a Transitional Prison Camp at a Greek Barracks in Greece before reaching his ultimate destination, Stalag VIIIB (later renamed Camp 344) at Lamsdorf in Germany. From August 1941 to the Spring of 1945 he was at this camp, until it was liberated by the Americans. He finally reached home in April 1945. Some extracts: Campaigning in Greece: "Easter Day, 1941, will always remain in my memory. At daybreak, the main body of the Field Ambulance retreated to GRAVENA, where the 168 Field Ambulance had preceded them. One section, with three Medical Officers, remained at Kaoli, as there were still a number of casualties in the church, awaiting return of ambulances to get them evacuated. There was a fair amount of enemy air activity during the morning, & in the early afternoon bombs were dropped about 150 yards away from the church shattering the windows & causing much perturbation to the sick & wounded lying there. Then sounds of machine gun staffing were heard & within a quarter of an hour, casualties were rushed in to us. The section of 27th New Zealand Machine Gun Battalion had been caught on the road outside the church... with dire results. Several had been killed & others wounded... The Medical Orderly of the Machine Gun Battalion had been hit in the chest by an explosive bullet & it was evident that he would not recover... Easter Monday proved to be another day of remembrance... One stick of five bombs was dropped within fifty yards of us... the experience of the afternoon was both bewildering & demoralising... By the evening the town of Gravena was a shambles. Columns of smoke were rising from burning buildings & vehicles, petrol dumps were going up & ammunition dumps exploding..." Crete, April 1941: "Casualties were brought in intermittently during Wednesday, some by our own stretcher bearers through the Collection Post, & some by their own comrades direct from the scene of action. Our resources only allowed in the main for glorified first aid treatment... During daylight hours enemy aircraft flew overhead incessantly, machine-gunning areas where there was the slightest sign of movement, & searching for anti-aircraft positions..." Stalag VIIIB, Lamsdorf, working in the lazaret: "The Delouse staff were mainly British personnel, with a sprinkling of Germans, & these became infested with the lice. Five of the British personnel of the Delouser fell ill... & were admitted to our Block of wards... Fortunately for the patients concerned, one of the most efficient Medical Officers available (Capt. Barker) was in attendance on them, & his suspicions were aroused & duly confirmed. WE were up against an attack of TYPHUS..." These are but scant examples of the numerous travails of Gascoigne both during campaigns & in PoW camps. This carbon ts copy inscribed by the author "To R.D. Best Esq. With Compliments W.E. Gascoigne" (he was a travelling salesman for the firm of Best & Lloyd both before & after WW2), bound in blue cloth with gilt titles to front & spine (presumably Gascoigne retained the top copy ts for himself). See illustrations on our website.   £500

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