Uncovering stories of WW1 Stretcher Bearers on the Front Lines

hi my name is Kevin Hicks welcome to the history Squad now today we're on location at the Museum where I volunteer at the SAS 2 Museum of military artifacts hey and we're looking at our little section here all about the stretcher bearers from World War one now they're often regarded as the unsung heroes of the first world war well an ex soldier I've been picked up by many a medic and repair they've never been forgotten by me so but we're going to do a little looking to see what we've got and give you a couple of stories about World War I stretcher bearers now if you go back in the history of both the British and the Canadian Army you look at a stretcher Bearer they were the bandsmen the guys who played the drums blew the bugles their job after a battle or during a battle in fact was to run with a stretcher and pick up the wounded Victorian times it was very rudimentary but come the first world war things had changed your stretcher Bearer he had training he learned how to put on a tour to stop the bleeding how to patch you up before he loaded you onto the stretcher and dragged you back so there is a very big change in the role of the stretcher Bearer but also first world war they're not just the bandsmen or they're not just the Royal Army Medical Corp now you have a couple of stretcher bearers in your Battalion and that's really good because if you're wounded and you're picked up by somebody you know even if you just you know you know his face then it's going to calm you you're right Bill I know your name now I know how important it is to have an army Medic or somebody who knows at least a little dealing with you I almost lost an eye and it was saved for me by an army medic he knew what he was doing he got in there I've actually been on a stretcher it's very uncomfortable but you imagine first world war you're hit you're in no man's land you're sinking in the mud you don't shout medic medic you call stretcher Bearer and it was down to these stretcher bearers without a rifle without a pistol who will go into nad's land under Fire to come and dig you out just interesting it can take anything up to 10 men to get one casualty through and out of the trenches what we have here is a first world war uniform Canadian Army of Lord stoner's horse and he is is a stretcher Bearer and he has no ammunition no rifle in fact he carries a water flask a canteen He will carry an extra one maybe an extra two because I know from bitter experience when you're hurt you get thirsty very quickly especially if you're leaking that blood but he would have carried one of these this is I think quite rare I've never seen one before in a in a museum anywhere this is a bandage bag and it's blood stained first world war so in here he'll have extra field dressings extra bandages and the bandages are quite something because each Soldier carried one just tucked inside his tunic and when you open them there are two bandages well if a bullet goes through you you need one front and back but it's what is contained within this which is important there's a little tube and it's a cardboard vial you have to tease that out then you knock out the little glass bottle that's inside snap it and pour the iodine into your wound well if you've been shot blown up or simply knocked to pieces you're shaking you're not going to be able to do it these guys they literally risk their lives every day to get out into the battlefield into no man's land under Fire and they will make sure you have some of this now I've been doing some reading and one Canadian stretcher Bearer says he was just inundation you stretcher Bearer stretcher Bearer then he was going from man to man and he mentioned how he gave one of them an injection then he moved on to the next guy to plug the wound so these weren't just men who carried the stretcher they had training Tay stopping that bleeding all of this these guys could do it but it's that stretcher you look at our a stretcher we have here this is World War I stretcher it was actually used by the Canadian Army the thing that gets me is some medic has cut a hole in it here that's got to be for draining and it is stained the whole thing is stained awfully and I hate to think of the men the young men carried on that who would have suffered and of course those who didn't make it to the first Field Station to the dressing station cuz that's what the Medics got to do he's got to pick up the wounded guy they've then got to manhandle him through the mud of passion Dale or later on the Su getting back into the trenches along the trench and don't forget these stretches don't fit around trenches trenches are for fighting in so sometimes you might have to even lift the casualty just a little bit High onto your shoulder you eventually get him out there'll be a relay of guys you're exhausted getting through that mud getting the guy out when you're eventually out of the trenches there will be your first aid station there they can then deal with him they can move him on Down the Line we have an artifact here in the museum it's just a letter from a father to the commanding officer of his son who was killed in the latter part of 1916 with this letter you can almost touch the grief so I mounted it and so you can see both sides and what the letter basically says it's a reply to the officer commanding letter saying look your son was killed and here's two pound in that was in his pocket kind of thing and the father writes back and he says when we received your letter it was the first we knew about our son and this guy's been so polite a Scotsman and he he he says um we were really upset because our other son had been killed in 1915 oh my goodness me you read it it literally does pull on your Heartstrings but then he asked the officer commanding is there any chance you could track down the stretcher Bearer for us Who Bore our son from the battlefield we'd like to write to them and ask did our son say anything before he died you are almost touching the grief you can really see how Brave the stretcher bearers were in World War I well of course they're Brave in all of the wars aren't they but particularly World War I the of stretcher bearers that were awarded the Victoria Cross we got one here a Canadian Soldier he actually born in Britain Private John Francis young he was the 87th Battalion the Canadian expeditionary Force he signed up in 1915 so he'd been in the front line for quite some time but he was on the 100 day offensive the final ha offensive as they call it going up the Aras camra road that area on the 2nd of September 1918 he saw some incredible action now I know all about this battle my great-grandfather was killed just a couple of weeks before this action took place now before I go any further I'm going to read from the citation to give you an idea about what this young Canadian Soldier did now the Canadians had pushed forward they were attacking between two towns dra and kuong in northern France the attack was going in but the Canadians found themselves outflanked they were being moaned down by Machine Gun fire from left and right as well as heavy artillery fire and during the attack John Francis young tended to the wounded of his company which had suffered heavy casualties working on open ground swept by Machine Gun fire and rifle fire he tended to the injured for over an hour so this isn't just a spontaneous right I'll go and get one he's under all of that heavy fire for an hour several times he left the battlefield to resupply his medical kit returning into Harm's Way for the sake of the Wounded he then organized his company stretcher bearers and led them to where the men needed their help he did this for at least an hour he then directed The evacuation of over a dozen men the Germans then laid down a heavy cloud of mustard gas and this Brave Soldier John well he was wounded well he lived till 1929 when he died of tuberculosis and it states brought on by the effects of mustard gas may you rest in peace my last story about a stretcher Bearer is about Bill Colman uh North Stafford regiment should I say Bill Colman VC said to be the highest decorated British soldier from World War One well it's very special to me because I knew about coltman VC from a very young age my family are from his villages these small villages all up in Staffordshire in the center of England in fact the first cat badge I ever wore was the North Stafford regiment cat badge when I was a young Army Cadet in litfield in Staffordshire so this is close to me not only that I went to teach some kids all about the Roman army just outside of Burton on Trent in Staffordshire when I look up in the in the hall there there is the photograph of Bill coltman VC and I says to the Head teacher wow you've got Bill Colman VC she who's that I said the soldier and she said oh yeah he went to this school and I said you know who he is well he was a soldier wasn't he in the first world I says Hey when I'd finished she was going wow really so let's tell you about Bill coldman VC you see he was Plymouth Brethren so he was an absolute pacifist but he served he was not a conscientious objector but he refused to kill so he became a stretcher Bearer The North Staffordshire regiment so when I was reading about Bill Colman this uh personal hero I suppose you calling him of mine I find out that he wasn't the highest decorated British soldier of the first world war he was the most highly decorated British soldier of other ranks in other words he was like me he wasn't an officer in fact he ended up with one stripe if I remember correctly he was a lance corporal and he didn't join the Army as a stretcher Bearer in fact although he was Plymouth Brethren he did go into action with a rifle in hand and he was trapped overnight in a shell hole under heavy shelling and he was devastated by the sound of the Wounded who were lying out in no man's land so he immediately volunteered to be a stretcher Bearer put the rifle down pick up the stretcher there was 16 stretcher bearers in a battalion of a say a thousand men 6 weeks training so he would have learned how to you know immobilize a fracture deal with hemorrhaging and guys who are in Shock so it wasn't a case of I want to be a stretcher Bearer he put on the stretcher Bearer armband and went off no six weeks training so these guys were they were the forerunners of the paramedics I suppose so when we talk about Bill Colman this not very tall guy Lance corporal Victoria Cross wow but actually you got to go back to the P 1916 when he was mentioned in dispatches for his Brave work that he was doing and then February 1917 when he was awarded the military medal there' been a wiring party or something going out into noad land in the middle of the night they were working in the mist and the Mist lifted the Germans saw them mowing them down Bill Colman Runs Out finds the officer dresses his wound brings him back in and then you have another military medal a bar to his military medal so he's got it twice August 1917 mortar bombs had landed into an ammunition dump guys had been wounded but there was a fire and there were pistols there were the flares the Magnesium flares were there so Bill actually removes the flares from the fire which is extremely dangerous then helps to tend to the injured and then that night there were guys who are uh trapped in the headquarters that had been mortared so he tends to those and then a tunnel collapses the following week and men are trapped and Bill organizes the rescue party and helps dig and evacuate for for the wounded for that so that's his second military medal or a bar to his mm wow what a guy now in July 1917 Bill Colman is awarded the distinguished Conduct Medal that he's only awarded for conspicuous gallantry what he did was he stayed out all night recovering wounded from the battlefield Under Fire heavy artillery and machine gun fire he then gets a bar the second distinguished Conduct Medal in September 1918 right up towards the end of the war on the sin Quintin Canal the staffords had Advanced a good fight behind them they'd left their wounded and Bill would not leave the battlefield he was still under Fire until every single wounded Stafford man was cleared off the battlefield so after their amazing Victory their Gallant victory for the San Quinton Canal the Staffordshire regiment had France with their Midland Division and it's known as the Battle of ramort and as the staffords are moving forward they're expecting Little Resistance but they were in for a shock the Germans reinforced themselves laid down heavy machine gun fire so the staffords fixed bayet and charged and what I read he says their bayet were blooded but the staffords were then forced back by Crossfire Heavy Artillery as they're streaming back they've had to leave behind the more serious wounded Bill Colman he's listening to the guys who are coming back and he's saying what's the score and he told him that there are men out there so what does Bill do he goes towards the sound of the gunfire can you imagine being one of those guys that's been left behind you've been hit wounded blown up whatever you're lying there just on a little bit of cover you're trying to plug the hole you're in shock and you know you're alone nobody's coming to get you you're going to die then all of a sudden Bill Colman is next to you you know his face you might even know him personally you're from the same Battalion gives you a quick drink from his flask he plugs the holes in your womb braces your leg whatever it is he then drags you up over his shoulders over his back and takes you back to our lines plunks that guy down with the other straty Bearer regimental Aid post further down and then bill goes back out into the gunfire again and again and again in fact he kept it up for 48 hours before he would take a break for this he was awarded the Victoria Cross and I'm going to read the citation to you for most conspicuous bravery initiative and Devotion to duty during the operations at manquin Hill Northeast of seart on the 3rd and 4th of October 1918 Lance corporal coltman a stretcher Bearer hearing that wounded had been left behind during a retirement he went forward alone in the face of fierce enila fire found the casualties dressed them and on three successive occasions Carri com comrades on his back to safety thus saving their lives this very Gallant NCO tended the wounded unceasingly for 48 hours Colman was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace 22nd of May 1919 after that he's on the train home to Burton Upon Trent but he heard that there was a big celebration waiting for him a burden on Trent so Bill simply got off the train the station before to avoid all the fuss so Lance corporal Bill Colman VC survives the war after the war he retires from the Army becomes a gardener for the town parks department burn Upon Trent in the second world war he's commissioned as an officer into the army Cadet Force he lived to the age of 82 died in 1974 he's buried in St Mark's Parish Church in wiill in Staffordshire and he's buried with his wife eleno may I know exactly where he's buried because I took the time out from visiting his school and I visited his grave may he Rest In Peace So just to finish our little video here we've got a poem the stretcher Bearer written by Robert W service who was known as the Canadian Kipling he was a British born Canadian poet but he served as a stretcher Bearer in the first world war for the American Red Cross so he really knew what he was talking about so let's have a read of this quite a sad poem really the stretcher Bearer my stretcher is one Scarlet stain and as I tries to scrape it clean I tell you what I'm sick with pain for all I've heard for all I've seen around me is the ellish KN and as the war's red Rim I trace I wonder if in Heaven's height I God don't turn away his face I don't care whose the crime may be I holds no brief for kin or Clan I IMS no eight I only see as man destroys his brother man I waves no flag I only know as ear besides the dead I wait a million Arts is weighed with woe a million OHS is desolate in Dripping Darkness far and near all night I've sought them woeful ones Dawn shuts up and still I hear the Crimson chorus of the guns look like a ball of blood the sun hangs over the scene of WTH and wrong quick stretcher bearers On The Run oh Prince of Peace how long how long well I hope you enjoyed that video of ours having a little look into the stretcher bearers of World War I brave people for sure now if you enjoyed the video like share and subscribe and if you'd like to support the channel further why not have a look at joining our patreon community the link is in the description now before I go I've got some names written down here of some of our patreon members so this is a big thanks to these people Alex Wilson Christopher Harrison CJ s hey guys thanks a million without your support I couldn't do half of this so bye for now for