WORLD WAR I - ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS


War diaries of Lt. Colonel O.W.A. Elsner, commanding officer of the 27th Field Ambulance, R.A.M.C., covering the period 7 May to 7 November 1915, 2 vol., approximately 200 pages (mostly recto only), blue pencil, several leaves loose at end of each volume, original cloth, lettered "Army Book... Correspondence Book. (Field Service)" on upper covers, 4to, [1915]; and a collection of other material (see below) relating to Elsner's wartime service (quantity)
|"NUMBERS OF GASSED BEING ADMITTED" - A vivid day-by-day account of the activities of the 27th Field Ambulance during a seven month period on the Western Front, written by the commanding officer, O.W.A. Elsner (1871-1953). Their first major posting, in May 1915, was at Steenwerck ("Sanitation of the village is in a terrible state - the accumulated filth of hundreds of troops throughout the winter is trying here! Drains blocked, moats full of filth, urinals overflowing & running across the street...", 19/5/15), with field trips to Bailleul and Pont-de-Nieppe ("... where an explosion has taken place... several [men] were killed... [including] Lt. Col. Uniacke who was riding past at the moment. I took his body & those of 7 other victims back to Steenwerck...", 27/5/15). Subsequently the unit moved to Guarbecque, St. Hilaire, and Robecq; at each location details of daily events are meticulously recorded ("One of the motor amb[ulance]s knocked a woman down in Bethune...", payments to men, courts martial, cleaning routines, outbreaks of typhus or chicken pox, updates from local dressing stations, messages of support from Earl Haig, concerns over fuel shortages, difficulties in trench digging). At Le Plouy, on 5/8/1915 "Four wounded admitted during night one of whom L/Cpl Kellet... died at 4.50A.M. He was badly wounded abdomen & skull...", the following day "1 wounded retained for C. of. E. re self inflicted wound...". At Gonnehem "a Zeppelin passed over our camp about 11pm. flying very high...", 27/8/15; Cambrin and Annezin notes trench digging for new quarters, studying routes for walking wounded, "...during the night a stream of wounded continued to arrive... some complications occurred in the returns of wounded owing to numbers of gassed being admitted", and "Inquiry re lost Mule but no light on question... personally I think it highly probable it was stolen" (1/11/15), and"Inspected at D.S. Vlamertighe. I saw several cases of trench foot" (6/11/15).Other items in the lot include: "Medical Narrative of Operations, 9th Division. March 21st-[April 27], 1918 [at Amiens and Lens]", 2 typed documents marked "Secret", 10 pages; "Adaption of the Miller-James Stretcher Carrier for Trench Work", an article by Elsner published as an off-print of "The Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps" (December 1917), together with his two original pencil diagrams of the stretcher; typescript proposal for an "Improvised Washing Machine for Use in Brigade Laundry", all three signed by Elsner; small group of "Western Front" maps including 2 sheets for the Ypres region marked up in red and blue ink; Western front ephemera including pictorial Christmas cards, 3 printed sheets ("The German People Offers Peace", etc.) marked in pencil as "from a German propaganda balloon", manuscript poem ("The Mountans of Mourne"), menus; several Army Medical Service handbooks, British forces directories, etc; personal documents (birth, marriage, a group of Royal College of Physician licenses and certificates); ephemera relating to Elsner's being made an O.B.E.; small group of photographs (military hospital, staff groups).