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Thread: World War 1 - 51st (Highland) Division

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Thurso, Caithness
    Posts
    160

    Default World War 1 - 51st (Highland) Division

    Hello all,

    I thought that some of you may be interested in reading this extract from a book by Colonel David Rorie, D.S.O., M.D., who wrote about his experiences serving with the R.A.M.C. as part of the Field Ambulance assigned to the 51st (Highland) Division during World War 1. I was interested in finding out more about what the 5th Seaforth Highlanders did during the war, and after having read the War Diary of the unit found numerous mentions of the men being at "Divisional Baths". This short piece gives an interesting outline of what that entailed for the men. The extract is included below and was written about the time spent at Estaires, France in 1915:-

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    Here, too, one of our officers, with the requisite staff, was detailed to institute and look after Divisional Baths, as trench life with its mud and the impossibility of changing shirts, underclothing, etc., resulted in the troops being attacked by “undesirables”; while billet life rarely furnished an adequate supply of water for complete private bathing. Every one who was la-bas will remember the familiar scene in the rest areas,

    …A simmer’s day, the auld barn wi’
    The orchard at the back.

    The sunlicht tricklin’ throw the leaves
    Fell flickerin’ on the wa’
    An’ the flourish o’ the apple trees
    Was floatin’ doon like snaw,

    While ilka man o’ oor platoon
    Sat strippit to the waist,
    An’ seekin owre his flypit sark
    To see wha’d catch the maist.

    Later on this baths-and-laundry job fell into the hands of the Army Service Corps, but at the beginning of the war it was R.A.M.C. work. One big bathing establishment was, therefore, quickly set a-going at La Gorgue, where an old factory of two stories was secured for the purpose.
    The various units were notified of the days and hours when they could use the baths, and the commanding officers had to intimate a day in advance to the officer in charge of the baths how many men would be sent. It was essential, also, that strict punctuality should be observed in the matter of attendance at the hour specified; for the baths officer had to work out how long it would take to bathe the numbers of men coming forward and what supplies of fresh shirts and underclothing would likely be required, as these had previously to be indented for by him.
    The bathing party of a unit was marched in, and the men went to a room where they stripped. Each man’s dirty shirt and underclothing – almost always lousy – were made into one bundle, which was taken to a disinfecting chamber. (Luckily, at the old factory there was a room capable of being heated to a temperature of 240 degrees Fahrenheit, which served the purpose without a new installation.) The bundles were then sent off to be washed and mended by a staff of French women for reissue, when ready, to other troops. Uniforms (tunics, trousers, kilts, etc.) were made into a second bundle and carried off to be turned inside out and carefully ironed along seams or pleats so as to be louse-free for the wearers after bathing was finished.
    The men having bathed (which was done in the large ground floor room running the whole length of the building, by using ordinary wash-tubs set in rows and filled with hot water by a hosepipe from two big tanks heated by steam), went upstairs to another room where the clean rig-out of shirts and underclothing was now ready. Thence they passed to a third room where their uniforms, thoroughly ironed (and mended where required by a staff of nimble-fingered needlewomen), were handed out to them. They then dressed and went outside to a large shed for a cup of coffee with bread and butter; and, at last, cleaned, clothed, fed and in a better mind, were marched off to rejoin their units. In a working day of ten hours a thousand men could be thus dealt with.
    It was a great sight to see the sheer physical enjoyment a man got from making himself clean again :-

    They gave me a bath and I wallered
    For Gawd! I needed it so.

    And it was curious, too, to note the innate conservatism of the individual in the matter of his own belongings, and his active objection to being dealt with on communal principles. One man, perhaps, had discarded a fancy shirt sent out from home by wife or sweetheart, and loudly expostulated against a system which involved his loss of it in favour of some unknown soldier later on; while another, in similar case, would swear in revenge his new issue was lousy. Hence the tale of the worthy who said of his shirt, “I’d rather hae the auld ane; I kent them better!” Making new acquaintances was tiresome: he preferred his old familiar “friends!”
    But to be “officer in charge of baths,” steam heated, worried, groused at throughout a long working day, and always liable himself to be attacked by the minute enemy he fought, was no sinecure.

    -

    Regards,
    Steven
    Last edited by sgmcgregor; 15-Feb-15 at 16:44. Reason: fixed a spelling error

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    wick
    Posts
    4,196

    Default

    Lovely really nice
    Live for today as tomorrow may never come

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