McIndoe's Hospital 250 BURNED AIRMEN TREATED UP TO 1942

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29936, 25 September 1962, Page 8

McIndoe's Hospital 250 BURNED AIRMEN TREATED UP TO 1942

Battle For Abolition Of 90-day Rule IV

B Y the beginning of 1942, more than 250 burned airmen had passed through Queen Victoria Hospital and most of them had come under the care of Archie Mclndoe. Many of them were still there. It seemed sometimes as if many of them would never be anywhere else.

Paul Hart’s face was now draped with large pieces of skin from his stomach. “If this lot gets the dog-rot,” he said, cheerfully, “they’re going to put the next grafts on with rivets.’’-Yorky Law. a bombardier who had been badly burned when his plane was shot down alter a raid, had for months been nothing but a pair of eyes staring out of a no-face, but now Archie had meticulously sewn small grafts which he called “bacon strips” on to the places where the cheeks had been. The grafts had come from his legs, small postage stamp squares cut in various sizes and stitched together with mathematical exactitude. “I’m just a human jig-saw puzzle.” Yorky Law said. There was the erk with a picture of a Union Jack tattooed on his chest to Whom Archie said: "I'm tempted to take the red part for your lips and the blue for your eyelids. Then you’U never need to use lipstick or eyeshadow for the rest of your life.” An All-Male Ward Ward Three was once more an a 11-male ward. For some months they had had with them a factory girl who had been burned all over her head, face, arms and chest. She screamed whenever they took her near the saline bath. She lay, bald, frightened and despairing, whimpering in her bed, and she was the only one whose sufferings chastened the exuberant airmen. They gave her a monogrammed Silk scarf when she left. On behalf of his charges in Ward Three, Archie Mclndoe

had already ridden roughshod through hospital routine and Service regulations. They had sent him a consignment of convalescent “blues”'for his patients to wear when they went out into the town. “I’m damned If I’m going to let my boys run around like convicts—no, like invalids, which they are not.” He had the “blues” consigned to the stores and kept only half a dozen in his office and used them as a threat to any of the men who were rude to the nurses, rowdy in the wards or came in drunk. He also instructed local pub-keepers to refuse service to anyone dressed in “blues” and this proved the most effective form of punishment. Only one pilot was ever handed the shameful uniform, and he came hang-dog back from the town confessing that he had been treated “like a pig dog.”

Formidable Service Rule

Two of them were, however, sent back to Depot at Uxbridge, most condign punishment of all. for continual infraction of rules. One was Stewart Jones, who had a wig, and Ron Pretty with a false arm. After a week, Uxbridge sent them back to East Grinstead as "hopelessly insubordinate.” Every time Stewart Jones saluted his wig came off, and every time Ron Pretty saluted his arm flew through the air. Archie took them back when they promised never to misbehave again. Shortly afterwards they helped to kidnap a local fire engine in which to drive a comrade to London. But there was a much more formidable Service rule which worried Mclndoe at this time. This was the 90day rule. “By this, from time immemorial," Archie wrote, “an injured man was given three months to return to duty. If. at the end of that time, he was still unfit he was invalided as useless and passed to one or other of the various civil or pensions hospitals for further treatment. After this he was pensioned off for as small an amount as could be determined from the schedule of payments authorised for his particular disabilities. If the convalescence was a long one this system absolutely guaranteed that the man would arrive back in civilian life without hope, broken in spirit, bitter and disillusioned He could also be in debt for. with invaliding, his service pay ceased and the eventual nension would not be settled for a long time. During this period he lived on charity." King's Regulations Unbreakable He was determined that this should not happen to his boys. But how’ could he prevent it? Plastic surgery is a Long job. Some of the men would be with him for years before he could repair their faces or mend their hands, i But this, he insisted, jaw jut'ting, did not mean that they were invalids. They were healthy young men only temporarily withdrawn from normal 'activity. But his attempts to make this point at the Air Ministry found him butting his head against the sorbo-rubber ramparts of bureaucracy. "There are times in life,*’ he wrote, “when an

approach ’through the usual channels’ is sufficient to drive a way through rules and regulations. Here it was impossible, for no civil servant would dare to break King's Regulations. These would have to be altered before this problem could really be solved. Creating a precedent with a cast-iron case at a very high level seemed to me to be the best approach.” “Cast Iron Case” Mclndoe found his “castiron case” in a fiery and belligerent young man named Colin Hodgkinson. Hodgkinson was a burly six-footer who had joined the Fleet Air Arm just before the war and was one of the most aggressively healthy pilots in the Navy. But early in 1940, while under training, his plane was in collision with that of another cadet and there was a crash from which Hodgkinson escaped with his life but minus both his legs. He was fitted up at the limb centre at Roehampton with a pair of tin legs and invalided out with a pension of £3 a week.

It was his good fortune that before he was sent back to civil life he managed to persuade his doctors to give him a spell of convalescence at the expense of the State. “Artificial Legs” "He was a red-headed thick-set figure,” Mclndoe recalled, “precariously balanced on two artificial legs which were planted firmly apart and braced backwards to support his swaying body. His face was badly scarred. His eyes reflected the bitter desperation mixed with wariness which betrayed a constant anxiety to maintain his balance. He kept within reach of a wall or a convenient chair He was watching me carefully and obviously had something to ask me. We moved into a corner and talked.”

Hodginson made no bones about what he wanted. “They’ve paid me off,” he said, “but I’m perfectly fit. I don’t think it’s fair to throw me out like this. I want you to help me get back in the Navy.” Archie said: "Quite a proposition with those pins. How well d’you walk on them?” “Not too badly,” said Hodgkinson. “It’s coming gradually.” “Well,” said Archie, “if you can only atop floundering around there might be something we could do.” He stared at the young man’s face. Hodgkinson had already had some reconstructive surgery done on his face, leaving scars. The operation was a minor one. Under a local anaesthetic the skin was opened, re-crocheted and the scar was gone. But Hodgkinson was on Archie’s books. He opened his campaign at once.

He wrote letters to the Admiralty and. when these had no effect, he picked up the telephone. Hodgkinson Returns To Naval Service At the beginning of November. 1940, Hodgkinson received an order, informing him that he had been called back to active service and had been posted to a naval station in Cornwall. He was the first man ever to return to service drawing a pension for the very injury which had caused him to be invalided out. But he had done more than that He had established a precedent which led to a change in the rules. Shortlv afterwards all the Services agreed to abolish the 90-day rule If a man, at the end of his hospitalisation, was fit for service he was called back It was a decision which the walking members of Ward Three clebrated with a glorious beer party at Little Warren Cottage with Archie. To most of them it made all the difference in the world. •To be concluded)