HEROIC DOCTOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 138, 12 June 1936, Page 7

HEROIC DOCTOR

DEATH AFTER WAR SERVICE Dr. Andre John Mesnard Melly, of Drayton Gardens, London, whose selfsacrificing work in Abyssinia as leader of the British Red Cross unit led to his death, was thirty-seven years of age, says the "Daily Telegraph." A brave man, actuated by the highest ideals, he had gained the Military Cross for the courage he showed in France during the war, at, the close of which he was under twenty. A son of the late Colonel Hugh Melly, of iLiverpool, he thought at one time of becoming a' medical missionary, and while an undergraduate at Oxford after the war, frequently preached sermons at the Martyrs' Memorial. .After becoming a isurgeon,. he,spent two years in America as instructor in surgery at the University of Michigan Hospital. In 1934 he went on a visit to Abyssinia. Appalled at the lack of a medical service there he discussed with the Emperor a scheme that was to result in the establishment of a well-equipped hospital in Addis Ababa —a kind of medical mission. He stayed in the country for several months, but returned home seriously ill. PLANS CHANGED. Later, he returned to Abyssinia but his plans had to be altered because of the warlike attitude of Italy. Coming back to England last summer, he determined that if war broke out he would head a Red Cross unit. He organised it in London and last November left for Abyssinia. Tha unit was one, and his intention was to place it as near to tha firing line as possible^ All kinds of difficulties, however, had to be surmounted. It proved impossible, on most occasions, owing to the ground conditions, to get near the fighting. He and his workers, however, found themselves fully occupied in attending to the victims of aerial bombing raids. ! His camp was wrecked more than once by bombs, but when his tents and equipment were destroyed from the air he made his headquarters in a cave. He had several escapes from death, and the evidence he was able to give as to Italian methods of warfare formed part of the British memorandum to the League of, Nations. Throughout the war in Abyssinia he earned the highest praise for his calm devotion to duty, but in his letters home to his mother and sister in London he dwelt but little.on it."