RED CROSS FUNDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24413, 26 September 1940, Page 6

RED CROSS FUNDS

EXPENDITURE IN BRITAIN RESPONSE 10 MANY GALES OVERSEAS HELP APPRECIATED An idea of how the' money contributed to the Sick, Wounded and Distress Fund of the Red Cross and the Order of St. John has been spent by the war organisation of the Joint Council in Britain is given in a report received in New Zealand from Field-marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, chairman of the Executive Committee of the War Organisation. Sir Philip expresses appreciation of the splendid assistance so ungrudgingly given by overseas people and his confidence that the help will be continued. His letter is as follows: — "It is difficult for us here in England to tell the people bf the colonial empire now grateful we are for the wonderful effort they have made on behalf of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John War Organisation in this country. I know very well that many people think the Red Cross is merely, a money-collecting agency. Here are a few things which we have done since the beginning of the war to carry out our great task of mercy and relief of suffering. “ We sent out to France something between £30,000 and £40,000 worth of medical comforts and stores. We have a letter from the chief medical officer in France saying how much these supplies meant to him in his care of the sick and wounded during the time that our Expeditionary Force was overseas. We sent out 58 vehicles, including 26 ambulances, fully equipped, and established large stores at Dieppe and Boulogne. We established a convalescent home for officers, another for nurses, and equipped and staffed them. “ When the Finnish war started the organisation . sent to Finland £ 12,000 worth of medical supplies. Two Aeroplanes were sent -the moment Finland asked us for help, with stocks of chloroform, inoculation serum and es r sential drugs. We sent more than £12,000 worth of medical stores to Norway in the same way, the moment they asked us. In both cases difficulties of transport were very great. The Dunkirk Evacuation “The organisation has a large department which deals entirely with the despatch of parcels of food, clothing and necessaries to prisoners of war in enemy hands. In the last war we spent close on £4,000,000 on this work alone. We have another large department which concerns itself with inquiries by people for their wounded and missing relatives. This work is of such immense value that it alone would almost justify the existence of the Red Cross. At the present moment it is dealing with thousands of letters a day from anxious people seeking information concerning their wounded and missing relatives. We also offer help to relatives in visiting dangerously wounded or sick soldiers in hospital. This was done first in France, and. is now carried on in England, often entailing finding temporary accommodation for people in the vicinity of hospitals. “In May came the tragic collapse of Belgium, the return of the 8.E.F., and later the collapse of France. Everjthing we had at Boulogne, and all our ambulances fell into the hands of the enemy. We hoped that we might have rescued the stores at Dieppe, and our staff at great’-risk to themselves, went back time after time getting the stores nut and away to the west coast, but such was the rush to save human lives, we, at the last moment, had to abandon ffiem. We have lost everying we put into France, and all that has to be' replaced. ~ . V.:.. . .- . “ Theri • the. wounded began to pour back to England 1 , and in the first days of the Dunkirk evacuation we were asked for £30,000 worth of hospital comforts, which we delivered. to hospitals all over England. Our trained stretcher bearers and V.A.D.’s worked day and night to remove the sick and wounded from the ships and take them to trains and hospitals. Work on the Home Front “We have constant demands on us to help with hospital stores and clothing sailors who have been shipwrecked and in many cases wounded by enemy action. All our existing county organisations are told to find at once all that is needed for that work. The Ministry of Health, in whose charge the wounded are now, have called upon us to find 10,000 beds at Very short notice. They will help with the cost of equipping these hospitals, which may amount to as many as 200. all over the British Isles, but it -will cost the British Bed Cross and St. John War Organisation huge sums to staff and maintain them. “Now that we are the last defence against barbarism in Europe, these isles have bedome a fortress and may at any moment become a battlefield, where communications may be cut in various directions from the centre in London. We have provided for this eventuality by sending out stores to all counties and districts, and providing these counties and districts with money, telling them that we expect them to carry on the work of the Red Cross whatever happens, and we will see them through. They know well that instead of concerning themselves only with the sick and wounded of the'fighting forces, they will now have to deal with the sick and wounded of the civil population, who are now, men, women and children, in the firing line; and they will meet this tragic necessity just as they have met every other emergency. “We have undertaken to find for the War Office and Ministry of Health anything up to 200 ambulances, and we are well on the way to doing so. A large number of these ambulances is being supplied through the generosity of the dominions, colonies and British communities in all parts of the world. Fifty of them have been promised by Canada, 50 by America, and we have now another offer from America of anything up to 200. We. of course, have to staff and equip them. “We, the war organisation of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John, are determined—come what may —to carry out our duties to the sick and wounded and justify the confidence which the public have so generously placed in us.”