CASUALTY STATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22472, 6 January 1943, Page 2

CASUALTY STATION

Indomitable “Tommy”

Warm admiration for the fighting qualities of the English is expressed by Major Lindsay S. Rogers, of Te Awamutu, in a letter to Mr F. W. Doidge, M.P. Major Rogers, who has just been awarded the M.8.E., enlisted in London soon after the outbreak of war, and has been serving in the Middle East for a considerable period. “My casualty clearing station is a famous one in the Western Desert,” writes Major Rogers, “for it alone has been in all four campaigns, and I have been in three of them. We are extremely mobile, and in two hours can take in and attend to 200 casualties.

“My first really big night was at Sidi Rezegh. I was the only surgeon in our clearing station when suddenly one evening we got 700 wounded in, and next night 400. I can see my operating tent now; every available inch taken up by wounded, on stretchers, or just lying on the floor. I worked two tables, and kept going steadily, hour after hour, and every time I looked down the floor seemed to be as packed as ever.

“An even more terrible time was the last week in Tobruk. There we got 2000 in one night, and eight of us did 456 major operations during that night. The looks of anguish and tiredness on those faces! Some boys had been without sleep for days on end. So had we for that matter, but on we worked steadily through the night, and next morning in came a hospital boat. “We got them all away; emptied the hospital, in fact, and Tobruk, too. It's a grand unit, and I am proud to be its surgeon. For the ‘Tommy’ my admiration is unbounded. Through it all he has fought indomitably, courageously. When he falls it is without a moan or a groan.