RED CROSS WORK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1940, Page 9

RED CROSS WORK

ACTIVITIES IN BRITAIN AND ELSEWHERE MANY URGENT CALLS MADE. CHAIRMAN’S SPECIAL MESSAGE. In a special message, Field-Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode. chairman of the war organisation of the British Red Cross and Order of St John, states:— “It is difficult for us here in England, to tell the people of the Colonial Empire how 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 that the Red Cross is merely a money-collecting agency, and that what we give out to the Press as to the way in which their money is spent very often does not reach them. May I therefore tell you 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 to France something between £30,000 and £40.000 worth of medical comforts and stores. We have a letter from the Chief Medical 1 Officer in France saying how much these supplies meant to him in his care of the sick and wounded during the time our Expeditionary Force was overseas. We sent out 58 vehicles, including 26 ambulances, fully equipped; we established large stores at Dieppe and Boulogne; we established a convalescent home for officers and another for men; we 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 essential 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 the difficulties of transport were very great. “We have a large department which deals entirely with the dispatch 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. Everything 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 out and away to the West Coast, but such was the rush to save human lives, we. at the last momen had to abandon them. We have lost everything we put into France, and all that has to be replaced. ( “Then the wounded began to pour back to England, 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. Oui’ 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. 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 country 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 Red 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 become a fortress and may become at any moment 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 only concerning themselves with the sick and wounded of the fighting forces, they will now have to deal with the sick and wounded of the civilian population who are now men, women, and children in the firing line; and they will meet thi§ tragic necessity just as they have met every other emergency. |

“Wo 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 are being supplied through the generosity of the Dominions, Colonies and British communities in all parts of the world, 50 of them have been promised by Canada. 50 by America, and we now have another offer from American 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, an* justify the confidence which the public have so generously placed in us.”