Enquiring about a conchie (please don't beat me up!)

I am a writer at present engaged on a biography of a man born in London in 1911. I interviewed him in his 90s but he has since died leaving many unanswered questions.

Despite not being a Quaker he was accepted into the Friends Ambulance Unit as a conscientious objector in 1940 and after initial training near Birmingham spent the rest of the war at Gloucester Royal Infirmary. I want to confirm what he told me about his experiences there - some of it doesn't square with a history of the FAU by A. Tegla Davies that I found online.

Also, he told me he was to have trained for an Emergency Medical Unit bound for Syria (I understood it would have been a field hospital) but was rejected on medical grounds. He said that the ship he would have been on was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean with no survivors and I want to verify this - but he couldn't tell me the name of the ship.

How do I go about investigating this?

For a start, it would help to know exactly an EMU is and how many men it would typically involve. I think the FAU usually operated in teams of ten. Would an FAU team be part of a larger EMU? Would the ship have carried troops as well as medical personnel? Would they be likely to embark at Bristol (if starting from Gloucester) and where would they disembark?

So many questions ... Your help would be much appreciated! I have put my questions here because I can't find a more appropriate thread.

Meg

 

Sometimes you must take an old man's stories with a grain of salt, especially if it conflicts with available documentation. If he was inducted in the uniformed military then there should be record of this with the British military. There are some databases available online if you have his full name and military designation, so starting there may help.

It is possible that he his telling either a tall tale or an exagerated one. I myself had to come to terms with my father who implied to me and others that he served, when he did not, as he was exempt for a variety of reasons. He took his tale to the grave with him and we did not learn the truth until his passing.

 

Hello Meg and welcome to the forum.

 

Hey, the only stupid question is the one you don't ask! Well...the voices in my head have caused me to ask one or two stupid questions in the past, but I don't listen to those voices anymore. Hehehehe....much.

From a quick Google search, it looks like an EMU is basically what a MASH unit was during Korea. It was the larger aid station set up behind the lines, where casualties were treated further before being sent on to the larger hospitals back in the cities or England. Of course, most of this info is coming from reading about current EMU units (they mention short-stay care, less than 48 hours, or patients are sent on to more advanced facilities elsewhere). Google being Google, a good portion of the sites that came up dealt with a certain cantankerous type of bird...

 

Welcome on this fien forum. Syria would have been after 1941 since that's the date this French colony sided with the allies.

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

If you have located Tegla Davies' history of the WW2 FAU, you will have been able to check the man's name (which you have not disclosed here) in the list of accredited members. By no means all members were Quakers, but there was an expectation that members would accept Quaker values. They were all, of course, civilians, and the suggestion of checking military records is wholly irrelevant.

Your best course at this stage would be to contact the Peace Pledge Union (PPU). The PPU is compiling a database of all British conscientious objectors of whom it has any trace - 4000 WW2 names so far. The contact is the Archivist: archives@ppu.org.uk

Apart from checking against the database, the Archivist will be able to advise on other sources and lines of research.

Good luck.

 

Belasar, I do sympathise. My man (whose name I shouldn't mention until I have the whole story, to protect his reputation!) contributed a lot to New Zealand especially in the fields of history and photography, BUT he was also a habitual liar. There was always a grain of truth in what he said - but sometimes not more than a grain.
Anyway, thanks for all your advice. I believe his FAU service records are held at the Society of Friends library and I'm now in touch with a researcher who can copy them, as well as trawling the archives for more mentions of him and with luck track down the bit about Med torpedoing. I would love to do it myself but unfortunately the air fare from NZ is a bit steep

 

Now that you seem to have confirmed that your man was, indeed, in the WW2 FAU, perhaps I could clarify a few further points.

The training centre for the FAU was not "near Birmingham", but actually in Birmingham. It was in the grounds of Manor Farm (the home of Dame Elizabeth Cadbury of Quaker chocolate fame), Bristol Road, Northfield, Birmingham. The FAU operated at two broad levels. All members worked initially as medical orderlies in civiian hospitals around the country. Some, with appropriate knowledge and aptitude, went abroad to places such as Finland, Greece, the Middle East and China. There their work was mainly with civilians affected by the war, not with troops.

I am not sure that Emergency Medical Unit spelt thus with capitals was a FAU term, and your interviewee may have intended it as an informal description. A term that was used was the Hadfield Spears Unit, about which you could gain more from your reading of Tegla Davies.

If, indeed, you man was under consideration for joining a team to be sent abroad, it would not necessarily have been a team of people wholly working in Gloucester, and not likely to have embarked at Bristol. As a civilian organisation the FAU did not use naval or other military ships, but a civilian ship might well have been torpedoed on the Med. A number of FAU members died in service in various ways, including by military action.

That risk undertaken by conchies makes me puzzled that you added to your heading the plea "don't beat me up". Queries about people exercising their legal right as conscientious objectors must surely be as welcome and legitimate on this forum as any other queries.

Finally, I would still urge you to contact the PPU Archivist. Even if the PPU has no further information, it would ensure your man is recorded in the only central database of all British COs, provided as a permanent record for public benefit.