Group photograph including Charles Gill

Group photograph including Charles Gill

Gill, Charles Percival

Charles Percival Gill was a corporal in the R.A.M.C. Before the Great War he was a member of the Camborne Company (Cornwall) of the Wessex Field Ambulance and was drafted straight into the R.A.M.C. at the start of the war.
He was awarded the Military Medal at the second Battle of Passchendale. I have a letter from the 24th Battalion Loyal North Lancs Regiment, to which his Wessex Field Ambulance was attached, stating that he was awarded the medal for work during the attack on 26th Oct. 1917. I have tried to find the full citation but have been told that many of the Great War records were lost in the bombing raids in the Second World War. I have been told that he was bringing back wounded from the front line under fire when a shell fell among their stretcher party. One of the wounded men was thrown into a deep shell hole filled with water, mud, bodies and debris. My grandfather went down into the shell hole and brought the wounded man out and back to the dressing post.
My grandfather Gill died forty years ago, but as I was interested in the First World War, I did ask him about it when I was younger. I gathered that he was critical of the conduct of the war and the terrible loss of life. He had dreams about it when he was ill and dying. He was a private and modest man. After the war he did not parade with the other ex-service men on Armistice Day. When asked why, he said that he remembered his friends who had died every day.

Editor's Comment:
Group photograph of Territorial Force Medical Corps personnel in Full Dress, with drum section. Note that some men wear the Imperial Service Badge (introduced in 1910), indicating that they have volunteered for overseas service.

Corporal 459246 Charles Percival Gill, M.M., 2/2nd or 2/3rd Wessex Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 2/4th Bn. Loyal Noth Lancashire Regiment. Both units served in the 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division.

1910 - 1914

England

Photograph

Photographic paper

Photograph

Richard Marshall

GWA_5482_WW1_Gill_2.jpg

The Great War Archive, University of Oxford / Primary Contributor

The Great War Archive, University of Oxford

Peggy Martin