The FANY also performed other duties as required, setting up regimental aid posts, motor kitchens and even a mobile bath vehicle. One describes how in the second chlorine gas attack in May 1915, they doused their sanitary towels in eau de cologne and held them over the faces of the British soldiers, because the men didn’t have respirators in that early stage of the war. The wartime FANY Gazettes recount the primitive conditions in which they cheerfully lived and worked Zeppelin bombing raids supply trips to the Front evacuating the wounded under fire facing death and disease with equanimity battles with bureaucracy. The vehicles were of the kind now only seen on the London to Brighton run, with rudimentary screens or none, uncertain engines, and tyres depressingly prone to punctures. The conditions they had to contend with, even without the shellfire, were fairly arduous. The wounded were being brought in before the FANYs had even had time to unpack. On 29th October, they took over a dirty and decayed convent school opposite the Church of Notre Dame, called Lamarck Hospital. This date marks the official start of the FANYs’ wartime service, and is still the date nearest to which we hold the annual Corps Reunion. One of the fellow voyagers was the Belgian Minister for the Colonies – and he decided that if the British would not have them, the Belgians would.īack in the UK, Grace Ashley-Smith acquired an ambulance and returned with six FANYs – they crossed to Calais on 27th October 1914 to drive ambulances for the Belgians and the French. Grace Ashley-Smith was on board ship bound for South Africa to visit relatives when war was declared – she immediately turned back and set sail for home. When the First World War broke out in 1914, the FANY quickly followed up on their military contacts, but to no avail - everyone refused to take them. Learn more about the FANY's early years in this lecture at the National Army Museum. A major step forward came with the Annual Camp in 1913 being held at Pirbright, which lasted two whole weeks, and which saw the Brigade of Guards taking them under their wing, beginning a connection which continues to this day. They helped to introduce a more practical uniform and tougher and more serious training.Įarly camps consisted of mainly riding and First Aid (hence the yeomanry connections and inclusion of word Yeomanry in the Corps name). However, by 1911 the Corps was being led by Grace Ashley-Smith, a feisty, no-nonsense Scottish woman, and Lilian Franklin, who became the first Commanding Officer, always known as ‘Boss’. Recruitment drives were held in the early years, with the emphasis always on attracting young women who could already ride and who owned their own horses. However, he had to wait until September 1907 to put his dream into action and to found and establish the Corps. Lying there nursing his left shinbone, where he’d been shot, he thought that it would be wonderful if a group of women were able to administer first aid on the battlefield to the men before they were removed from there to the casualty clearing stations. The Corps’ founder was Edward Baker, a Warrant Officer in the 21st Lancers, who was wounded during his period of service with Lord Kitchener’s army in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.
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