Logan Leonard DAVIDSON
27 December 1893 – 12 October 1917
Regimental number 3/663
When Logan DAVIDSON enlisted on 13 May 1915, at the age of 22, the Army was assembling men to sustain the two Stationary Hospitals[1] that were about to be dispatched to Egypt to treat the casualties from Gallipoli and the Middle East. The No 1 Stationary Hospital was ready to leave first and went ahead, arriving in Egypt in June 1915. Logan was posted to Stationary Hospital No 2. As part of that unit, he sailed from New Zealand with the 5th Reinforcements on the troopship Maunganui on 11 June 1915. The party arrived at Suez on 23 July.
The British Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army had made available a large stone building to house the two New Zealand Stationary Hospitals. The building itself could accommodate only 250 beds of the No 1 Stationary Hospital, and patients of the second were placed under marquees in the building’s large quadrangle. The number of beds grew as casualty numbers mounted from the battlefield at Gallipoli.
Soldiers like Logan who were attached to the Stationary Hospitals worked primarily as orderlies, supporting the work of the medical staff and acting as stretcher-bearers. For part of his time in Cairo, Logan had the chance to see the workings of the hospital from a patient’s perspective. Like most new arrivals to Egypt, he suffered a bout of diarrhoea. He spent time first at the New Zealand General Hospital (his own No 2 Stationary Hospital but re-named) in Cairo before being sent to Alexandria for a period in the convalescent hospital recently opened and managed by Lady Godley, wife of the General Sir Alexander Godley, commander of the NZEF. Back on duty in the latter part of October and with some experience already, Logan’s return would have been welcome as work pressures mounted. The number of beds had already been increased to 500 but still the demand grew. This rapid expansion put great strain on the staff, partly because of the numbers needing care but partly also because the wounds being presented were almost invariably septic. Indeed, during August 1915, there were cases arriving at the hospital from Gallipoli with the first field dressing still on.[2]
Still, the number of beds in the hospital grew, eventually reaching more than 1000. In March 1916, Logan was back as a patient again, this time with bronchial catarrh which kept him away from duty for close to three weeks. When he returned to duty, the planning would have been under way for the staff and a large part of the equipment of the No 1 NZ General Hospital to move to Brockenhurst, England. On 9 June 1916, Logan joined the other personnel on board the hospital ship Marama when it left Alexandria bound for Southampton, England, and from there they moved to their new worksite in the south of England.
The New Zealanders were taking over the temporary hospital first developed for wounded Indian soldiers and set about turning into a New Zealand outpost. They were clearly successful. The Official History comments:
…the local people came forward and offered every hospitality to our officers and men, and very materially helped to brighten the lives of the patients during their sojourn there. But yet of all people[,] there appeared, from one’s experience, to be none more clannish than New Zealanders, and the delight of our lads in meeting their old friends in New Zealand hospitals was always evident.[3]
During his six weeks at Brockenhurst, Logan worked as a despatch rider, but soon he volunteered for Field Ambulance work closer to the front. On 14 August 1916, he left for France, initially attached to the Infantry and General Base Depot at Etaples and then, on 21 September, to the No 1 New Zealand Field Ambulance in the field. The term ‘Field Ambulance’ was used for a front-line unit of around 250 which was set up to treat soldiers injured in battle. The work was like what he had been doing earlier, helping to move soldiers with shellfire and shrapnel wounds and severed limbs to regimental aid posts for immediate first aid and then to dressing stations for the limited treatment that could be provided close to the front line. This meant stopping the bleeding, suturing wounds, applying splints for broken limbs, or if the damage was too great, performing amputations. The wounded were then moved again, by ambulance vehicles where possible and by stretcher if necessary, to casualty clearing stations further back from the front.[4]
Logan had not been in his new role for long before he suffered a forfeit of seven days’ pay for (in the words of his Army personnel file) ‘being in possession of French stores (High boots) behind the lines’. Chastened, no doubt, Logan then continued his role with the Field Ambulance No 1 until, on 13 March 1917, he was again hospitalised, this time for ten days with influenza. When he recovered, he spent three months attached to the 1st Battalion, Wellington Regiment before returning to the No 1 NZ Field Ambulance.
Logan got a break from the ambulance work during August with a fortnight of leave in England. Although it was summer, the weather in England during the second half of August of that year was changeable, with warm days being few and far between and periods of heavy rain.[5] Even so, it would have been a welcome break from the noise and the carnage that had marked his place of work for so long.
Back at the front, by now moving east across Belgium, Logan re-joined the No 1 NZ Field Ambulance, as the New Zealand Division was preparing for the assault on Passchendaele on 12 October. For him, those preparations would have included moving wounded soldiers back from the front on the day of the assault, but it is unlikely that they could have covered ways of dealing with driving rain and mud so deep that even four men might be insufficient to manage a single stretcher.
During that nightmare day, Logan himself was killed. He was 24 and had been in the armed forces for more than two years. There is no record of where he fell on the field nor of where his body was buried, and accordingly, he is commemorated at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, Zonnebeke in Belgium.
Although he was working in Auckland when he joined up, it was fitting that Logan was also remembered on the War Memorial in Brooklyn, the suburb of his youth. When he was a child his parents, James Davidson and Jane Allman Davidson, née WALLACE, lived in Hawker Street, Mount Victoria, and initially Logan attended the nearby Clyde Quay School. His parents later moved to Karepa Street in Brooklyn and Logan was enrolled at Brooklyn School at the beginning of 1907. He went from there to the Wellington Technical School to pursue studies that would lead to a career as a draughtsman. In 1911, his father, James Davidson, moved to Auckland for work at the Native Land Court, and Logan followed, finding a job with the firm of surveyors, Harrison and Grierson. He remained there until he enlisted in 1915.
Research conducted by Max Kerr
[1] Stationary Hospitals (despite the name they could be moved) provided the 4th level of medical care from the front line – Regimental Aid Posts were located at the front, then Advanced Dressing Stations/Field Ambulances were about 400 yards behind the lines, then Casualty Clearing Stations near roads/rails, from where survivors needing more advanced care were moved to Stationary Hospitals.
[2] The War Effort of New Zealand, New Zealand Hospitals in Egypt, Major Bowerbank, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1923, pp 114–115.
[3] The War Effort of New Zealand, Brockenhurst Hospital, D J McGavin, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1923, p 123.
[4] Evening Post, 14 November 1917.
[5] http://www.london-weather.eu/article.57.html, accessed on 8 October 2017.
27 December 1893 – 12 October 1917
Regimental number 3/663
When Logan DAVIDSON enlisted on 13 May 1915, at the age of 22, the Army was assembling men to sustain the two Stationary Hospitals[1] that were about to be dispatched to Egypt to treat the casualties from Gallipoli and the Middle East. The No 1 Stationary Hospital was ready to leave first and went ahead, arriving in Egypt in June 1915. Logan was posted to Stationary Hospital No 2. As part of that unit, he sailed from New Zealand with the 5th Reinforcements on the troopship Maunganui on 11 June 1915. The party arrived at Suez on 23 July.
The British Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army had made available a large stone building to house the two New Zealand Stationary Hospitals. The building itself could accommodate only 250 beds of the No 1 Stationary Hospital, and patients of the second were placed under marquees in the building’s large quadrangle. The number of beds grew as casualty numbers mounted from the battlefield at Gallipoli.
Soldiers like Logan who were attached to the Stationary Hospitals worked primarily as orderlies, supporting the work of the medical staff and acting as stretcher-bearers. For part of his time in Cairo, Logan had the chance to see the workings of the hospital from a patient’s perspective. Like most new arrivals to Egypt, he suffered a bout of diarrhoea. He spent time first at the New Zealand General Hospital (his own No 2 Stationary Hospital but re-named) in Cairo before being sent to Alexandria for a period in the convalescent hospital recently opened and managed by Lady Godley, wife of the General Sir Alexander Godley, commander of the NZEF. Back on duty in the latter part of October and with some experience already, Logan’s return would have been welcome as work pressures mounted. The number of beds had already been increased to 500 but still the demand grew. This rapid expansion put great strain on the staff, partly because of the numbers needing care but partly also because the wounds being presented were almost invariably septic. Indeed, during August 1915, there were cases arriving at the hospital from Gallipoli with the first field dressing still on.[2]
Still, the number of beds in the hospital grew, eventually reaching more than 1000. In March 1916, Logan was back as a patient again, this time with bronchial catarrh which kept him away from duty for close to three weeks. When he returned to duty, the planning would have been under way for the staff and a large part of the equipment of the No 1 NZ General Hospital to move to Brockenhurst, England. On 9 June 1916, Logan joined the other personnel on board the hospital ship Marama when it left Alexandria bound for Southampton, England, and from there they moved to their new worksite in the south of England.
The New Zealanders were taking over the temporary hospital first developed for wounded Indian soldiers and set about turning into a New Zealand outpost. They were clearly successful. The Official History comments:
…the local people came forward and offered every hospitality to our officers and men, and very materially helped to brighten the lives of the patients during their sojourn there. But yet of all people[,] there appeared, from one’s experience, to be none more clannish than New Zealanders, and the delight of our lads in meeting their old friends in New Zealand hospitals was always evident.[3]
During his six weeks at Brockenhurst, Logan worked as a despatch rider, but soon he volunteered for Field Ambulance work closer to the front. On 14 August 1916, he left for France, initially attached to the Infantry and General Base Depot at Etaples and then, on 21 September, to the No 1 New Zealand Field Ambulance in the field. The term ‘Field Ambulance’ was used for a front-line unit of around 250 which was set up to treat soldiers injured in battle. The work was like what he had been doing earlier, helping to move soldiers with shellfire and shrapnel wounds and severed limbs to regimental aid posts for immediate first aid and then to dressing stations for the limited treatment that could be provided close to the front line. This meant stopping the bleeding, suturing wounds, applying splints for broken limbs, or if the damage was too great, performing amputations. The wounded were then moved again, by ambulance vehicles where possible and by stretcher if necessary, to casualty clearing stations further back from the front.[4]
Logan had not been in his new role for long before he suffered a forfeit of seven days’ pay for (in the words of his Army personnel file) ‘being in possession of French stores (High boots) behind the lines’. Chastened, no doubt, Logan then continued his role with the Field Ambulance No 1 until, on 13 March 1917, he was again hospitalised, this time for ten days with influenza. When he recovered, he spent three months attached to the 1st Battalion, Wellington Regiment before returning to the No 1 NZ Field Ambulance.
Logan got a break from the ambulance work during August with a fortnight of leave in England. Although it was summer, the weather in England during the second half of August of that year was changeable, with warm days being few and far between and periods of heavy rain.[5] Even so, it would have been a welcome break from the noise and the carnage that had marked his place of work for so long.
Back at the front, by now moving east across Belgium, Logan re-joined the No 1 NZ Field Ambulance, as the New Zealand Division was preparing for the assault on Passchendaele on 12 October. For him, those preparations would have included moving wounded soldiers back from the front on the day of the assault, but it is unlikely that they could have covered ways of dealing with driving rain and mud so deep that even four men might be insufficient to manage a single stretcher.
During that nightmare day, Logan himself was killed. He was 24 and had been in the armed forces for more than two years. There is no record of where he fell on the field nor of where his body was buried, and accordingly, he is commemorated at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, Zonnebeke in Belgium.
Although he was working in Auckland when he joined up, it was fitting that Logan was also remembered on the War Memorial in Brooklyn, the suburb of his youth. When he was a child his parents, James Davidson and Jane Allman Davidson, née WALLACE, lived in Hawker Street, Mount Victoria, and initially Logan attended the nearby Clyde Quay School. His parents later moved to Karepa Street in Brooklyn and Logan was enrolled at Brooklyn School at the beginning of 1907. He went from there to the Wellington Technical School to pursue studies that would lead to a career as a draughtsman. In 1911, his father, James Davidson, moved to Auckland for work at the Native Land Court, and Logan followed, finding a job with the firm of surveyors, Harrison and Grierson. He remained there until he enlisted in 1915.
Research conducted by Max Kerr
[1] Stationary Hospitals (despite the name they could be moved) provided the 4th level of medical care from the front line – Regimental Aid Posts were located at the front, then Advanced Dressing Stations/Field Ambulances were about 400 yards behind the lines, then Casualty Clearing Stations near roads/rails, from where survivors needing more advanced care were moved to Stationary Hospitals.
[2] The War Effort of New Zealand, New Zealand Hospitals in Egypt, Major Bowerbank, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1923, pp 114–115.
[3] The War Effort of New Zealand, Brockenhurst Hospital, D J McGavin, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1923, p 123.
[4] Evening Post, 14 November 1917.
[5] http://www.london-weather.eu/article.57.html, accessed on 8 October 2017.