Name/Title
1918/Mack: Bringing in the WoundedDescription
Postcard of an official British war photograph, passed by the Censor, entitled "Bringing in Wounded - An Early Morning Scene".
During the First World War, RJ Mack served as a Royal Army Medical Corps stretcher bearer on the Western Front, arriving in France in November 1915.
He served with 32nd Division, which was primarily recruited in the north of England, which suggests that RJ enlisted in or near Liverpool, having returned to Up Holland after he came back from Canada.
Peter wrote of his father in his memoir "Joe's Jottings": "It should be noted that he rejected all opportunities for promotion and preferred to remain a private soldier for all of his military career. He was in fact very fortunate to survive the war which had so many casualties and it must have been absolute hell in those days. He never used to talk about it, in fact I think the memories were too painful."
He wrote that his father's choice of becoming a stretcher bearer was deliberate.
Another possibility was tentatively mooted by Roger Henderson, the son of R.J.’s sister Marjorie, who wrote in a letter to Kristine Johnston in 1994: "[R.J.] was — I think — not very strong of constitution and was probably not considered fit for active service. But I can’t be sure of this."
