File:Britain's civilian volunteers; (1917) (14596766438).jpg

Identifier: britainscivilian00bows (find matches)
Title: Britain's civilian volunteers;
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Bowser, Thekla. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Voluntary aid detachments World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: New York, Moffat, Yard and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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in-dependently, frequently overlapped. It was awise and sensible idea, therefore, that VoluntaryAid should be co-ordinated. It was thought wellthat the county system, which had been followedby the Territorial Force, should be adopted; andit has proved to be an excellent one, as eachcounty has its own director who has supremecontrol of all the Detachments in his district,whilst each Detachment is complete in itself, andcan undertake distinct pieces of work as separateunits. The medical organisation of the TerritorialForce was sufficiently complete to provide medi-cal establishments and units which must accom-pany troops. It also provided general hospitals,but it lacked such units as clearing hospitals, sta-tionary hospitals, ambulance trains, and otherformations. The regular army, of course, hadall these units; but it was easy to see that, shouldoccasion arise for the Territorial Force to beenormously increased, there would come the ne-cessity for a great many extra medical units; and
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o xn m ^ ^cS a > m ^ ^ IS w p^ ^ f^^ t^ >s ^ ^ a> G _&C t» Ol T:i ;3 r-5 THE V.A.D. MOVEMENT 11 although the pioneers of the V.A.D. scheme couldscarcely have anticipated such an overwhelmingneed as has arisen during these war years, theycertainly showed extraordinary prescience in pro-viding an organisation which could be expandedto a limitless extent. In that early scheme it was settled thatamongst the labours which the Detachments mustbe able to undertake were such as providing foodand dressings for improvised ambulance trains,making rest stations where these trains couldhalt, running private hospitals and convalescenthomes. In short, the scheme was devised withthe object of giving to those members of thecivilian population who, from motives of patriot-ism and sympathy for the sick and wounded,wished to help opportunities of offering theirservices for the performance of such duties. Itwas realised that the members must be trainedparticularly in the art of improvisation

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