First World War: Centenary

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clark, for introducing this debate and for the opportunity to speak in the gap. The Royal Army Medical Corps is the second highest corps to hold a VC. It has 31 VCs awarded to 29 men. The significance of that is that only three double-VCs have ever been awarded and two of those were to medical men.

The first was given to Captain Noel Chavasse, the son of the Bishop of Liverpool. He died, as was commented afterwards, “a hero among heroes”, and was probably one of the bravest people in the First World War in that medical capacity. Doctors, after all, are non-combatants and, during the campaign, he won an MC in 1915 and his first VC in 1916 by going out to tend the wounded in no-man’s land. He carried on the next day and, despite shrapnel injuries, brought back 20 men whom he saved. He was given a VC by the King for that action. Sadly, a year later at Passchendaele, he carried out a similar courageous act and, this time, having received a shrapnel injury to his abdomen, crawled back to his trenches and died of his wounds. He was given a second VC for that. I have visited his graveside, and he has the only tomb with a double VC mentioned on it.

The second medical person was Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Martin-Leake, a surgeon. He got his first VC in the Boer War and the second in the First World War, which he survived. The third person whom I should like to remember, and I am wearing the tie of Middlesex Hospital, was a student there called Captain Fox-Russell, who also received a VC during the First World War, posthumously.

I make mention of these medical men because I think that I am the only doctor in the House this evening, and we would be remiss if we did not appreciate and recognise the contribution that medical men make in wartime—particularly the terrible losses that they sustained in the First World War.