Private Samuel John Parker
2nd/1st Wessex Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, 2253
Killed in Military Service
Date of Birth: 1897
Place of Birth: Teignmouth, Devon
Date of Death: 14 August 1916 in France aged 19
Buried: Remembered on Thiepval Memorial, Somme; Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Memorial Window, Teignmouth; also on RAMC Memorial, Exeter.
Awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
Private Samuel John Parker age 19.
Samuel was born in Teignmouth in early 1897 and baptised at St Michael’s Church on 19 May 1897, his parents were George Henry Parker and Kate Mary (neé Finch), George’s occupation was recorded as a Mercantile Engineer. In 1901 the family was living at Teign View Terrace; by 1911 the family were shown at 16 Bitton Crescent, Samuel was still at school.
Samuel enlisted in Exeter with 2nd/1st Wessex Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, service number 2253. He was serving in Gallipoli when he was wounded in both legs and his left arm.
Exeter Cathedral RAMC memorial
Samuel was then sent to France where he was killed on 14 August 1916.
Remembered on Thiepval Memorial, Somme; Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Memorial Window, Teignmouth; also on RAMC Memorial, Exeter.
Private Samuel Parker was killed in the same incident which killed Private William Coombes, and this morning his father has received a letter of condolence and sympathy from the officer commanding. Private Parker who was 19, joined the Royal Army medical Corps soon after the outbreak of war. Private Parker was employ ed at Messrs G. Young and Sons.
From Teignmouth Post
Friday 25 August, 1916
A Royal Army Medical Corps Field Ambulance
A Field Ambulance was not a single vehicle, but an entire mobile hospital that served in the combat zone.
Casualties from a Scottish infantry battalion of 77th Brigade being evacuated along a communication trench outside Salonika, February 1916.© IWM (Q 31794)In the First World War, at the Front Line in battle there were often vast numbers of casualties requiring immediate treatment.
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) operated a system that immediately addressed a patient's critical injuries near the Front, then evacuated him to a medical unit in a safer area.
To achieve this goal the RAMC had units consisting of 10 officers and 224 men. The entire company was called a Field Ambulance.
Motor ambulances and horse-drawn ambulance wagons of the RAMC collecting wounded on the Western Front © IWM (Q 9177)
The men were detailed as stretcher bearers, nursing orderlies, ambulance drivers, cooks, sanitation crew and to manage and distribute stores and water etc. The unit was divided into three equal sections, each of which could be self-sustainable, with its own tented areas, men and equipment.
Stetcher Bearers in WW1 © IWM (Q 5935)
Each Field Ambulance had to be moved to where the combat was most intense and set up there.
Men of the Army Supply Company (ASC) were attached to assist with transport.
A Field Ambulance had 66 horses and 23 wagons. After the first year of the war transport included 7 motor vehicles and a maintenance wagon.
A full strength Field Ambulance unit in the First World War had a "capacity" for 150 casualties. In times of intense battle the unit would often treat a great many more.
RAMC officers and men were unarmed, they did not carry weapons (or ammunition). Over 6,873 RAMC personnel were either killed in action or died of wounds in WW1.
Through the work of the RAMC 1.6 million wounded men were returned to the firing line to fight again.
RAMC personnel giving a wounded man water from a petrol tin in an abandoned trench. © IWM (Q 9177)
The 24th (1st Wessex) Field Ambulance and Teignmouth
The 24th was part of what is now called the Territorial Army. It was based in Exeter, Devon and trained part-timers in the same instruction manuals, exercises and drills as the regular RAMC.
In 1910, the unit opened a detachment at Teignmouth, a sea-side town about 14 miles from Exeter, Devon. The detachment slowly grew in numbers so that at the start of the First World War several Teignmouth men served in the ranks of 24th.
In September 1914, it was designated 1st Wessex Field Ambulance and joined the 8th Division, British Expeditionary Force, then sailed to France arriving at Le Havre on the 6th November 1914.
Troops coming out of a communication trench in the snow. © IWM (Q 4695)
On the 12th November the 24th arrived at the Front where they spent the winter focusing on diseases and the medical problems caused by the cold and wet conditions.
“Four inches of snow on the ground and snowing up to the 22nd (November) it was nearly impossible to sleep with only one blanket.
Barn we occupied last week blown up by shell fire. Had over nine hundred sick and wounded in a week.
The men having come straight from India &c (Cairo, Eygpt) went right into the trenches, owing to the shortage of troops, the snow and intense cold was playing havoc with them, and the bulk of the frost bite cases were quite helpless with swollen feet and had to be evacuated”.
War Diary of Albert House
Sergeant-Major of the 24th Field Ambulance
That is when the 1st Wessex Field Ambulance lost its first man.
Private James Pedrick of Teignmouth contracted meningitis whilst treating a patient and died in the hospital at St Omer on 17 February 1915.
On the 14th August 1916 Private William James Coombes of East Teignmouth and Private Samuel John Parker of Teignmouth and the 24th Field Ambulance died at an advanced dug-out dressing station, attending to the wounded, when a German shell hit the dug-out and exploded in the middle of it, killing and wounding about a dozen men.
