Sgt. John Rheims Smith
British Army 3rd Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps
My grandfather, John Rheims Smith, was raised an army brat. His father John Metcalf was a Regimental Sergeant Major and the most senior physical fitness instructor in the British Army. He was born in Folkestone, Kent in 1914. He was the first born child. WWI was in early stages at that time. His middle name Rheims was so-called because his father was in Rheims, France at the time of his birth.
He spent his early years in India (his family said his first words were Hindi) and after WW1 ended in 1918 (from 7-14 years) he was based with his family in Germany, his father being a member of the occupying forces. He spoke fluent German when he left. Like his father he joined the army at 14 years old. His military records likely show dob as 1910 because he falsified his age. He was posted to Shanghai China from around 1928-1934 and in Hong Kong was 1934-36. He spoke fluent Cantonese when he left the Army. At the time he left the army his rank was a sergeant.
He returned to England around 1936 and worked at various jobs including being a chauffeur for Mrs Lever, the dowager of Lever of Lever and Kitchen fame (now Unilever).
Around 1938 he had successfully applied for a position as a male nurse at a mental institution and had begun work for a short while when the British Government recalled all recently discharged military personnel to form the British expeditionary forces designed to discourage German military aggression. His few months of medical experience was sufficient to assign him to the Medical Corps. He spent the remainder of his service as a medic, often in the front line of the war.
He went with the BEF to France in 1939 but they were driven back by the Germans eventually to Dunkirk. Amongst the last to leave the beach, there were no more boats available and was ordered to strip and swim and lookout for English boats offshore. He remembers swimming for a long time and was not picked up until after dark by an English fishing boat that had stayed longer than most and happened to spot him with lantern light in the water.
Upon arriving back in England he was held in an internment camp for a few months while the Army confirmed the identity of all the stragglers. His younger brother Pat recounted that one night shortly after the evacuation he arrived late on the door step of his family home near Cambridge and told everyone he was alive and well then left immediately. He had apparently escaped from intern camp and returned back to it in the same night without being missed.
His next assignment was with the British 8th Army where he remained until the end of the war, fighting through North Africa and across the Mediterranean into Italy. Most of what I have heard of this period are disconnected anecdotes without time or place. Field amputation in the back of a moving truck; holding a cigarette in the windpipe of an injured solder because the jaw is missing; a soldier trapped and killed in barbed wire because he wanted to the wear the fleecy sweater mum had knitted him.
He was awarded 5 campaign medals; 2 stars and 3 circular. I think the stars were the North Africa star and Italy star. I cant remember what the 3 circulars were, I am sure one was 1939-45 War Medal.
