234686 S/Sgt. Edgar Thomas William Simpkins British Army 9th Field Hygiene Section Royal Army Medical Corps from:Bath My father, Edgar Simpkins, who is now 100 and lives in Australia, lied about his age and joined the RAMC in April 1932. He was sent to Crookham, then to Millbank and the RAM College which adjoined the barracks. Troops from the barracks serviced the college and Queen Alexandras hospital.
From there he was transferred to Woolwich where he started as an orderly on the wards, became a 3rd class, then 2nd class and finally a 1st class nurse. Then he became a hospital cook and then transferred to the mortuary.
He was called up from the reserve before war started and was sent to Cherbourg inspecting and preparing billets on the coast of France all the way up to Belgium when the Germans advanced and the British had to withdraw, eventually evacuating from Cherbourg on a hospital ship which the Germans tried to bomb.
During the war, he served in the 9th Field Hygiene Section and the 13th Field Sanitary Section.
He went down through Spain and Portugal, into the Mediterranean and various parts of the north coast of Africa, Egypt, and eventually to Sicily and Italy.
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