On Active Service in The Middle East
The Hadfield-Spears unit reached Suez on 2 May, expecting to sail back to Port Sudan and from there to Abyssinia, but plans had changed and they were told to make for Palestine. Their equipment had already been off-loaded at Port Said. During a brief visit to Cairo, Mary Spears met Madame Catroux, wife of General Georges Catroux, General de Gaulle's High Commissioner to the Levant, who did not approve of Free French wounded being cared for by British nurses. However, instead of going to Eritrea and the Sudan, as they had expected, the unit was sent to Sarafand in Palestine, where they were joined by Colonel Fruchaud, a renowned French surgeon, and a French detachment from Eritrea. Passing through Samaria and Galilee and crossing Transjordania they reached Deraa in Syria.
Read more about this topic: Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit
Famous quotes containing the words middle east, active, service, middle and/or east:
“There’s no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn’t invaded Kuwait that August and set everyone gearing up for World War II½. Can we count on Saddam Hussein to come along every year and resolve our defense-policy debates? Given the history of the Middle East, it’s possible.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.”
—Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke Wellington (1769–1852)
“Unfortunately, life may sometimes seem unfair to middle children, some of whom feel like an afterthought to a brilliant older sibling and unable to captivate the family’s attention like the darling baby. Yet the middle position offers great training for the real world of lowered expectations, negotiation, and compromise. Middle children who often must break the mold set by an older sibling may thereby learn to challenge family values and seek their own identity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“The East is marvellously interesting for tracing our steps back. But for going forward, it is nothing. All it can hope for is to be fertilised by Europe, so that it can start on a new phase.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)