Mobile hospitals had a vital role to play in treating the sick and wounded during World War One. Tim Gosling looks at their development
Most readers will, I am sure, be familiar with the TV Series MASH which portrays the story of the fictitious 4077 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. The origin of the MASH actually goes back to World War One, but at that stage they were known as just a mobile hospital or mobile surgical units and could be found as part of a larger unit known as the divisional sanitary train.
The initial goal when assisting wounded is to stabilise the patient and evacuate them to a place where they can be treated and recover. The first step of this journey was the regimental aid station where new patients were received by stretcher bearer and then stabilised. They were then evacuated to a mobile hospital where they would be treated before moving again to an evacuation hospital (usually located about 25 miles behind the front lines) where they would remain until they could be moved by ambulance or hospital train to a specialised base hospital for further treatment and eventually to a convalescent hospital. In some cases if the patient was too ill to be moved to an eva…
