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Pte. John Francis Webb
Royal Army Medical Corps. 1st West Riding Ambulance
from:Masbrough, Rotherham, Yorkshire
John Francis Webb, known as Jack, was born at Ackworth Moor Top, Yorkshire on 18th September 1893. Jack was a member of the St John Ambulance Brigade, from the age of 15, and coal miner up to the outbreak of the Great War.
Jack joined the 1st West Riding Field Ambulance on 5th September 1914, number 405149. He did not speak about the horrors of what he encountered; he just mentioned places like “Flandersâ€, “Passchendaele,†and “Wipersâ€. At the beginning of 1916 Jack was in France with the 1st West Riding Field Ambulance. Throughout the First World War Jack served as a non-combatant. Firstly as a stretcher-bearer, later a first aid station dressing attendant. Jack said that his uniform never left his back for a year while serving as medical support at the Battle of the Somme. The worse thing was the lack of facilities and never having a proper bath in four years. They got new underwear once. The bath, while on duty at the “front,†was called the “feet bell’ because there was just enough water to cover the ankles in a tub, they got three minutes to wash then the next man went in. To dry they ran around in their “birthday suits†then collected their first change of underwear and washed shirt. Jack said the replacement shirt had lice eggs in the seams. It was a very itchy experience.
On the eve of the war ending, in 1918, Jack was seriously wounded from a shell explosion. He received serious shrapnel injury to his back and lung while his partner was killed in the incident. Jack needed many skin grafts and was unable to lie on his back for two years. The treatment and convalescence was at Meathop Sanatorium at Grange over Sands, Lancashire.
Jack recalled that the total pay for four and a half years served in the War was £24. He bought a suit, costing £2.10 shillings, in Rotherham High Street and gave the rest to his mother who was living at Dorset Place Masbro’, Rotherham. While recovering at Meathop, Jack met a nurse called Helena Margaret Coughman, known as Lena, whom he later married. Sometime in 1920 Jack returned to work as a coal miner in the colliery. This information was given to me by my granddad Jack in 1984, a few months before he died at the aged of 91.
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