Pte Charles Robinson, 3rd Welsh Field Ambulance and 37th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, served Gallipoli, wounded and captured Cambrai 30 November 1917

Pte Charles Robinson, served Gallipoli with 3rd Welsh Field Ambulance and at Cambrai with 37th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, where he was wounded and made PoW

Charles Robinson was born on 21 December 1893 in Swansea.

He attested in 1911 under the Royal Army Medical Corps regimental number 1341. He served with the 3rd (later 1/3rd) Welsh Field Ambulance and was a carpenter and joiner in civil life. In 1914 he would have presumably been on the Welsh Division's TF annual summer camp when recalled home and then mobilised for full time war service on 5 August 1914. Subsequently, by 11 August he would have moved with his unit to its allotted station (units of the division were based at Shrewsbury, Wellington, Oswestry and Fort Scoveston) and subsequently moved to Northampton and then to Cambridge and Bedford, prior to proceeding to Gallipoli on or around 14 July 1915, via the natural harbour of Lemnos, in the Aegean.

Pte Robinson entered theatre of war 2b (Gallipoli and Aegean Islands) on 10 August 1915, landing at Suvla Bay, a beach head established to relieve the Australian forces at Anzac Cove to the south. Units of the 53rd Division were already in action when the Welsh Field Ambulance (attached to 158th Brigade) landed and the 3rd Welsh were further called upon to support the 54th (East Anglian) Division when it took up the attack between 11 and 18 August. By the end of the month the opposing forces were reduced to a stalemate and the 3rd Welsh tended in difficult conditions on the Suvla beachhead to the growing casualty list. Charles left the theatre on 7 November 1915, roughly 5 weeks before Suvla itself was evacuated. He was accordingly entitled to the 1914-1915 Star. His total service was 5 years and 10 days, finally being discharged as 'time expired' some time in 1916.

Charles re-enlisted into the RAMC on 8/9 February 1917, qualifying for a £15 re-enlistment bounty under Army Order 209 of 1916, his attestation being approved on the 15th. At this time he was living at 102 Terrace Road, Swansea. After what appears to have been a short transfer to the Royal Engineers, subsequently cancelled, he went overseas again on 5 August 1917; he was possibly on of the 4 O.R. reinforcements recorded as received by his unit on 17 August. He served in France with the 37th Field Ambulance, 12th (Eastern) Division, which was at this time still in the Arras sector, at the Ecole Normale, remaining there until 23/24 October when it transferred to Hesdin and then Aubrometz and Moislains to take part in the Cambrai operations. Its final position was taken up on the Fins-Nurlu Road, at the 3rd Corps Walking Wounded station. On Z Day (20 November), the station processed about 1,800 casualties. During these operations 54003 Corporal (Lance-Sergeant) Stephen McKenna of the unit was recommended for the second bar to the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry in organising stretcher parties under rifle, shell and machine gun fire on 20 November and the night of 20-21 November at La Vacquerie. 45659 Corporal Sydney Allen Smith was also recommended for the bar to the DCM on the same occasion and a number of recommendations for Military Medals were sent through.

After just under 4 months overseas, Pte Robinson was posted as missing on 30 November 1917, reported in War Office Daily List No. 5465 of 14 January 1918. At this time the Field Ambulance was still set up on the Fins-Nurlu Road. He was possibly wounded by shell-fire during the German Cambrai counter-attack, in which the enemy drove the 12th Division back to La Vacquerie. Equally, like 47599 Pte Joseph Brown, also of 37th FA, he may have been wounded and captured whilst tending to the injured out in the open. The War Diary for the period simply notes "This morning the Germans attacked in force and at present 24 [later confirmed at 19] O.R. RAMC are believed captured. Five O.R. RAMC of this unit are believed to have been evacuated wounded.". He was later reported as a Prisoner of War in a London Gazette 'List received from various sources' published as part of War Office Daily List No. 5496 on 19 February 1918, being registered at Limburg around this time. Pte Robinson had his left leg amputated whilst imprisoned, at the PoW hospital at Celle, where he was reported in early July. German records give as his next of kin his mother, living at 102 Terrace Road, Mount Pleasant, Swansea.

He was subsequently repatriated to England in May 1918 owing to the loss of his left lower limb, apparently disembarking in Boston.

His return ('Soldier was prisoner of war in Germany, now arrived in England') was reported in War Office Daily List No. 5586 of 7 June 1918. After being sent to the King George Hospital, Stamford Street, London S E, he then proceeded to the Grove Military Hospital, Tooting and subsequently to 3 Western General Hospital, Neath. Finally, he spent some time in the care of the Metropolitan War Hospital, Whitchurch, near Cardiff prior to discharge.

Upon discharge on 14 April 1919 (under paragraph 292 xvi of King's  Regulations) his name was notified for the Silver War Badge, eventually issued on 30 May 1919 under the number B199423. His corresponding King's Certificate, for which he applied in September 1919, was issued on 16 January 1920.