Faithful in Adversity: The Royal Army Medical Corps in the Second World War

On 28 September 1945, Field Marshal Montgomery expressed his ‘admiration and high regard to a corps whose contribution to victory has been beyond all calculation’. The Royal Army Medical Corps was active during all engagements in the Second World War.From the defeat in Norway in 1940 to the hell of Dunkirk and the fall of France, from the chaos of the retreat through Greece and Crete to the war’s turning point in the vast deserts of North Africa, from deep into West and East Africa to the ferocious combat of the Burma campaign, from the intensity of D-Day and the Normandy campaign to the reverses at Arnhem and the eventual liberation of the German death camps and Far East prison camps, RAMC personnel were frequently at the heart of the action, risking their lives to provide medical support to a mobile army in a highly mechanised war.For those taken prisoner by the enemy, maintaining the physical and psychological well-being of their fellow captives became an urgent necessity whilst for