Hundreds of British servicemen's lives were saved during the Falklands War by a dedicated medical team.

More than 700 men were wounded in the conflict, with injuries ranging from minor shrapnel scratches, through to disfiguring burns and even amputation and loss of limbs.

Surg Capt Rick Jolly was in command of the Ajax Bay Field Hospital during the war. He was 37 years old and had been in the forces for just over 10 years.

Royal Navy sailors tend to the injured on board Canberra

He joined after getting fed up with the NHS and to satisfy his desire to do something a little more exciting.

`I served in Northern Ireland and with the Fleet Air Arm,' said Dr Jolly, `Then in 1980 I became senior medical officer with the Commando Brigade in Plymouth.

`My brief was to be able to set up a field hospital at a moment's notice anywhere in the world.'

Dr Jolly underwent tough training with the Royal Marine Commandos - and was sent to Norway for three months every winter to set up a field hospital.

`When I had to do it for real it was not so different,' said Dr Jolly, `It is what I had been waiting for, although nothing ever goes to plan.

`Our first difficulty when we got to the Falklands was that we couldn't put tents up because we were relying on helicopters so much, and the force from them would have just blown the tents over.

`Instead we found an old building that hadn't been used for years, dusted it down, and made that our base.'

Dr Jolly had a team of 120 people behind him - 90 marines and medics and about 30 surgical specialists, many from Haslar hospital in Portsmouth.

`We all pulled together brilliantly,' said Dr Jolly, `I was very proud of the way the red berets of the parachute regiment and the green berets of the commandos, pulled together.'

The surgeons had to work under appalling conditions - often with air-raids going on overhead. `Sometimes we would get an air raid warning at the hospital and I would have to decide which of the team to evacuate, and which to leave.

`Doctors were having to get on with their jobs knowing they could be about to be bombed and killed any second, but the wry humour and immense loyalty they showed was fantastic,' said Dr Jolly.

`As in any war, the human cost is depressing. In the British task force 255 men were killed and over 780 injured. Within these figures, 82 died in the land battle ashore, with around 550 injured.

`What is really impressive is that of those 550 wounded in action, only three men subsequently died from their wounds. I can remember each of their names - one had a severe penetrating wound of the upper abdomen while the other two had bad head injuries.'

He added: 'These remarkable figures were achieved by a casualty evacuation and treatment chain which stretched from the point of wounding, all the way back to hospitals such as Haslar in the UK.

`They reflect well not just on the surgeons in the field hospital at Ajax Bay, but on every link in the chain, from the first-aiders and the stretcher bearers, via the gallant helicopter crews, to the devoted nurses on the hospital ship Uganda, and the crews aboard the three hospital ambulance ships which carried the injured up to Uruguay, from where they were flown back to the UK.'

Dr Jolly said that the arctic conditions on the Falklands actually helped some of the wounded soldiers. `It was so cold that it helped their wounds not to go gangrenous. It was amazing to see just how quickly the soldiers' wounds healed up.

`We had a policy of leaving wounds open for two or three days before sending the patient back to the field hospital for an operation to close it - this worked well.'

Dr Jolly recalls: `The Falklands was probably the most exciting time of my life but also the most dangerous - it was like surfing a tidal wave.

`I was terrified at times, as we were getting shot at and bombed, but it was something I got used to and I actually became rather blase and relaxed about the whole thing.'

Dr Jolly and his team did not just keep their skills and expertise for British troops, they also operated on Argentinian soldiers captured during the conflict.

`When the Argentinian field hospital was captured on the day of the ceasefire, we had to operate on a number of patients who had grossly infected wounds.' In all, 200 Argentinian casualties were treated by Dr Jolly's team.

Dr Jolly, who is married to a nurse, left the services in January last year. He is now doing locum work and some writing. He is also chairman of the newly-formed South Atlantic Medal Association.

He has written a book about his experiences called: The Red and Green Life Machine - A Diary of the Falklands Field Hospital, which is published by Century.

Memories
Main Menu