Major H. A. Chisholm was called for duty to the office of the A.D.M.S. Canadians shortly after arrival. Major Chisholm belonged to Antigonish, and was a member of the Permanent Army Medical Corps. He had a distinguished career Overseas and attained the rank of Colonel and was mentioned in despatches and awarded the honors of C.M.G. and D.S.O. He also held the important positions of D.A.D.M.S. 1st Canadian Division; A.D.M.S. 4th Division; A.D.M.S. attached to the office of the D.G.M.S. Canadians, London, and D.D.M.S., O.M.F.C., London.
The unusually heavy autumn rains of 1914 converted the rolling downs of Salisbury Plains into seas of mud, through which the Unit wallowed and bathed and boated in its efforts to follow field training. The troops were all under canvas at this time.
Lord Astor, then Major Astor, had a palatial residence and spacious grounds at Cliveden, near Taplow, Bucks, the grounds of which he offered for hospital purposes. In December No. 1 Canadian C.C.S. was sent to Cliveden to establish a hospital, and for six weeks the entire personnel was busy in these preparations. This hospital, established by No. 1 Canadian Casualty Clearing Hospital of Nova Scotia, ultimately developed into the great Duchess of Connaught Hospital, afterwards officially known as No. 15 Canadian General Hospital, upon which thousands of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and other Britishers can look back with grateful memories for the skilful and successful treatment and great kindness for which this hospital became noted.
A Casualty Clearing Station is a field unit, and consequently when the 1st Canadian Division was ordered to France this Unit received a move order and preceded the Division to France, landing at Le Havre at 10 a.m., February 3, 1915, on S.S. Huanchaco from Southampton. On the same ship was another Canadian Hospital Unit—No. 1 Canadian Stationary, commanded by Lieut.-Col. Lorn Drum (now Colonel Lorn Drum, C.B.E., Inspector of Military Hospitals for Canada). These, however, were not the first Canadian Units in France, as they were preceded in November, 1914, by a No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital, which was commanded in its last days in France and brought back to Canada by the writer. This was really the first Canadian Unit of any description to function in France as a Unit and the only one in France in 1914.
After some six weeks’ stay at Le Havre the Unit was transferred to Boulogne, where it arrived at 9.45 a.m., February 26, 1915.
Motion was usually rapid in France and changes made at short notice. Within a week this Unit had orders to proceed from Boulogne to First Army Headquarters at the Town of Aire-Sur-La-Lys, where it arrived Saturday morning, March 6th. On arrival the Unit was assigned to Fort Gassion, which had been a French prison before the War but was now occupied by British troops as a rest camp, and there was also a Motor Ambulance Convoy billeted there. The work assigned to No. 1 C.C.S. was to take over this old prison and make it immediately ready for the reception of patients.
The old buildings were filthy and in a dilapidated condition, and required a great deal of work to prepare them for patients, and all the equipment had to be unpacked and placed. The whole Unit went to work with diligence and determination and within forty-eight hours they brought order out of chaos and on Monday morning admitted and comfortably housed fifty patients.
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was in progress and was the source of most of the patients during the week.
Heroic work was done by the six nursing sisters who had been attached to and had come over to France with this Unit. They were:—Vivian Tremaine, M.V.O., R.R.C., Frances M. Frew, M. U. Riverin, Amy Howard, Minnie Follette.
Nursing Sister Follette, of Great Village, Colchester County, afterwards lost her life with the sinking of the hospital ship Llandovery Castle by the Germans.