ABSTRACT
NOW Belsen entered what some irreverent person called the Colonel Period. Johnston was only a lieutenant-colonel and his hospital only a Casualty Clearing Station. When a number of General Hospitals arrived, each with a bevy of lieutenant-colonels and under the central command of a regular full colonel, the position became a little difficult. For some weeks Johnston was sustained in his position of Senior Medical Officer of the whole camp by the brigadier at Head-Quarters, but finally this was felt too irregular on Army standards and Johnston was told to hand over his command to the full colonel of one of the General Hospitals. This matter of handing over an Army hospital is a very formidable affair, involving a Registrar, a head clerk, and some thirty others. All this was gone through in the best tradition and the full colonel of one of the General Hospitals almost installed, when the full colonel of the other came back from leave and discovered that he was, in point of fact, the senior colonel. This would never do, so another hand-over, or rather hand-back, had to be gone through. Then almost immediately this General Hospital was ordered out and had to hand back to the other again. As soon as this was done another General Hospital arrived, but it was ordered out before it had even time to be handed over to, and still another arrived. It was hardly settled before U.N.R.R.A. arrived in the person of an elderly surgeon from Guy’s and a matron. He said he had been told to take over in a fortnight. He had no clerks at all, nurses, or anything else. He was very dogmatic and quite sure of himself. When he asked the Army for a car, they sent him a racing bicycle. We called him Old Father U.N.R.R.A. It took him six weeks to take over and then he was immediately recalled. In addition to these medical colonels there was a colonel in charge of the garrison and another in charge of Military Government. The latter, to keep in line with the proper tradition of keeping everybody on the move, suddenly ordered us out also. When it was discovered by one of the medical colonels who had just been handed over to, that in fact the seventy-odd members of the Red Cross all held key positions in different parts of the camp, such as Miss Daniell, who at that moment was clothing ten thousand women, the order was cancelled, but not before two of our best teams had been sent away. It took us four weeks to replace them with new teams who had to come all the way from Holland.
