WWI REMEMBERED Women first aiders close to front line in maverick yeomanry

ON JUNE 18, 1918, the Western Mail carried a headline which read: “Welsh lady wins the Military Medal.” The recipient was Elsie Agnes Courtis, of Fairwater Croft, Llandaff, Cardiff.

Elsie was the youngest daughter of Sir John Courtis, Lord Mayor of Cardiff in 1911 and High Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1914.

Together with his wife Marian they lived with their five children initially at Hillside, Penylan, and later at Fairwater Croft.

In August 1914, the Courtis family had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the war effort.

By 1918, along with many families in South Wales, they had paid a heavy price.

Sir John’s eldest son, John Harold, had been killed in 1915 by a sniper at the Battle of Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia.

His two younger sons, Alan and Walter, were also in the armed forces.

Alan Courtis, having attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, and trained at St Bart’s Hospital, was a lieutenant surgeon with the Royal Navy.

Walter Courtis was a captain with the East Lancashire Regiment and fought in the Gallipoli campaign.

Although too old for military service, Sir John was also keen to make a contribution on the Home Front and took a leading role in the establishment of the Glamorgan Battalion of the National Motor Volunteers.

Formed of local men who owned a car, they provided transport to help move wounded soldiers between hospitals in South Wales as well as providing outings for those on the path to recovery.

In the early years of the war the Courtis daughters, Hilda and Elsie, also worked with their parents for the Red Cross in Llandaff.

Sir John was the local divisional director and Hilda a quartermaster.

The women also supported the Women’s Emergency Corps and contributed to the work of the YMCA in setting up “huts” to provide food and rest for servicemen in the UK and at the frontline.

By 1918, however, they were both in France.

Hilda Courtis was working at a YMCA canteen just behind the front line, while Elsie had joined the First Aid Military Yeomanry.

The Yeomanry was a celebrated and somewhat maverick group of women that worked close to the front line in Belgium and France.

Set up in 1907, their aim was to provide a team of riders able to provide first aid on the battlefield and transport the wounded to hospital clearing stations.

Each member was expected to be competent in both first aid and vehicle maintenance.

The sight of women at the front driving heavy vehicles and dealing with all aspects of their maintenance was something never before seen on a battlefield.

However, it was not until 1916 that the British Army overcame its suspicion of the Yeomanry by asking them to take over the running of the ambulance service in St Omer and Calais from the men of the British Red Cross.

By 1918 they had long abandoned their red tunics and horses in favour of motor vehicles.

However, they still remained largely self-funded with a quite separate chain of command from the regular army.

With her Red Cross experience and knowledge of motor vehicles, Elsie would have been a perfect fit for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.

But little could have prepared her for the conditions that she would have encountered in St Omer one hundred years ago.

The weather in the early months of the year had been particularly severe.

Alongside colleagues in the Yeomanry and Red Cross nurses, Elsie would have worked long shifts driving on frozen, potholed and later mudbound tracks transporting wounded soldiers from ambulance trains and barges to the casualty clearing stations.

Many were then transferred onwards to local hospitals or to Calais for evacuation.

The Yeomanry also had the unenviable task of moving the dead to the local mortuaries.

Any down time would have been taken up with trying to keep their battered vehicles on the road alongside snatched periods of rest.

Matters took a turn for the worse in April and May with the German offensive resulting in large numbers of wounded arriving day and night.

The Yeomanry was only allowed to stay on the condition that they had an evacuation plan to escape as the German Army pushed steadily forward.

Under shell fire and bombing from the air, the team worked around the clock transporting and caring for the endless lines of bloodied soldiers.

During this time Elsie’s military