St Hugh’s Hospital and Neurological Injuries in Wartime: The Case of Tom Rogers

The Military Hospital for Head Injuries at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, was an integral part of the Oxford wartime landscape. Requisitioned for the war effort in 1940, the college - standing in a leafy suburb of north Oxford - was selected for its proximity to local hospitals and research hubs, in addition to the RAF base at Brize Norton, as most of the patients had to be flown back to England, rather than taking the longer journey by ship. It was also selected for its architectural suitability. The college building had long corridors, rather than many stairs, making it easy to transport patients in beds. The college also had extensive grounds, upon which temporary constructions were built.

                  In its period of operation between 1940 and 1945, the Head Hospital is thought to have treated over 13,000 men.[1] It can be very easy to see the past at a distance, and the people who inhabit it as mere characters. But what does it mean to zoom in on the story of one of these men out of the 13,000? The past is full of people with lives as real and as complex as ours today. When exploring these lives, it is important to understand their time and culture’s way of thinking, to properly put ourselves in their shoes.

                  For some people in the past, it is easy to know what happened to them and how they lived their lives. But for others, piecing together their story can be more complex. For Private Tom Roberts, the mystery surrounding the archival traces he left behind is almost as important to the story of the Head Hospital as his story on its own.[2]

The Story of Tom Roberts

                  Tom came to the St Hugh’s Head Injury hospital in Oxford in 1944 after sustaining a right-sided open head injury from a blast that occurred whilst deactivating mines around Hill 112 in Normandy in the August of that year.

The evidence we have about Tom’s life is held in more than one place. The journey starts outside of Oxford, in the Museum of Military Medicine archive in Aldershot, Hampshire. In the archive are letters addressed to Sister Hill, who was the sister on ward M4 at the Head Hospital in 1944. There are letters from Tom’s mum in the bundle:

‘I am very pleased Tom’s improving, he seemed a little depressed, but I suppose he will get that. I tell him you all are doing your best for him, and it is up to him to try too.’- Mrs Roberts.[3]

                  This letter could easily be an email to a nurse looking after someone’s son in hospital today. The language and tone employed are not dissimilar from that of any other worried and caring parent, in any time period.

                  Later in the collections of letters comes another written by Tom’s Mum:

‘I hope you will excuse me writing in pencil. But I have just come home and I have received a letter from Tom. I feel quite upset. He doesn’t seem to write as well as he did when he was with you… He’s worrying about getting his discharge but he seems in lower spirits than he was taken when he was with you. I do wish he would try and cheer himself up. I know there’s thousands worse than him.’- Mrs Roberts.[4]

Mrs Roberts is clearly very anxious here. She wants what she thinks is best for her son. It seems that Sister Hill was a positive presence and had been helping Tom regain his writing skills after his head injury. We know from other records that Tom was medically discharged from the army not long after this letter was sent. But Mrs Roberts’ letter raises questions about the emotions behind that. Why was Tom so worried about his discharge? We know that Tom was only 19 when he was treated at the Head Hospital. He had left school and got a job in the steel works aged 14, but his military service would have been a formative experience for him. He would have been with other men of his own age and away from home. He would have been given more responsibility and more freedom in many aspects of his life. The prospect of losing that part of his identity in a culture that celebrated militarism and masculinity would have been a daunting one.

Mrs Roberts’ writing that Tom should ‘cheer himself up’ and that ‘there’s thousands worse than him’ could easily be misinterpreted as not understanding and disregarding what Tom is going through. This could be true; however, it is clear from subsequent documents just how much she cared about her son:

Dear Sir, I am reply[ing] to your letter about my son Tom Roberts I am sorry to say we lost him in an air accident on March 12th of 1950. As regards his health he was doing light work and had improved very good. Yours sincerely. A. Roberts

This note was attached to a response to a questionnaire about Tom’s symptoms that was sent to his home address in 1963. This kind of follow-up was one of the remarkable innovations of the Head Hospital, where a team of neurologists and psychologists, led by Ritchie Russell and Freda Newcombe, continued to trace their patients’ decades after their discharge, recording in detail their lives and tracing any long-term effects of their head injuries. The cultural context of the letter is important too. 20^th century ideas of formality and the social divide between eminent doctors and Tom’s mother is evident here. As such, it is unlikely that she would feel comfortable expressing much emotion to them about the loss of her son. However, this was written 13 years after Tom died in the Llandow air disaster- a plane full of Welsh rugby union fans that crashed, with Tom amongst the 80 killed. His Mum was still very aware of how hard they both worked towards his recovery, even after so long. Tom’s Mum is the only member of Tom’s family to feature in either archive, despite letters from the hospital being addressed to his father, and medical notes mentioning a brother and sister. This suggests she was a woman who fought fiercely for her son’s wellbeing, answering all correspondence surrounding him herself. This was quite a radical thing to have done in 1940s England, where gender dynamics were very different to today.

Clearly, Tom’s time at the Head Hospital in Oxford left a lasting impression on him, his Mum and his treatment team. Tom’s tragic early death does not negate any of this. Tom’s medical records were meticulously kept, as his injuries were of great clinical interest. As a result of this careful record keeping- consolidated post-war, the soldiers who were patients at the St Hughs’s Head Hospital are still part of world leading neurological research taking place in the University of Oxford today (see, for example, the work of Dr Jonathan Attwood Jonathan Attwood — Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (ox.ac.uk)).

The Archival Mystery

According to the letters in the RAMC archives, Mrs Roberts was writing from a town in England. However, Tom’s address in the St Hugh’s Head Hospital Archive in Oxford was listed as being in Wales. This proved mysterious as his mother’s handwriting was the same when sending letters from both addresses, and the details of Tom’s injuries matched up.

However, later in the archive, Tom’s address is also listed as being in England and that he is in the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) with a different regimental number, rather than the Welch Regiment as he was detailed as being a member of previously in the archive. Could this have been two men with the same name? This seems unlikely as the two English addresses from the two archives were the same. Therefore, it must be ascertained which regiment Tom was in; the REME or the Royal Welch?

To find this out, the medical notes surrounding Tom’s injury were the most important clue. We know Tom was first seen for his injuries by the 212 CCP (casualty clearing point) on the 5^th August 1944, before being sent further up the line to 147 FA (Field Ambulance). Using digitised war records, it can be discovered that 147 FA were attached to the 53^rd Infantry division from D-Day onwards. Using the war records of the Royal Welch regiment, it can then be discerned that Tom’s Battalion were in the 53^rd Infantry division, fighting in Operation Bluecoat (near the Battle for the Falaise Pocket in Northern France) in August 1944.

This seems to imply that the suggestion Tom was ever in the REME is false. However, the REME was not formed as a corps until the middle of World War II. It incorporated a multitude of units from different cap badges, often taking skilled tradesmen from each regiment. From letters written to the Head Hospital from Tom’s pre-war employer, we know that Tom was a skilled labourer in the wire works. Could this have made him a useful member of the new REME corps? But how, when he was medically discharged after his injury, could Tom have served in both corps close enough to the time of injury to warrant 2 regimental numbers? Further inspection of the Royal Welch’s war records hold the answer to this. On the 3^rd August 1944, 3 days before Tom’s injury, his unit was transferred to an Infantry Brigade, now a part of the fledgling REME corps. It is therefore likely that the reason Tom’s earlier medical records list his Royal Welch regimental number, and the later ones list his REME one is because of the time it would have taken to process any serviceman’s change of cap badge during the chaos of the end of World War II.

However, what is still unclear is why Tom was living in both England and Wales. Sometimes, the answer will forever remain a mystery. However, Tom’s story is an example of how stories can be scattered across historical sources, making their piecing together even more important. His story is just one of the 13,000 that the Military Hospital for Head Injuries has to tell. Tom may have come from a long way away from Oxford, but his story is as integral to the city’s history as any other’s.

A punch card with personal details removed. It details the injuries and treatment of a patient in the Head Hospital. The holes on the edges allowed the punch cards (when stacked together) to act as one of the first excel spreadsheets, with the ‘find’ function being the act of passing a needle and thread through a specific hole.

Sources Consulted

• Weiner, M.F. and Silver, J., ‘St Hugh’s Military Hospital (Head Injuries), Oxford 1940-1945’, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians, Vol.47, (2017), pp.183-189.
• The Head Hospital Archive at St Hugh’s College has been instrumental in providing primary source material for this project.
• 53 (Welsh) Infantry Division (1944-45) (britishmilitaryhistory.co.uk)
• Royal Army Medical Corps, Infantry Division, 1944 (niehorster.org)
• The Royal Army Medical Corps archive at the Museum of Military Medicine has been of great help when researching for this project.
• Punch card image provided by kind permission of the Principal and Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford.
• Dr Jonathan Attwood provided invaluable information from his own research, including details on how the punch cards were used.