Military Hospital

Archive Notes:

Two aerial photographs of the Military Hospital at Holton in 1950s.

A Military Hospital, built for the Americans after they had entered the Second World War, was housed in utilitarian Nissan huts, on the site of what is now Wheatley Park School in Holton. Wounded and shell-shocked servicemen arrived by special trains at Wheatley station where they were transferred into ambulances, with a large red cross on the side, which made their way down Ladder Hill and up Holloway Road to the hospital. The American GIs were popular in the village, even if there was an increase in illegitimate births. Later in the war, the hospital was handed over to the British Army’s 21st Company RAMC, which specialised in dealing with head injuries. Casualties began to be ferried in by helicopter, with flight paths illuminated by car headlights and landing sites marked by nurses waving white sheets and pillowcases. The hospital closed in 1961. The buildings were converted or rebuilt, and some of them were used by the John Watson School.

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