Lives of the First World War

1888 - 1916

Researched by Penny Worth, Keymer, Sussex. See my blog for more details and photos. www.keymerclaytonwarmemorials.wordpress.com Hedley was born in 1888 in Pyecombe to Thomas and Catherine Flint. In the 1881 census when Hedley was just 3 he was living with his family in Pyecombe Street where his father worked as the driver of a milk van. Hedley’s father Thomas died the following year aged only 36 leaving behind 5 young children. His mother Catherine died only four years later at the age of 34. After the early deaths of their parents the children went to live with their grandparents on a farm in West Grinstead. Aged 22 by the 1911 census Hedley was still living with his grandparents who by then lived at Brookside Farm, Henfield and Hedley was a farm hand. Hedley enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Hove in February 1915. He underwent training and then in April 1915 he was posted to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 33rd Field Ambulance. Hedley embarked from England on 25th July 1915 landing on the Greek island of Lemnos on 7th August and was then based in Mudros. Lemnos had been occupied in preparation for the attack on Gallipoli which began in April. Many hospitals and medical units were stationed on both sides of Mudros Bay with Field Ambulances close to the front line. Intense fighting between the Turkish and the Allied forces of Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand (ANZAC) caused immense casualties, wounded, dead and missing. Extract from Field Ambulance Records: 6th August The Bearer Sub-divisions of the 33rd, 34th, and 35th Field Ambulances disembarked with Headquarters on “C” beach. 7th August: All Field Ambulances landed on “C” beach and opened Main Dressing Stations near the beach in as sheltered positions as possible, during the day they were constantly under shell fire. Advanced Dressing Stations were opened by all Fd. Ambs., the positions of these were left to initiative of the Officers in charge of Bearer Sub-divisions– the bearers in many cases working up to the firing line as the Regimental Stretcher Bearers had been killed or wounded. On 5th December Hedley was transferred by boat from Mudros to Suvla Bay, Gallipoli. (See Henry Burgess and John McDonald). Just 10 days later the evacuation of all troops from Suvla Bay began and was completed by 8th January 1916. (When his death was announced in The Mid Sussex Times later that year it said he was ‘one of the last to leave Suvla Bay with the Field Ambulance.’) After evacuation Hedley went back to Egypt until 28th June 1916 when he embarked in Alexandria, disembarking in Marseilles on 6th July along with the rest of 33rd Field Ambulance. On 1st July the Battle of the Somme began in northern France. The casualties and death tolls were immense throughout the weeks and months that followed. The job of getting the wounded away from the battle zone was as hazardous for the men of the RAMC as for the front line troops. Hedley was killed in action on the 8th September 1916 aged 28 and is buried in Blighty Alley Cemetery, Authile Wood. The Mid Sussex Times of 26th September 1916 reported: Death of Private Hedley Flint: The sad news was received at Hassocks on Friday of the death of Private Hedley Flint, RAMC, he being killed in action on September 8th. He joined the Army in February 1915 and had served a year in the Dardanelles and Egypt, being one of the last to leave Suvla Bay with the Field Ambulance. He had been only two months in France, and met his death, it is supposed, by a shell. Previously to the war he was in Mr Bates’s employ at Hassocks for three years, and was respected by all who knew him. Miss Williams, of Bracken Fell, Hassocks, wishes through this medium to thank all friends for their kind sympathy.

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