Month: September 1916

Having varicose veins must be painful. Painful at any time in your life. For Robert, having them while training for the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, was extremely painful. And more than that it was embarrassing. His his understanding of varicose veins was that they were something really old people had, not young men like him. Was he predisposed to them, did they run in the family? Or were the caused by the intense training he had been undergoing. As shown in the Medical Case Sheet below, Sargent Dixon is complaining of the varicose veins in his right leg and how they ache when he is on long marches. If I am reading the next line correctly, I believe he has turned down being drafted to the front because of this. He is frustrated and embarrassed to see his fellow troops heading off to the front lines without him.

finally sought medical help in personnel records items 7, 8, 15, 23 also GSW, 25 description vv – impacting him on march Moore Barracks Cdn Hospital , 27 urinalysis for vv, 30 operation on right leg Sept 21 to October 12th , then moved to Canadian Convalescent Home Heathfield not discharged until November 22( where is the convalescent home) – in Heathfield – near Cross in Hand , east Sussess England

An operation is going to be necessary. Sargent Dixon finds himself in Moore Barracks Canadian Hospital in Shorncliffe. As you can read below he was placed under general anaesthetic on September 25th. Then the surgeon moves the internal saphenous vein which leads from his right middle thigh down to his ankle, he also performed the same procedure on some of the larger branches of the main vein. This sounds serious. The cuts made to move the veins are then sutured with horsehair. Robert has sutures all down his right leg. These are removed a week later on October 2nd and Robert is then moved to the Canadian Convalescent Home in Heathfield to recover from this operation. At the Convalescent Home Robert may have witnessed some of the horror he would soon face as the home would have housed those wounded on the Western Front.

Sargent Dixon takes a month to recover from this operation. He is discharged on November 21st, 1916. He is new and improved and hopefully ready for whatever comes next.

On my previous post I made the statement that Robert Dixon’s Varicose Vein operation probably saved his life. Not because the operation itself was life saving, but because of where he probably would have been stationed if not for the operation. The Battle of the Somme. It had started on July 1st, 1916. was a military disaster. On that day alone Britain suffered a staggering massacre of close to 60,000 casualties including 19,000 deaths. On that same day the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of 800 men were all but wiped out. ( the reason Canada Day is known as Memorial Day in Newfoundland) The Battle of the Somme continued all summer and into the fall when the Canadian Divisions were called upon. In September, while Sergeant Dixon is in the hospital being operated on, the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion to which he would soon be assigned were on the frontlines in in Courcelette. The casualties for the 1st Canadian Infantry alone for that September are shown in the War Diary entry below. 77 men killed, 332 wounded, and 40 missing. The Battle of the Somme goes down in history as a military disaster. The British Empire/Commonwealth suffered 420,000 casualties, i French 195,00, the Germans 600,000. Included in the Commonwealth numbers are 24,000 Canadian casualties of which 8,000 were fatalities. All this over about 8 kilometers of land – and when it was all said and done – nothing had really been accomplished by other side. A good time to be in the hospital for Sergeant Dixon. Although while he was in hospital it is highly likely that we would have witnessed the results of this Battle as the casualties continually arrived.