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I shall let the webmaster assist on the previous thread's location. For the moment I can provide the following (part of a "between the wars" awards data base:
TYRRELL, William, W/C, DSO, MC, MB - Mention in Despatches - awarded as per London Gazette dated 12 July 1920; reported in Aeroplane of 21 July 1920; for services in Somaliland, as of 31 March 1920.
NOTE: The 11 November 1931 issue of Aeroplane carried an account of a lecture on military medical services given by a Major G. Wilson, in which he spoke of the potential of air ambulances, stating that the first successful use of these had been in 1923 by the French army in Morocco. The magazine reminded him of the "famous blood wagon" of the "Z" Expedition to Somaliland. It then quoted from The Report on the Health of the Royal Air Force for 1920:
(d) It was the first occasion on which medical arrangements were controlled entirely by the RAF medical service. There was an RAF base hospital at Berbera and miniature clearing stations and aid posts up country as required.
(e) An aerial ambulance was used for the first time in desert warfare. The machine was a modified DH.9 and carried one stretcher and attendant. Its value is well shown by the following extracts from private correspondence from Somaliland:-
"The old ‘blood wagon' as everyone calls the aerial ambulance, has proved a complete success. Certainly for desert warfare and the transport of sick and wounded, where hitherto only camels or pony litters have been available, the aeroplane stands out all on its own, even for the most serious cases. I must say that I was inclined to be sceptical at first, and in my estimates of ‘Z' casualties did not count upon the aeroplane at all as it was only in the experimental stage. This campaign has, however, demonstrated the efficiency of an aeroplane as an air ambulance."
Aeroplane continued tin this vein, noting that the first air ambulance was an Armstrong Whitworth machine converted to designs of Captains Kennedy and Dale, RAF Medical Services, sanctioned by the Air Council and built in 1919 but not used. In the same year a Captain Lascelles evolved an ambulance out of a DH.6 at Moascar, Egypt, but there was no record of it ever being used. The first aeroplane built officially as an ambulance was a Vickers Vimy delivered to the RAF in 1921 and used for many years in Iraq (illustration in Aeroplane).
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