This week marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that took place along the Normandy coast during World War II. The historic operation saw the Allied Forces mount a large-scale invasion of occupied France that ultimately tipped the course of World War II in the Allies favour. Douglas W. Montgomery, a Fellow and Past President of RCSI and member of the Royal Army Medical Corps was one of those whom landed on that historic day.
Shortly after landing and having travelled for about a mile and a quarter, Montgomery along with a group of medics (an anaesthetist, two operating-room assistants and an orderly) set up a makeshift operating theatre on the beach. The first patient Montgomery treated was an injured German soldier. Remarkably, within an hour and twenty minutes after landing the first blood transfusion was carried out.
 |
| Surgeons logbook with entries of first patients attended to by D.W. Montgomery |
 |
| Sign erected by the Field Surgical Team on arriving at Mairie de Ver-sur-Mer |
Montgomery was to remain working in that location for the months of July and August. He was subsequently invalided out of the army due to a back injury he picked up when landing on the beach and running for cover.
Back in Ireland, Montgomery was commissioner of the St John Ambulance Brigade and was made a Knight of the Order of St John by Queen Elizabeth II. He was President of RCSI 1968-1970.
RCSI Heritage Collections hold digital copies of unique archival
material relating to Montgomery’s time in Normandy including a logbook of all
surgical procedures that he carried out
as well as a typescript report written by him giving details of the fifteen
weeks working in France. An extraordinary record, of extraordinary work,
carried out at an extraordinary time.
The digitised Douglas W Montgomery archive collection can be explored on
RCSI Digital Heritage Collections