Hello - I’m new to this forum so hopefully posting in the right place. My grandfather was a medic in the war. Some of his war time letters give his address as belonging to the No. 6 Ind Fld Lab (Indian Field Lab?). I can’t find any reference to this in any internet search hits. Has anyone come across this? I know he did work in a lab as I have a picture of him in uniform with a microscope and reference in his letters to studying disease and treating people with penicillin.
Hello, I had a search for their war diaries & only found this one. 6 Fd. Lab. | The National Archives Edit , this one too. 6 Fd. Lab. | The National Archives Used search term." 6 indian field laboratories"
Welcome to the forum. War diaries are the best thing, but a sub-section of the official histories series is handy for all matters medical. Luckily some of them have been scanned and uploaded to archive.org so you can download and view them in full as PDF files. Official History of the Indian 1939-45 Medical Service (Western Campaigns) says this on Page 8: INDIAN FIELD LABORATORY Another unit which came into existence during the war was the field laboratory. Even though in a skeleton form thése field laboratories were used in the North-West Frontier Province, its emergence as a full-fledged unit was during World War II. It was decided to raise one field laboratory per two general hospitals on the assumption that the general hospitals would always be grouped together. This allotment had to be subsequently changed when it was found that one field laboratory could hardly cope with the laboratory work of two hospitals, especially in the eastern theatre, where over 6o per cent. of cases required laboratory investigations. Steps were taken to raise more field laboratory units and their allotment was liberalised to one per five sections. A specialist in pathology was usually in charge of the unit. In all, 60 field laboratories were raised during the war. Full book here: ACL-CPL 00061 Official History of the Indian 1939-45 Medical Service -the compaigns : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive 6th (Ind) Fd. Lab. is mentioned as being under command 3 District on Page 298 of The Army Medical Services: Campaigns: Volume 3 Sicily Italy Greece (1944-45). Full book available at: The Army Medical Services: Campaigns: Volume 3 Sicily Italy Greece (1944-45) (History of the Second World War United Kingdom Medical Series) : F A E Crew : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
