The role of the Auxiliary Ambulance Service during the Second World War in London and other cities is undocumented and forgotten. No other wartime service, from Bevin Boys to the Land Army, has been so totally ignored by literature and the audio-visual media.
From over 130 stations, an estimated 10,000 volunteers collected the injured, as well as mutilated and dismembered bodies in outdated commercial vans crudely adapted. These volunteers - most were women - coming from all social classes and career backgrounds, were plunged into a scenario as traumatic and horrific as anything encountered by any of the other Services.
This book uses much original and unpublished material to tell the story of Auxiliary Ambulance Station 39 situated in Weymouth Mews in the heart of London. Nearly all the records of the service were lost after the war so the material here is almost certainly unique and fills a gap in the history of wartime Britain.
At the core of the narrative lies the memories of Station Officer May Greenup who served at Station 39 for five and a half years. The structure of service is illustrated by an extremely detailed and thorough timetable May produced to instruct and inform on the minute by minute running of her station. Integral to the text are many photographs taken by May and her colleagues. These reflect not the hour by hour horror of their duties but the humour they searched for amidst the devastation.
