Corporal John William Sealey
2nd/1st Wessex Field Ambulance , Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC)
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: Quarter 2, 1895
Place of Birth: Teignmouth, Devon
Date of Death: 3 August 1917 aged 22
Buried: Brandhoek New Military Cemetery, No. 3, Belgium. Remembered on Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth, Devon
Awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
Corporal John William Sealey age 22.
Born in Quarter 2, 1895, the youngest son of John and Bessie Sealey of Teignmouth, Devon. In 1901 John was living with his widowed father, a fish merchant, and 3 siblings at Mulberry Street. By 1911 he was working as a fish dealer and living with his father and brother at 6 Bickford’s Lane.
John attested on 19 May 1911 at Teignmouth with the R.A.M.C. (Territorials), service number 1374. He was embodied into the regular army 1st Wessex Field Ambulance Service on 5 August 1914. Promoted Corporal on 25 September 1915 he went to France on 14 January 1916 with his unit. He was hospitalised on 5 March 1916 with frostbite, and then went on one month’s leave on 5 May. Posted to 3rd Wessex prior to going on leave, John was declared medically unfit on his return. He then returned to 2nd/1st Wessex Field Ambulance, service number 457030, rejoining the unit in France as Corporal on 14 July. He was wounded and admitted to a Casualty Clearing Station on 26 September 1916, at first he was reported as missing but was later confirmed as wounded.
In 1917 John was serving with 2nd/1st Wessex Field Ambulance RAMC, when he was killed in action on 3 August 1917.
Buried in Brandhoek New Military Cemetery, No. 3, Belgium. Remembered on Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
Grave Inscription reads: “My beloved son, peace perfect peace”
John W Sealey's headstone in Teignmouth Old Cemetery
A total gratuity of £30.0s.1d was paid to his father in 1918 and 1919.
“CPL John Sealey of Wessex RAMC was Kia on 3 August, he was 22 was called up at beginning of war. Prior to joining he helped his father in fish merchant business. He is the second son of nine to give his life for King and country. Mr J Sealey Alexander Tce is his father.
"Your son set his stretcher bearers a noble example and encouraged them in every way. We were sitting in a dugout watching bombs falling everywhere when one dropped five yards in front of us and there was a loud explosion. I found that a shell had fallen in the middle of our dugout, wrecking it. Your son was lying in the middle of the wreckage dead alongside my brother officer.’ Written from the Captain of his company.” 17 August - Teignmouth Post.
John W Sealey's commemorative certificate
Download John's commemorative certificate
A Royal Army Medical Corps Field Ambulance
A Field Ambulance was not a single vehicle, but an entire mobile hospital that served in the combat zone.
Casualties from a Scottish infantry battalion of 77th Brigade being evacuated along a communication trench outside Salonika, February 1916.© IWM (Q 31794)In the First World War, at the Front Line in battle there were often vast numbers of casualties requiring immediate treatment.
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) operated a system that immediately addressed a patient's critical injuries near the Front, then evacuated him to a medical unit in a safer area.
To achieve this goal the RAMC had units consisting of 10 officers and 224 men. The entire company was called a Field Ambulance.
Motor ambulances and horse-drawn ambulance wagons of the RAMC collecting wounded on the Western Front © IWM (Q 9177)
The men were detailed as stretcher bearers, nursing orderlies, ambulance drivers, cooks, sanitation crew and to manage and distribute stores and water etc. The unit was divided into three equal sections, each of which could be self-sustainable, with its own tented areas, men and equipment.
Stetcher Bearers in WW1 © IWM (Q 5935)
Each Field Ambulance had to be moved to where the combat was most intense and set up there.
Men of the Army Supply Company (ASC) were attached to assist with transport.
A Field Ambulance had 66 horses and 23 wagons. After the first year of the war transport included 7 motor vehicles and a maintenance wagon.
A full strength Field Ambulance unit in the First World War had a "capacity" for 150 casualties. In times of intense battle the unit would often treat a great many more.
RAMC officers and men were unarmed, they did not carry weapons (or ammunition). Over 6,873 RAMC personnel were either killed in action or died of wounds in WW1.
Through the work of the RAMC 1.6 million wounded men were returned to the firing line to fight again.
RAMC personnel giving a wounded man water from a petrol tin in an abandoned trench. © IWM (Q 9177)
The 24th (1st Wessex) Field Ambulance and Teignmouth
The 24th was part of what is now called the Territorial Army. It was based in Exeter, Devon and trained part-timers in the same instruction manuals, exercises and drills as the regular RAMC.
In 1910, the unit opened a detachment at Teignmouth, a sea-side town about 14 miles from Exeter, Devon. The detachment slowly grew in numbers so that at the start of the First World War several Teignmouth men served in the ranks of 24th.
In September 1914, it was designated 1st Wessex Field Ambulance and joined the 8th Division, British Expeditionary Force, then sailed to France arriving at Le Havre on the 6th November 1914.
Troops coming out of a communication trench in the snow. © IWM (Q 4695)
On the 12th November the 24th arrived at the Front where they spent the winter focusing on diseases and the medical problems caused by the cold and wet conditions.
“Four inches of snow on the ground and snowing up to the 22nd (November) it was nearly impossible to sleep with only one blanket.
Barn we occupied last week blown up by shell fire. Had over nine hundred sick and wounded in a week.
The men having come straight from India &c (Cairo, Eygpt) went right into the trenches, owing to the shortage of troops, the snow and intense cold was playing havoc with them, and the bulk of the frost bite cases were quite helpless with swollen feet and had to be evacuated”.
War Diary of Albert House
Sergeant-Major of the 24th Field Ambulance
That is when the 1st Wessex Field Ambulance lost its first man.
Private James Pedrick of Teignmouth contracted meningitis whilst treating a patient and died in the hospital at St Omer on 17 February 1915.
On the 14th August 1916 Private William James Coombes of East Teignmouth and Private Samuel John Parker of Teignmouth and the 24th Field Ambulance died at an advanced dug-out dressing station, attending to the wounded, when a German shell hit the dug-out and exploded in the middle of it, killing and wounding about a dozen men.
