ERIC WOOD from Southampton recalls taking X-rays in a tent hospital as the wounded Allied soldiers were brought in from the D-Day beaches for treatment..

IT WAS a rather unremarkable tent. Just 20 feet square and covered with the usual camouflage patterning it lay tucked against a hedge at the side of a field.

Over the entrance was a makeshift 'X-ray' sign.

The tent was part of the first RAF mobile field hospital in Normandy. Under the canvas roof, more than 100 X-ray photographs were taken within a few days of its arrival.

At any time of the day or night, a tall RAF corporal would be seen helping to carry a stretcher containing an injured soldier into the tent.

The corporal was Eric Wood, originally from Shirley in Southampton. At just 22 years of age he was the first radiographer to go to France for the D-Day landings.

And for a long time he was the only radiographer in the area.

"I first became interested in radiography when after leaving King Edward VI Grammar School in Southampton at the age of 17," recalls Eric, 82, now living in Bassett, Southampton.

"So I joined my local Air Raid Precautions Ambulance Unit.

"But I was called up for service in the RAF in May 1942. I trained at Halton Hospital in Buckinghamshire, first as a nursing orderly and then as a radiographer.

"In the summer of 1943, I found myself posted to 50 Mobile Field Hospital, then under canvas near Chichester.

"After stays at Tenterden and Fontwell, the hospital moved to Bransgore in the late spring of 1944, where a forest fire destroyed much of our equipment and accommodation.

"With this replaced in record time, we moved into a marshalling area ready for the Normandy landings.

"An advanced surgical team was sent on D-Day, but as X-ray apparatus needs a power wagon to operate, it had to cross with the remainder of the hospital a few days later."

After his arrival shortly after D-Day, Eric took X-ray photographs and developed them himself in his one-man unit.

Apart from the actual X-ray apparatus, Eric designed most of the fittings and darkroom himself.

"Much of the accessory equipment I helped design and build," he says.

"One abiding memory is of a darkroom made of waterproof canvas stretched across four frames, bolted together and fitted with a pull-on roof which I stretched myself.

"I ended up with really sore fingers doing that.

"Our carpenter made my X-ray couch. In the first few days I took over 100 photographs on a Watson MX2 unit and processed them in chemicals I had to make up from powder.

"The power load taken by the X-ray unit severely upset the smooth running of the Coventry Climax generator and we were given a 13 kva diesel generator."

A normal day for Eric would start at 8.30am when pilots, ground staff and even Army casualties were taken into the tent to be X-rayed.

The photographs had to be developed in record time so that it could be decided whether an operation was necessary.

Until 11pm, Eric would spend his time either with his machine or in his darkroom inside the tent.

Sometimes urgent cases would arrive during the night. Eric had his bed inside the tent so that he was ready at any hour.

"Some patients were too ill to be moved from the ward," said Eric.

"So, with the help of a medical orderly, I would carry my apparatus to them and photograph them as they lay in their bed."

On one the flight engineer from an aircraft which had been bombing in the Caen area, was brought into his tent. The engineer's knee was so badly shattered by flak that at first glance it was thought the limb would have to be amputated.

However, after Eric had taken an X-ray, it was decided that it might be possible to save the leg and operations were carried out far into the night.

"Later we travelled on through France and Belgium, we reached Holland in the autumn and were stationed in St Joseph's Hospital, Eindhoven," said Eric.

He had intended to follow a medical career after demobilisation in Hamburg in September 1946 but his father died after Eric had completed his first qualification.

"As I had gained my civilian X-ray qualifications while doing locums I was advised to pursue a career as a radiographer," Eric said.

"Most of my time was spent at the Chest Hospital which later became the Western Hospital, in Southampton.

"It was where the Wessex Regional Cardio-thoracic Unit was based."

But it is his D-Day experiences that Eric remembers most vividly.

He said: "Friendships made at that time are still very much alive today, I am glad to say."