Diary No.11 of Rupert Major Downes, 30 July - 17 November 1918

Places
Accession Number AWM2017.6.209
Collection number 3DRL/0518
Collection type Digitised Collection
Record type File
Item count 1
Object type Diary
Physical description 79 Image/s captured
Maker Downes, Rupert Major
Place made Ottoman Empire: Palestine, Ottoman Empire: Syria
Date made 1918
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Description

Diary relating to the First World War service of Colonel Rupert Major Downes, Desert Mounted Corps. This diary written between 30 July and 17 November 1918 are the original pages taken out of a Army carbon copy book.

This diary covers: his work as the Deputy Director of Medical Services of the Desert Mounted Corps listing the people he talks to and the places he visits; an outbreak of Spanish Flu; the trouble the weather caused; the visit by Major General Richard Herbert Joseph Fetherston; his visit to Lejjun; his view on the battles around Megiddo, Semakh and Nazrareth; his visit to Damascus where he inspected the French, Turkish and English hospitals there; the conditions he found at these hospitals and the changes he implemented to improve them; his efforts to manage the malaria outbreak in Damascus and his reaction to the news of the armistice.