Did Canada make its own stretchers?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

I guess they did - if so, where these made to the standard British or US pattern?

Attached is a photo of what I believe is a British-made stretcher.

[Jordan Baker]

I believe Canada made the stretchers to the British pattern. I’ll post some photos later today if I get the time.

[Ed Storey]

Like everything Commonwealth, there are different Marks of Stretcher depending on when they were manufactured and their intended use. A few of the older wartime stretchers used to lurk about in the back of QMs and 4 Brigade in Germany seemed to be the happy hunting ground for strange odds and ends. Some of this stuff migrated to the Balkans when Lahr and Baden closed in the early 1990s, so quite a bit of 4 Brigade material was used in that theatre.

Attached a photograph of a wartime stretcher slung off a Canadian Grizzly taken at Tomaslavgrad, Bosnia in late 2000.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Military equipment has to change with circumstances. In Afghanistan, the troops discovered that when the Medevac helicopter was a US Blackhawk, the issue pole stretcher was too long to fit into the cabin. Consequently the handy and ubiquitous stretcher was replaced by one that folds in the middle for transport.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Thanks for the input guys.

I gather there is not a lot of info about stretchers, even though they saw a lot of use. Same is true for e.g. tentage.

The stretchers do show up in photos of ambulance jeeps for example, and in this interior view of a CMP ambulance.

Any more info is of help!

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Ed Storey

Like everything Commonwealth, there are different Marks of Stretcher depending on when they were manufactured and their intended use. A few of the older wartime stretchers used to lurk about in the back of QMs and 4 Brigade in Germany seemed to be the happy hunting ground for strange odds and ends. Some of this stuff migrated to the Balkans when Lahr and Baden closed in the early 1990s, so quite a bit of 4 Brigade material was used in that theatre.

Attached a photograph of a wartime stretcher slung off a Canadian Grizzly taken at Tomaslavgrad, Bosnia in late 2000.

That's amazing Ed. As their function hardly changed I reckon they could serve for a long time.

There must have been a large stash of British or Canadian made stretchers somewhere in the Netherlands, as they turn up at dump stores every now and then. Most seem to have come from Civil Defence stock, taken over from the Army.

As they are too long to ship by parcel service, I need to plan a trip to one of these dump stores and buy myself a pair for use in my C15TA.

[Alex van de Wetering]

I wonder if the length of stretchers increased over time, due to people being taller than in the 80 years ago??

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

I wonder if the length of stretchers increased over time, due to people being taller than in the 80 years ago??

Good point! One of the sellers lists the dimensions of the stretchers as follows:

Length over all: 230 cm
Length of canvas: 180 cm long x 57 cm wide

[Ed Storey]

That is quite the stash of British wartime stretchers! From what little I know about stretchers, they are Stretcher, Ambulance, Mk II. Attached is a photograph of Canadian stretcher training taken in 1947.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Thanks Ed, here’s another photo of stretchers in use by the RCAMC:

A jeep ambulance of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (RCAMC) bringing in two wounded Canadian soldiers on the Moro River front south of San Leonardo di Ortona, Italy, 10 December 1943.”
Source: Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3314438

[derk derin]

As far as wartime “style” stretchers here in Manitoba are concerned I’ve been buying them as I find them over the last 35 plus years adding them to my medical corps collection.
Having a stretcher jeep, a Universal carrier Mk1 and a Ford 60 CWT ambulance I knew I needed a lot of them to outfit my vehicles.
Not to mention my Medical corps displays in the basement.
I won’t get into post war stretchers, trying to keep this post short!
I decided today to have a look at them all and see how many I actually have and how many are Canadian military marked so I started pulling them out and looking carefully for markings.
I counted 8 in the basement with my displays and 11 of them outside with the vehicles.

[derk derin]

Going through all of them made me realize while the construction is basically similar in appearance they all seem to be manufactured in a different way.
The folding framework & feet are similar in design but differ slightly;

[derk derin]

The straps that hold the stretchers closed while folded also differ between straps and snap buttons or buckles;

[derk derin]

Then there’s the Airborne variant folding stretcher. I have a green painted one that has seen some action and a brown painted one that seems to have sat on a shelf its whole life!
The only markings I could find on either stretcher is the end of the handles on the green stretcher. The brown stretcher I could find no markings on.

[derk derin]

No markings on the brown stretcher.

[derk derin]

I did find a lot of post war markings on the stretchers that found their way to civilian infirmaries like the one from the Hudson Bay Company infirmary, businesses like the CBC and municipalities for civil defence stock.

[derk derin]

I have a stretcher that probably dates back to the era of WWI by looking at period photos of stretchers used in that era. No military markings but a brass plate of the manufacturer. The metal legs also identify it as an earlier stretcher.

[derk derin]

And out of all the stretchers in my collection I could only find 2 promising markings that identify them as Canadian military issue.
The one marked RCASC is most likely Royal Canadian Army Service Corps issued by the painted abbreviations under the wooden rail ( unless there’s a business out there with the same abbreviations???).
And this stretcher is the only one that has 37 pattern style web straps & buckles sewn to the canvas.

[derk derin]

The other stretcher I found with markings was outside and although I could find no Cbroadarrow mark on it to identify it as Canadian military issue it did have a 1940 date of manufacture stamped in the wood that proves it was wartime manufacture.
It just so happens it was used by the Red Cross as marked in red paint on the underside of the wooden rails right over the date of manufacture stamping.

[derk derin]

The nicest markings I found out of all my stretchers is the American stretcher I have. The canvas has nice stampings on it as well as stampings in the metal framework.

[derk derin]

The one stretcher I have, while looks similar in design to a wartime stretcher that I purchased and later learned it was not are the stretchers with the reinforcing strapping on the sides to hold the canvas to the wood rails are stapled.
The wartime era stretchers have leather strips that are tacked. Other stretchers I have also use cloth or canvas strips but still used tacks to fix the canvas to the wood rails.
I later found one of these “ newer manufactured” stretchers marked with a “FEMA” stencilled marking on it which is the US department Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by derk derin

As far as wartime “style” stretchers here in Manitoba are concerned I’ve been buying them as I find them over the last 35 plus years adding them to my medical corps collection.
Having a stretcher jeep, a Universal carrier Mk1 and a Ford 60 CWT ambulance I knew I needed a lot of them to outfit my vehicles.
Not to mention my Medical corps displays in the basement.
I won’t get into post war stretchers, trying to keep this post short!
I decided today to have a look at them all and see how many I actually have and how many are Canadian military marked so I started pulling them out and looking carefully for markings.
I counted 8 in the basement with my displays and 11 of them outside with the vehicles.

Wow Derk, thanks for making all those photos of your collection!
It shows that behind every single item, even mundane as a stretcher, there is a whole history of the design, manufacture and use which is often sparsely documented.
I'll sit down and digest your info in detail later.