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Jack at War
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Author:  Shander [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Jack at War

Thinking of writing a drabble about Jack Maynard at war, but my books are in storage.
I know he started in the army and ended in the Navy. Is the reason ever mentioned? Given he was a doctor, what would his rank have been? Would he have started as an officer?
Any tidbits that folks have to offer would be much appreciated.

Author:  JayB [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:21 pm ]
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He'd definitely have gone in as an officer. Possibly a Captain in the Army? (I think his brother was a Major, wasn't he, and he was older than Jack). Lt. Commander in the Navy, perhaps.

I think the switch from Army to Navy is probably EBD, but you could say he was transferred because there was a shortage of surgeons in the Navy at that time perhaps.

Author:  KB [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:07 am ]
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For the best explanation, I recommend Caroline's Robin Afterword.

Author:  Lesley [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 7:00 am ]
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Equivalent ranks Army Captain = Naval Lieutenant therefore likely he'd have gone in at that rank.

Author:  Mia [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:20 am ]
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Surgeon-Lieutenant for the RN, I expect. He's mentioned of as being in France at some point, isn't he. I always wonder if EBD changed him from the Army to the Navy so she could have the dramatic 'lost at sea' episode in Highland Twins. Not as romantic; nor likely to be lost/survive/not be captured during an army battle.

Author:  Lesley [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:24 am ]
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As a Doctor he would remain with any wounded rather than trying to escape - thinking of Dunkirk here - something that really annoyed me when I joined the Army and they told us that, as medical personnel, we were expected to remain with the POW's and not escape! :lol:

Author:  LizzieC [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:48 pm ]
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I'd assumed something completely different, namely that he was in the Army (joined up when he and Joey returned to the UK because he guessed war would come with Germany sooner or later because of his skills as a doctor), Jem found there were not enough doctors at the San and requested Jack be released to work at the San (which he was), but Jack felt guilty and joined up again, this time to the Navy (I wondered if he was perhaps assigned to the Navy because of lack of doctors in that branch). Then I figured he was invalided out after Highland Twins.

I just realised that I constructed an overly elaborate idea of what Jack was up to during the war to explain how he was in the Army and the Navy, which has no basis in any of the books. I worry about my brain sometimes ;)

Author:  claire [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 2:48 pm ]
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Maybe he was an undercover agent and just pretended to be in whichever service needed him at the time.

Actually if he was in the Army and his transport sank would the Navy or Army notify next of kin? Would the Navy do it because it was a Navy vessel?

Author:  LizzieC [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 6:29 pm ]
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claire wrote:
Maybe he was an undercover agent and just pretended to be in whichever service needed him at the time.


*sprinkles bunny food and backs away slowly* :twisted:

Author:  abbeybufo [ Sat Jun 07, 2008 8:02 pm ]
Post subject: 

LizzieC wrote:
claire wrote:
Maybe he was an undercover agent and just pretended to be in whichever service needed him at the time.


*sprinkles bunny food and backs away slowly* :twisted:


*quietly lays another trail of bunny food* :twisted:

Author:  Shander [ Sun Jun 08, 2008 1:45 am ]
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Hmmm. Things to think about.
And ironically there is a lot more information about MI5 during the war than the way the Royal Navy worked.
Also, does anyone one know where I could locate a copy of the afterword of the Chalet School and Robin. The transcript doesn't include it, and I don't have a copy of the book.

Author:  Kathy_S [ Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:17 am ]
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I've PMed you the two paragraphs on Jack from the afterward of Robin. Caroline German shares the consecutive hypothesis. Her model has Jack serving in the Army until just after Dunkirk, spending perhaps two years at home, and then enlisting in the Navy after the war heated up in the Pacific.

Author:  LizzieC [ Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:45 pm ]
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Kathy_S wrote:
Caroline German shares the consecutive hypothesis. Her model has Jack serving in the Army until just after Dunkirk, spending perhaps two years at home, and then enlisting in the Navy after the war heated up in the Pacific.


Wow. I came up with that one all by myself (I've not read CS&Robin). Now I'm impressed with the bizarre ramblings of my brain, rather than embarrassed :) It's nice to know I'm not the only person to have come up with that hypothesis :)

Author:  Caroline [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:02 pm ]
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It's amazing the complicated stuff you have to come up with to explain away EBD's mistakes / forgetfulnesses / random changes for plot reasons!

As well as explaining away the change of services, my chosen scenario explains the fact that Joey and Jack have to conceive Stephen at some point prior to Highland Twins despite him (Jack) serving in France in the Army, the fact that Army withdrew from France via Dunkirk, and Joey's throwaway comment in that same book about Jack having sailed for the East.

I'm no military / WW2 expert, though - I just made it up to reconcile EBD's contradiction.

I know they needed medics in the forces, but it always vaguely surprises me that Jack's called up / joins up at all - what professions / jobs / occupations were reserved?

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:29 pm ]
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Am I the only person with enough of a dirty mind to wonder whether the issue with Stephen and the dates might indicate that Joey might have been up to something with somebody else whilst Jack was away :oops: :lol: ?

Although Jack would presumably have realised ... :lol: .

Author:  Mona [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:30 pm ]
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Medicine definitely was a reserved occupation, so how Jack was able to join up at the outset of the war has always puzzled me. Perhaps because he wasn't actually practicing in England at the time he got away with it?

Author:  JayB [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:51 pm ]
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Quote:
I know they needed medics in the forces, but it always vaguely surprises me that Jack's called up / joins up at all - what professions / jobs / occupations were reserved?

I don't think any occupation was 100% reserved, it depended on things like the age of the person and their specific skill. As a young, healthy man, who was working for a private Sanatorium, I should think Jack would be top of the list to be called up. Whereas an older man working as a GP in a mining district, say, might be exempt, because maintaining the health of the civilian workforce was important.

(Just dug this out: In May 1945 Churchill wrote that the standard of medical care available to civilians was so low that 1,600 doctors should be demobbed immediately. In July he hoped that they were already out and asked for another 1,600 to be released by 1 October to ensure adequate medical attention for civilians in the coming winter. That suggests that many doctors had been called up.)

Author:  Jennie [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:02 pm ]
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Mining was a reserved occupation during the war, and don't forget that mining was a dirty, hard and dangerous job, so they needed their doctors.

Author:  Shander [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:37 pm ]
Post subject: 

Many thanks folks.
This is all really helpful, and very intersting.
I had completley forgotten about Stephen :oops:
I will have to look into reserve occupations. Because presumabley the military needed doctors as well, so they couldn't all have stayed reserved.
Is it possible that Jack would have had some leave before he sailed for the east?

Author:  Mia [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:15 pm ]
Post subject: 

Jennie wrote:
Mining was a reserved occupation during the war, and don't forget that mining was a dirty, hard and dangerous job, so they needed their doctors.


I don't think it was. Most miners joined up or went into munitions, that's why they conscripted the Bevin Boys.

Author:  Jennie [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:42 pm ]
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Hmm, my father was a miner, and he was reserved. It was my grand-father who was co-opted into the Army, on a sort of detachment, because he had to spend time teaching them how to tether barrage balloons with steel cables, because none of them knew how to. My grandfather was the head ropeman at Crown Farm Colliery.

If however, you meant that mining was not a dirty, dangerous occupation, Mia, you've never lived in mining village, especially when men have lost their lives in a mining accident. It's as if a pall of grief , sorrow and shock hangs over the entire village, because every man there thinks that it might be his turn next.

Author:  Mia [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:50 pm ]
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I meant it was not a reserved occupation, as per my comment about the Bevan Boys. I think one would have to be extraordinarily obtuse not to recognise that mining is both dangerous and dirty.

Author:  LizzieC [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:55 pm ]
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Mia wrote:
Most miners joined up or went into munitions, that's why they conscripted the Bevin Boys.


I was under the impression that being in a reserved occupation didn't stop one joining up, but did prevent one being conscripted.

Looking at Wikipedia, it's clear that what I assumed is to some extent true (meaning you could use the theory Caroline and I seem to favour if you need him to "take a break" from the forces Shander), though often (and wikipedia doesn't say which areas were covered by this and which were not) they were prevented from joining up as well as being conscripted.

The article suggests that jobs that were reserved included: "railway and dockworkers, miners, farmers, agricultural workers, schoolteachers and doctors". Engineering was the area with the highest number of exceptions.

What seems important is the age of the person in question - there was no uniform age at which a person in a reserved occupation was ineligable. For example "a lighthouse keeper was 'reserved' at 18, while a trade-union official could be called up until the age of 30".

Author:  Mia [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:02 pm ]
Post subject: 

LizzieC wrote:
Mia wrote:
Most miners joined up or went into munitions, that's why they conscripted the Bevin Boys.


I was under the impression that being in a reserved occupation didn't stop one joining up, but did prevent one being conscripted.


I would suggest it entirely depended on what the reserved occupation was; my grandfather was told he was in his role for the duration and was refused permission to join the Navy with his brother. Realistically I don't think the average person had that much choice.

Author:  LizzieC [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:12 pm ]
Post subject: 

Mia wrote:
LizzieC wrote:
I was under the impression that being in a reserved occupation didn't stop one joining up, but did prevent one being conscripted.


I would suggest it entirely depended on what the reserved occupation was; my grandfather was told he was in his role for the duration and was refused permission to join the Navy with his brother. Realistically I don't think the average person had that much choice.


Perhaps I was being unclear in what I wrote (I have a bad habit of overusing parentheses), but that was the point I was making in the next paragraph down. Whether or not one was prevented from joining up as well as being conscripted depended on the profession and, as mentioned further down, the age. Unfortunately the wikipedia article was rather short and so didn't reveal too much about the intricacies of reserved occupations and I'm too lazy to go look elsewhere.

What is important to consider wrt Jack in the war is whether he would have been treated as "the average person". I assumed that Jem would have some clout (especially as he was knighted before too long), and as such may have been able to get Jack out of the Army.

ETA: And reading that over again, I noticed that I am talking about them as if these were real people and real life events we are talking about. Oops :oops:

Author:  JayB [ Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:51 pm ]
Post subject: 

I wouldn't think Jack would be released from military service just to go and work in a private sanatorium.

Maybe, though, the San was requisitioned as a military hospital? For some reason it was all Most Secret, so Joey never knew - and that's the real reason why Jem got his baronetcy? After all, we never actually see the Welsh San, do we - unlike the Austrian and Swiss Sans.

Or more prosaically, maybe it was used to treat air raid casualties from Cardiff and Swansea, and so Jack was needed for that purpose.

Author:  Sarah_L [ Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:01 pm ]
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My grandfather was a miner and didn't join up in WWII as he was in a reserved occupation. I believe his brother, who was also a miner, went to join up but wasn't allowed because of his job.

Author:  claire [ Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:48 pm ]
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To start with many miners (at least the younger ones) joined up, by the time th Bevin boys started they'd altered it so that not only was it reserved in that you couldn't be conscripted but they wouldn't let experienced miners either

Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:29 pm ]
Post subject: 

Mona wrote:
Medicine definitely was a reserved occupation, so how Jack was able to join up at the outset of the war has always puzzled me. Perhaps because he wasn't actually practicing in England at the time he got away with it?

Although in Lucilla Andrews' novels (not contemporaneous, but she was writing about an era she had lived through), the "young doctors" at St Thomas' were not allowed to stay at the hospital once they had reached a certain level (a couple of years as housemen, I think), but had to go where they were sent, whether into the forces or elsewhere. As did the nurses - and I think that nurses were "directed" for quite a few years after the end of the war, having to do midwifery training and so on....

Author:  Clara [ Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Reserved occupations

My Grandad would have loved to join up, but as a technician working for a company fitting and making artificial limbs, was not allowed to. From what I can gather this lasted for the whole war.

Author:  claire [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Jack at War

doctors of military age had to register and then the powers that be decided who had to join up (but as a doctor not a normal soldier). If you were a 30 year old doctor in a small town that also had 2 other doctors later on in their careers you'd be made to join up and they'd manage without you

Author:  Caroline [ Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Jack at War

Ahhh - so maybe if you add the reserved occupation to the authorities deciding who had to join up and where they went, Jack's war is explained at last!

As a doctor in his thirties, he would have had to register with the authorities, who then would have decided where to use him - so, they initially sent him to France as an Army medic, he was evacuated at Dunkirk and was then sent back to the San for a couple of years (maybe by then the San had been requisitioned by the governement and needed more doctors or maybe other doctors there / in the locality had been conscripted and they were short?), and then later again he was sent off to the far east as a Navy medic.

Basically, he would have been at the whim of the war office (AKA EBD!), sending him off to wherever he was most needed.

:D

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