Wednesday 22 July 2020

WWII Germany Army Medics

With the bulk of my combat troops painted and rebased, I decided it was time to work on some ancillary troops like medics. I recently bought these German Medics from Peter Pig and I really like the details on them. From what I have seen in various photo's online it looks like they wore regular army uniform but supplemented this with a white helmet with red crosses clearly painted on front and rear. Some pictures show large red crosses others have smaller ones on all four sides of the helmet. These guys also have medical red cross tabards over their uniforms and I painted in armbands as well as to finish the 'uniform'. Two of the medics also carry a medical haversack marked with a red cross. 



Official German medical haversacks had a horsehair cover, but this was very heavy when it got wet. From what little I have read a regular canvas haversack was prefered and a lot of the pictures I have seen show German Medics utilising canvas haversacks. 

From what little I have read medics were largely (but unfortunately not exclusively) treated as non-combatants by both sides. Firing on a medic was against the Geneva Conventions and was therefore considered a war crime, although that didn't stop examples of some SS using wounded men as bait and shooting allied medics. However, on the whole, this was not the case, although it was still a hazardous job. Battlefield medics on both sides saved countless lives and fought their war with little more than medical scissors, gauze and if they were lucky, morphine. Historian Stephen Ambrose once said that whenever a veteran spoke about someone as "the bravest man I ever knew" they were usually speaking about a medic. 

2 comments:

Thank you for leaving a comment. I always try to reply as soon as I can, so why not pop back later and continue the conversation. In the meantime, keep rolling high!