Carluke War Memorial (© Kevin Rae, Wikimedia)
Friday
23rd November 1917: In a heroic act of self-sacrifice a soldier
from Bedford has allowed a large quantity of his blood to be transferred to a
dying soldier in France. Sapper H. E. Greenaway of the Royal Engineers, the son
of Mr. E. Greenaway, a dairyman of Iddesleigh Road, was a member of the
Salvation Army Band at Bedford before the war. He joined the Royal Engineers
Signal Service on 30th September 1914 and has been in France since September
1915, attached to a number of different companies. He was wounded in July this
year. While in hospital at Rouen a volunteer was needed to give a blood
transfusion to Gunner Andrew Selkirk of the Royal Field Artillery, who had been
wounded at about the same time. Sapper Greenaway came forward and a large
amount of his blood was taken. Sadly, the transfusion was not able to save the
life of Gunner Selkirk, from Carluke in Scotland. He had been brought into the
hospital with an extremely severe wound to his back and left leg from a shell
explosion, which was followed by blood poisoning. The soldier’s widow said in
an interview that she did not know how to thank Greenaway for the sacrifice he
made to try to save her husband, “a noble act” which showed the quality of many
of the men fighting for their country.
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