347th Station Hospital Memorial Stone
Details:
On the west side off the road.
A large rough-hewn stone with a grey trapezoidal marble tablet affixed on the front. It is inscribed in English text and was with white lettering but is now in gold-leaf and golden-brown colors. The unit’s insignia is inscribed on the top-right corner.
During the Second World War, Marlborough Common was the site for a major American army hospital – the ‘347th Hospital Station’. Its main role was to get as many men as possible fit enough to go back to the front line. Every Thursday men discharged from their hospital bed had to take tests – ‘trial by live fire’ – to see whether they could fight again. This involved firing live ammunition: rifles, heavy and light machine guns, heavy and light mortars, bazookas, M1 carbines, and other anti-tank ordnance. It also involved throwing grenades and using ‘mining and demolition kits’. All this ordnance came from the Americans’ enormous ammunition dump handily close by in Savernake Forest.
Source of information: Imperial War Museum War Memorials Register, https://marlborough.news
Source of images: Friends of the WW2 347th Station Hospital Facebook Page
Monument Text:
Dedicated to honour the members
of the 347th STATION HOSPITAL United
States Army - E.T.O. - World War II
12 May 1944 to 30 July 1945 who were
stationed in England on Marlborough Common,
town of Marlborough, Wiltshire.
Total capacity of 1,154 beds, 764 buildings
and 390 tents, 49 officers, 75 nurses,
400 enlisted men, 3 American Red Cross Officers
plus all the local volunteers from the town of
Marlborough that worked long hours helping the nurses
and doctors on the 347th Station Hospital.
After D-Day the hospital recieved air-evacuated battle
casulaties direct from the continent served by two
nearby airfields. Next morning evacuated casulaties
were taken to general hospitals by train and
ambulances to make room for new arrivals of
casulaties. Total patients in the first seven months 32,878.
Grand total patients cared for by the 347th Hospital - 62, 549
DONATED BY THE NURSES and
ENLISTED MEN of the 347th
STATION HOSPITAL
