First World War Phillips joined the army in 1914 (as a Lieutenant from 31 July 1914), and then on Western Front in France as a medical officer from 19 December 1914. He was the Regimental Medical Officer of the Royal Irish Regiment 1914–1915. He was promoted to captain on 30 March 1915, and shortly thereafter on 17 August 1918, acting Lt-Colonel "
while in charge of a medical unit". The unit in question was 106th
Field Ambulance., through to the
German spring offensive and the final advance in Flanders. A field ambulance would provide relays of stretcher bearers and some first aid, within the area where they could be under fire. They were a mobile unit, and they sought to stabilise casualties to go back to a Casualty Clearing Station or Dressing Station. A full strength Field Ambulance comprised 10 officers and 224 men. In March 1919 he reverted to his substantive rank of captain on being moved to a new post in India (see below). and 10 July 1919. Phillips was awarded the French Croix de Guerre in 1919, in addition to the
1914–15 Star,
British War Medal and
Victory Medal. in the
1919 Birthday Honours as part of a group honoured for "For distinguished service in connection with military operations in France and Flanders".
Between the wars Phillips served in India from 1919 to 1923, and in 1934 – February 1935 he was Medical Officer for the Equitation School, Sangor (south east of New Delhi), India. An equitation school is a riding school, usually for cavalry troops. From 17 November 1935 he took over as CO of 4 Field Ambulance in Egypt and Palestine from 1936 to 1937, under
ADMS for Meerut District and Delhi Independent Brigade Area, Eastern Command Col. S.G.S.Haughton.
Second World War 1940–1942 The start of the war found Phillips still as Commanding Officer, Combined British General Hospital (CBGH)
Poona, India from 1940 to 1941 in a routine hospital management role, and in 1941 at Combined General Hospital (CGH)(Indian Army). Phillips joined a directly active unit on 27 September 1941 when he was appointed Colonel (with seniority backdated to 17 November 1938) and Assistant Director Medical Services,
10th Indian Infantry Division around its formation. An assistant director was head of the medical services for a Division. The Division was commanded by Maj-Gen.
Bill Slim and at that time it landed in Basra, captured Baghdad and the oilfields of Mosul as part of the
Anglo-Iraqi War which was linked to
World War II. The division then invaded Syria (in pursuit of Vichy French aeroplanes placed there by the Germans) until June, then invaded Iran as part of the
Operation Countenance Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran to secure the Iranian oilfields from the Axis powers for the Allies and Russians. The division then returned to a static guarding role in Mosul. Medical Services in the division were drawn from the RAMC and Indian Army Medical Corps and included the 14th, 21st & 30th Indian Field Ambulance. In April 1942 he rejoined the British Army as Deputy Director Medical Services HQ for
XIII Corps and
XXX Corps. Phillips was an Acting Brigadier from 14 April 1942, then Temporary Brigadier from 14 October 1942. as part of a group of awards "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East during the period May, 1942 to October, 1942". His citation reads: On a more personal note, on 3 June 1942 Brigadier Phillips wrote to his mother from XIII Corps HQ, MEF, "...since my last letter I have been a Prisoner of War & escaped! I was very well treated & made my get-a-way in this middle of battle when my captors were otherwise engaged! I am very well & back at work, very busy as you can imagine from the news in the papers. It looks as if the tide has at last turned & you can understand how pleased I am. You know how I like all this excitement & am glad that I'm no longer where I was this time last year... your devoted son, Teddie."
1943–1944: Invasion of Sicily, Italy, and D-Day Phillips was appointed Deputy Director Medical Services
XXX Corps, From July 1943 to 1944 he was Deputy Director Medical Services 3rd Advance Base. The promotion was made substantive on 12 December 1944. the medical services knew they had to redesign themselves. The report identified that ambulances were too cumbersome, communications poor, transport too slow and surgeons too far back. There was a recommended new structure which was to lead to a re-organisation of existing units e.g. field ambulances and created new units e.g. Field Surgical Units, Field Dressing Stations to speed response times and a focus on 200-bed (rather than 600 or 1,200 bed) General Hospitals. However, this was never entirely managed in the active desert force and the first use of the full new scheme was in Phillips' 21st Army Group structure. "[A]s D.M.S. 21 Army Group, [Phillips] controlled a service considered by many to have been without parallel". Field Ambulances landed with each brigade and battalion (so-called "Beach Groups") where Phillips said jokingly, when welcoming them in Italy that "he had grown so used to [them] that he almost considered [them] British!". Eventually road transport routes were too long, and a railhead was established and daily hospital trains set up. Most of the hospitals were mobile, leapfrogging each other to move forward, establish, receive casualties, and then clear casualties, closing, moving forward. The medical depots could not keep up so mobile teams were instituted. As the advance consolidated, larger convalescent depots were set up in civilian hospitals, religious buildings or schools to hold all troops who might return to service in under 30 (later under 42) days. Treatment of mental problems – shellshock (percussive damage from being exposed to too much gunfire), battle exhaustion, and mental breakdown were a new area of medicine for the army – Phillips at one point referred to psychiatary as "witchcraft" but went over to France to ensure that mental health was being managed.
1944 – VE Day: Advance to Germany and maintaining Civil Public Health As the advance continued through Belgium and the Netherlands evacuation chains were constantly changing - by the time of the Rhine crossing there were 11 British and 1 Belgian Ambulance trains direct from near the front to the medical facilities with most casualties being evacuated from Ostend by hospital ship or by air from brussels or Bruges. that "My job [in August 1945] (with one superior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Sixsmith) was to run the whole of the captured German military medical service in the British Zone: hundreds of German military hospitals, with about half a million patients, thousands of German medical officers, nurses, and other staff, motor vehicles galore, about 20 hospital trains, and four hospital ships. Among the patients were thousands of sick and wounded prisoners of war, and we had to organise them into trainloads and repatriate them to Italy, Yugoslavia, or whatever was their country of origin..." Having become concerned about how ambulance trains were moving so slowly "...I put in a report to my chief, the director of medical services Major-General Sir Edward Phillips, and he intervened at top level to get a higher priority for these ambulance trains." Phillips and the other seniors officers had been junior officers at the time of the 1918 Flu epidemic and were aware of the risk of a public health collapse following war. Prisoners of War liberated from captivity also had to be processed and returned, and while Displaced Persons were in theory the responsibility of the Military Government the military medical services in practice provided hospital facilities, supervised hygiene and sanitation of Displaced Persons camps. In April 1945
Brigadier Hughes, DDMS 2nd Army, with
11th Armoured Division entered
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to find more than 60,000 emaciated prisoners, more than 13,000 corpses in various stages of decomposition, and a great risk of disease, which Phillips was ultimately responsible for dealing with. Phillips was mentioned in dispatches for the fifth time on 9 February 1945. ==Peacetime and retirement==