NAM.2023-08-6-2-1

Bullet extracted from the lung of Gunner Alfred Lionel Smith, 122nd Battery, 28th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. With leather pouch. Gnr Smith (74199) of the 122nd Battery, 28th Brigade, RFA was mistakenly reported as having been killed in action at Le Cateau on the 26th of August and was indeed shot twice - once in the ankle and once in the back. He was reportedly the first man in his home town of St Albans in Hertfordshire who had been killed in the war. However this was not the case and Gnr Smith woke up on a train being transported to a Prisoner of War camp in Germany. A POW for the remainder of the War, Gnr Smith escaped three times but was recaptured. His mother Caroline died in 1915 believing her son had been killed, although his father George was informed of his POW status before Alfred eventually returned home. 26 years after being shot in the back in 1914 Alfred collapsed in the street and an x-ray at the Royal Brompton Hospital revealed that he had been carrying the bullet in his left lung all this time. 32 surgeons from around the world watched the operation to successfully remove, said to be the first operation of its kind ever performed.

World War One, POWs (1914-1918)

Le Cateau, Battle of, 1914 (World War One, Western Front 1914-1918)