Talk:Stretcher railing

Photos of stretchers in use

I wondered if we have some images of this sort of stretcher being used for their original intended purpose, and found the ones below, both images from the IWM, of ARP personnel training in 1940.

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I think the first helps to give a sense of the scale and shape. Theramin (talk) 01:21, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Manufacturing

During the Blitz, the German aerial bombing of the United Kingdom between September 1940 and May 1941, over 600,000 steel stretchers were commissioned for use by Air Raid Precautions (ARP) officers in the course of air raids.

I'm finding it hard to pin this down precisely, but I strongly suspect they were (almost?) all procured in the pre-war ARP buildup rather than during the Blitz itself - there was a big rush to build up infrastructure in this period, often anticipating much worse casualties that actually developed.

From the official Civil Defence history https://archive.org/details/civil-defence-obrien/

[in summer 1939] Stretchers and stretcher-carrying fitments had been made generally available by the Government. Stretchers were of a standard size, all-metal and easily decontaminated, though not being collapsible they were difficult to store. (p216)

Central purchase had been arranged during and after Munich for a standard all-metal stretcher which could easily be decontaminated after exposure to gas... (p235)

p88 also mentions a standard stretcher design for civilian use dated to probably 1936, but this may or may not be the same one. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Have updated accordingly. Two other details that might be of interest but seemed a little tangential to add at the moment - a) the drive for standard ones was linked to having standard fittings for them in buses etc so they could become emergency ambulances, and b) some local authorities tried to procure their own through commercial channels during Munich and found it was near impossible Andrew Gray (talk) 20:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)