WWI: a YMCA Worker's Camel Tale

Think it was easy to be a YMCA secretary during WWI?

The spiritual rewards may have been profound, but the physical cost was high.

According to Sir James Barrett of the British YMCA:

“The business of the YMCA is to provide comfort by personal service over and above military necessaries for the men who are well.

“The Red Cross Society attends to the wants and needs of the sick and wounded.”

Indeed, the YMCA “began as entirely religious movement, meetings for prayer and informal religious exercises.”

Here’s the story of one man struggling to get needed supplies to Jerusalem in December 1917, after the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) under General Edmund Allenby took the city.

Philip Hancock was a secretary– a man assigned to help run YMCA events and huts in Egypt and Palestine.

How did a Welsh native end up in the middle east during a world war?

A native of Wales, Hancock studied at Oswald Chambers‘ Bible Training College and when Chambers headed to Egypt in 1915 as a YMCA secretary, he applied to the same program.

In 1917, Hancock was assigned with the front line British and Anzac army units to Beersheba, where he ran a YMCA hut–selling items like paper, pens, stamps and tea (which would include cookies and other foodstuff).

The huts set up with the front lines were typically small and moveable, thrown up in a hurry–often mere dugouts. (Soldiers dug trenches in the Middle East as well as at the Western Front).

They served as necessary respites for the men camping in primitive conditions under hostile fire.

Hancock supplied the small comforts he could, taught Bible studies and ministered to the men.

Many had been far from home for a long time.

The push across the Sinai desert took eight months of  battling German and Ottoman soldiers.

In the summer, of course, water was hard to come by in that region and battles often took place around oases and villages (which were built near water supplies).

General Allenby and his men accepted the surrender of Jerusalem on December 9, 1917.

All were thankful to have finally taken the city–which promised better accommodations as Christmas approached.

Supplies needed

The BEF supply line took precedence, but Hancock hauled YMCA supplies for the exhausted men while off-duty.

Getting getting them to Jerusalem proved difficult:

“I got the goods as far as Hebron and then the rains came. We were held up for 4 days and a lake of water formed and was gradually creeping up to the place where I had stored my precious stores.

“First of all I asked God to stop the rain, but the arrogance and selfishness of the request appeared to me when I thought of what I was really asking. I was asking God to enable me and my cargo of about 250 British pounds of food stuff. [$9000 2015 US dollars] to get to Jerusalem at the expense of the harvest and water supply of Palestine!”

Hancock repented of that request and the rains continued.

“So I changed my request and prayed for the necessary transport to enable me to get going in spite of the rain. Every wagon and camel were being used to the limit, but I set off to a Camel Depot and after three attempts, I got 20 camels. We loaded them in the rain and mud, and then started off for Jerusalem.

“We partly walked and partly waded, and the camels did a lot of sliding. It was a great experience and in spite of all the difficulties there was much real cause for laughter.

“The following day we got to Jerusalem, and the stores which took me six days to bring up were sold out in a few hours.”

The YMCA was a lifesaver, in more ways than one.

Challenges–with or without camels

I’ve written about the challenges of dealing with camels here and here.

Interesting for the YMCA secretaries to be working in the Holy Land. Their location left a great impression upon the secretaries, ministering to soldiers in often desperate conditions.

Summers overpowered everyone with heat, mosquitoes and flies; winter surprises them with cold, rain and slippery conditions.

And yet, they were serving God and man in a land they’d long studied.

Hancock concluded his report with admiration:

“It was a great privilege to go  “up to Jerusalem” along that route, one felt in company with all the great men of God who centuries ago had tramped those same magnificent hills, and who must be looking on in joy and wonder during these strange days in the history of their land.”

Hancock married Gertrude Ballinger, another Bible Training College alum working in Egypt during World War I. They wed in Cairo (with Kathleen Chambers as flower girl) and eventually served as missionaries in Persia.

Tweetables

The challenges of YMCA secretaries in WWI Israel Click to Tweet

A WWI YMCA secretary dealing with camels in the rain Click to Tweet

The YMCA gets supplies to Jerusalem in 1917. Click to Tweet