Surgeon Captain Dr RT (‘Rick’) Jolly OBE, Oficial Orden de Mayo (Argentina) Royal Navy

Daily Telegraph Obituary:

Surgeon-Captain Rick Jolly, who has died aged 71, was a naval surgeon possessed of outstanding personal bravery and unparalleled dedication to his patients who through his skill and leadership saved the lives of friend and foe during the Falklands War.

In April 1982 Jolly was commanding the headquarters troop of the medical squadron of the Commando Logistic Regiment, Royal Marines,   He was on Easter leave when the Argentines invaded the Falklands when  and he and his team embarked at short notice in SS Canberra, which had been taken up from trade.  He recalled: ‘Because of previous friendships, it didn’t take more than ten seconds to establish a working relationship with the embarked troops’.

Jolly’s first personal act of bravery during the war came after the frigate Ardent had been hit by bombs in Grantham Sound on the afternoon of May 21.  He was scrambled in a Wessex helicopter to help search for casualties on the water, and as they hovered closer to the burning ship, through the plumes of thick, black smoke which towered into the sky, he saw a man struggling to stay afloat.  ‘It was clear he wasn’t going to survive for too much longer,’ Jolly recalled, ‘I didn’t have my immersion suit on. Apart from my uniform, the only extra bits of kit were a pair of gloves and a thin lifejacket; I hadn’t intended to go for a swim.  Suddenly everything went quiet, as your body does when it prepares itself for serious demand.  I just remember thinking; if I don’t act now this man will die … I dropped into the ocean which was freezing: barely two degrees. My heart slowed down and my vision changed like I was in a tunnel.  I bear-hugged him and before I knew it we were back in the helicopter cabin. I literally jumped on the sailor and he vomited up all the seawater. He was alive. I was exhausted.’

No sooner had Jolly caught his breath, than the Royal Marines aircrewman in the helicopter cabin pointed down:  ‘I knew exactly what he meant, and taking a deep breath, I prepared myself for the second plunge.  I dropped into the water but I was too weak to lift the casualty.  He was in a terrible state, with a huge gash in his head and blood all over his face.  I submerged and placed a hook through his life jacket. He was in such a bad state, I’m not even sure he was aware he’d been saved. Even now, that whole experience fills me with the deepest spiritual sense of pride’.  This second sailor also survived.

Back in Canberra where 42 Commando were waiting to climb into their landing craft, Jolly recalled, ‘I couldn’t help but shed a tear as each marine patted the Ardent survivors on the back as they walked past  … one marine saying “You gave them hell; we’re going to do the same”. It really was special.’

Shortly after that Rick’s medical team was also ordered to disembark.  The plan had been for Canberra to become primary casualty receiving ship (PRCS) and to pass the seriously wounded to the hospital ship Uganda but, when Canberra was required for further troopship duties, Jolly created an improvised field hospital ashore in a former refrigeration plant at  Ajax Bay.   It was the only roofed building available of any size fit for the purpose, but given its position in the middle of a logistics and ammunition dump, and under the terms of the Geneva Convention, he was not allowed to paint Red Crosses on the buildings.   Conditions in the makeshift hospital were poor but despite the dirt, poor lighting, and air attacks, over 650 Argentine and British casualties were treated and 210 operations carried out.

One attack left two unexploded bombs, though defused and surrounded by sandbags, resting feet from the hospital’s operating tables.   Nevertheless Jolly’s humanitarian work continued: when pressed, he explained his actions by reciting the words of Nelson’s last prayer, ‘May humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet.’

No one died of their wounds whilst in Jolly’s care. He later attributed the ‘speed and vigour’ of casualties’ recovery from wounds at least in part to the fact that many of them had donated blood just before the hostilities, stimulating the body’s self-healing mechanisms.

The hospital quickly became known as the Red and Green Life Machine, from its combination of army and marine medics, and postwar Jolly took this for the title of a book about his experiences.  He was awarded the OBE.

Richard Tadeusz Jolly was born in Hong Kong on Trafalgar Day 1946, the son of a gunner in the Colony’s Voluntary Defence Corps and former prisoner of the Japanese, and a mother who was an ambulance driver in the FANY.  He was educated at Stonyhurst College and subsequently studied medicine at Barts and qualified as a physician in 1969.

In 1974 while working as a houseman, he joined the Royal Naval Reserve.   Over the next score of years he served twice with the Fleet Air Arm, as medical officer in the Dartmouth Training Ship HMS Bristol, and at the Britannia Royal Naval College. However, he found the Navy proper ‘a bit stiff and formal until he tried the Royal Marines and right from the start I loved it. What I liked about them, and the Paras, with whom I worked closely for many years, was that officers and men were required to do the same training. In fact, the officers were expected to do it a little bit faster and further’.

As an RNR surgeon one of Jolly’s appointments in 1972 was as medical officer to 42 Commando, Royal Marines, who were deployed in Belfast alongside the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, with whom he built a strong friendship.   Belfast at the time, he found, could be brutal. ‘No textbook can prepare you for the aftermath of a bomb,’ he said, ‘nor how the sounds and smell can impact on you when you arrive to help. I was interested in the forensic effect of munitions so two or three times a week I’d go to the morgue and take pictures and use them to train my own battlefield first-aid teams in 42 Commando. It became known as Doc Jolly’s Horror Show. It sounds gruesome, but a battlefield first-aider can’t be trained to deal with bullet wounds unless he knows what a bullet wound looks like.’

In 1973 Jolly was awarded the coveted commando green beret after successfully completing the gruelling qualifying course.

When invited to visit Argentina in 1998, Jolly had sent a list of Argentines whom he had treated, requesting information about their welfare.   This was the first intimation in Buenos Aires of the extent to which the British Jolly has also treated Argentine wounded and over fifty survivors were invited to a ceremony in Buenos Aires to meet Jolly, when he was awarded Order of May with Merit awarded to ‘foreigners who distinguish themselves by service or personal achievement, or who have gained the nation’s gratitude’ for his outstanding work in saving the lives of many wounded Argentine soldiers and airmen.  He is the only serviceman to have been decorated by both sides after the war, and HM the Queen gave permission to wear this order with his other medals.  Jolly regarded his awards as recognition of the work the 300 British naval, marines and army medics involved in the war.

Jolly was one of the founders of the South Atlantic Medal Association (SAMA) and he campaigned for the recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder amongst veterans of the war.

He retired from the navy in 1996, with the rank of Honorary Surgeon Captain.

Jolly, a large, jovial extrovert, was also a humble and compassionate man and an inspiring leader.  His wit was a beacon in adversity, and he was widely admired as an irreverent raconteur.

His first book was a novel For Campaign Service written under a pseudonym detailing the experience of soldiers and Royal Marines who served in Northern Ireland.  He also wrote and kept updated Jackspeak: A Guide to British Naval Slang and Usage. A Red and Green Life Machine (1983) became a bestseller and as Doctor for Friend and Foe (1985) has been reprinted several times.

Jolly settled in near Torpoint with his wife, Susie, a former Great Ormond children’s nurse whom he had married in 1970. The couple’s only child, James, died in 1989 aged 17 from a hereditary disease. ‘James died at home in our arms. Susie and I had been there for his entry into the world and it was a fierce privilege to see him out – but also a Garden of Gethsemane that still brings grey, empty and aching days,’ he said later.  ‘I was fulfilled by war, and, despite the sadness, by the experience of James’s death. I’ve looked inside myself and I’m at peace now. I’m not looking any more.’

Rick Jolly, born Trafalgar Day, 1946, died January 13, 2018.