Built in 1936 Argonne Barracks had originally been a Panzer barracks and vestiges of the Reich’s Eagle remained on the front gate (with the swastika chiselled off now moved to the rear of the former barracks…see link below). There was also a relief of the head and shoulders of a German Soldier above one of the doorways of the building immediately left of the entrance shown in the first photograph below. It can be seen where the swastika had been removed from the soldier’s helmet.

Home to:
92 Army Troops RE moved in converting into a hospital Jun-Aug 1945
No 6 British General Hospital RAMC redesignated No 6 British Military Hospital 1946 (1)

(1) Arrived from Oestacker near Ghent in Belgium 16 Jul 45

Source: 21st Army Group later British Army of the Rhine to 1 Mar 49

BMH Iserlohn

BMH Iserlohn 1951-1994 (2)

Closed March 1994

DWO (PSA) Iserlohn
BMH Re-build (Oct 1985-1989) (2)
St James RC Chapel
SSAFA Social Worker
Medical/Dental Centre (Iserlohn Families) GMP

(2) A link mentions the title BMH Iserlohn being used in the details of a posting of QARANCs in 1951. Between 1951 and 1971 the facilities were shared by the British and Canadian Forces and from between 1978 and 1993 BMH Iserlohn was also known as NATO 31 Field Hospital.

When the Canadian Brigade was in the area (1950s to 1970), they utilised the hospital, many Canadian Army children being born at BMH Iserlohn as the Canadians did not have a “CMH”….and, of course, military personnel also were often patients as well.

The whole site is now now BITs Business and Information Technology School.

Courtesy of Terry Flanagan

Courtesy of Terry Flanagan

The following photographs are kind courtesy of Canadian Ruhr Memories.

My mother, Winifred Ruth Doonan, or Doonie to her friends, arrived at BMH Isrelohn towards the end of the war. She was a member of the VADs and had served at various military hospitals in the UK before being sent to Belgium where she volunteered to be with the first contingent of nurses to go into the camps that were being liberated by the Allies. I’m not too sure how it came about, but I know she ended up at BMH Iserlohn, nursing some of the inmates who had been in the camps. Somewhere along the line she met and married my father, John George Fretwell, who was a member of the RAMC and had been one of the first into Belsen. They actually married in the hospital chapel in BMH Iserlohn.

Jo Reade

Photos courtesy of Herr Manfred Schmitt