Captain Ransome McNamara ALLARDYCE (63364) MB ChB Ire
Royal Army Medical Corps

Date of birth: 29th July 1902
Date of death: 15th February 1942

Killed in action aged 39
Commemorated at Kranji War Cemetery Singapore on Special Memorial 7 A 19
Ransome McNamara Allardyce was born at Dublin on the 29th of July 1902 the fourth son of George Allardyce, a tailor, and Janet (nee Swirles) Allardyce of Viewmount, Archiestown, later of Advie 65, Grosvenor Road, Rathgar in Dublin.

He was educated at St Andrew's College, Booterstown in Dublin from 1910 to 1920 and at Trinity College Dublin from the 1st of October 1920 where he achieved a BA in the summer of 1925 and a BAO (Midwifery) Chb (Ire) and MB in the spring of 1926. By 1934 he was practising as a General Practitioner at 2 Cheetham Hill Road in Manchester.

He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps on the 29th of August 1934 and was promoted to Captain on the 29th of August 1935. Before the war he was Superintendant of the International Hospital in Kobe Japan. On the outbreak of war he evacuated his wife and family to Australia.

On the morning of the 14th of February 1942 Ransome Allardyce was at Alexandra Hospital in Singapore when the city was on the point of surrender. In the early morning the water supply to hospital was cut off and a large number of shells were bursting near the hospital buildings. These were mainly Japanese mortars with an occasional shell, fired by Allied artillery but had landed short. The advancing Japanese approached from the Ayer Rajah Road but, during the morning, the routine of the hospital continued much as it had during the preceding days although the flow of wounded had reduced considerably due to the proximity of the fighting.

At about 1.40 pm the Japanese troops were first seen advancing towards the sister's quarters and Lieutenant Weston went out under a white flag to negotiate with them but was bayoneted to death. The Japanese entered the hospital where they ran amok killing patients and staff alike. They then went upstairs and ordered around two hundred staff and those patients who could walk to assemble outside. They tied their hands behind their backs and herded them into the Old Quarters in a series of small rooms where they were so packed in they could not sit down and it took many minutes simply to raise their arms. Although promised, no water was provided and many men died during the night. That night Ransome Allardyce, who spoke a little Japanese, and Corporals Patrick Frederick McDonough RAMC and Fernley Wilkins RAMC were tied up and were also taken away. Allardyce was apparently under the impression that he was either being taken as a hostage or was to be asked to treat the Japanese wounded. He was last seen in the servant's quarters the following morning where the two hundred were being held. Periodically these men were taken out in small groups and bayoneted; there were no survivors. Corporal McDonough's body was found outside the hospital, where he'd been killed by shrapnel as he left the building. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave the next day.

Sadly his family received news that he was still alive as a prisoner of war in 1943.

He is commemorated on the war memorial a St Andrew's College and on the 1939-1945 Roll of Honour at Trinity College, Dublin.

Archiestown

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