Raymond Brown was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon who worked in Stockport. He was born on 29 November 1927 and studied medicine in Manchester, qualifying in 1951. He gained his FRCS in 1964.

Gordon Manson Chambers was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Peterborough. He was born on 17 March 1932, the son of Edward Tenyson Chambers, a civil servant, and Alva Isobel Chambers, a housewife. His father’s grandfather, Henry Chambers, was a surgeon and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons

Gordon Andrew Hunter was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, the first and largest level one trauma centre in Canada, and professor in the department of surgery, University of Toronto. He was born on 25 May 1937 in London into a medical family. His father,

Major general Norman Kirby was a military surgeon and director of clinical services, accidents and emergencies, at Guy’s Hospital, London. *On wings of healing* (Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons) by Howard Cole is the definitive account of the airborne medical services from their beginnin