Temporary Surgeon James Ness MacBean Ross, MC & Bar (15 November 1889 – 3 April 1964) was a British medical doctor who was deployed with the Royal Naval Division during the First World War.
[1] Ross was educated at Tain Royal Academy and Fettes College before entering the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1907.
MacBean Ross joined the medical branch of the Royal Navy on 3 August 1914, the last day of peace before Britain entered the First World War.
His first Military Cross was awarded for actions at Gavrelle on 28 April 1917;[2] the citation, published in the London Gazette on 17 July 1917, read:[4]Temp.
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion on many occasions in organising and leading stretcher-bearers in search for wounded and attending them under very heavy fire.
In addition to his MC and Bar, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre with palms and was mentioned in dispatches three times.
[2] His war time experiences are recorded in a set of 1918 memoirs, On Four Fronts with the Royal Naval Division, that he co-authored with another doctor, Surgeon Geoffrey Sparrow MC.
He was an honorary life member of the British Red Cross Society as well as being vice president of the Sutton and Cheam Division from 1936–53; he was awarded the Voluntary Medical Services Medal with three Bars.
[3][10] At the beginning of World War I, Dr Elizabeth Ness MacBean Ross, at the invitation of the Serbian government, volunteered to serve in Serbia.