 The first recorded British ambulance flight took place in 1917 in Turkey when a soldier in the Camel Corps who had been shot in the ankle was flown to hospital in a de Havilland DH9 in 45 minutes.First Recorded Aeromedical Evacuation in the British Army The same journey by land would have taken some 3 days to complete.In the 1920s several services, both official and unofficial, started up in various parts of the world.