Trench Warfare
Casualties and Hospitals
Stretcher bearers
A German soldier takes pity on a wounded man.
Then I caught sight of the first of the enemy. A figure crouched, wounded
apparently, three metres in front of me in the middle of the pounded hollow
of the road. I saw him start at the sight of me and stare at me with
wide-open eyes as I walked
slowly up to him holding out my revolver in front of me. A drama without
an audience was ready. To me the mere sight of an enemy in tangible form
was a release. Grinding my teeth, I pressed the muzzle to the temple of
this wretch, whom terror now crippled, and with my other hand gripped
hold of his tunic. With a beseeching cry he snatched a photograph
from his pocket and held it before my eyes .... himself surrounded by a
numerous family. I forced down my mad rage and walked past.
(Ernst Junger; a German Storm-troop of f i cer during the war.)
Stretcher bearers carrying in a wounded man
A letter home from a wounded man
Corporal J D Keddic, serving witli the 15th Canadian Battalion, Ist
Canadian Division, writes to describe the first use of gas in
warfare, conditions at the front, and his experiences on the way
to hospital.
May 4th 1915 Royal Hospital
Huddersfield
My dearest Mother. 1 hope you got my field postcard all right
and that you have not been working y'self up into a state about me being
wounded. 1 sent it off from a Field Dressing Station while waiting for
removal to Hospital.
Well, Mother here is the whole thing from the start and that
was on my birthday up to the time of writing. We went out on the
20th - to take up Reserve Trenches north of Ypres. We had practically nothing
to do for the first two days then it was on the afternoon of my birthday
that we noticed volumes of dense yellow smoke rising up and coming
towards the British Trenches. As 1 said my Coy. was not in the firing line
and we did not get the full effect of it, but what we did was enough
for me, it makes your eyes smart and run, 1 become violently sick, but
it passed off fairly soon. By this time the din was something awful.
Where we were we were under a cross fire of rifles and shells, we
had to lie flat in the trenches, the next thing 1 noticed was a horde of
those Turcos (French Colonial Soldiers) making for our trenches,
some were armed, some unarmed, the poor devils were absolutely paralysed
with fear. They were holding a Trench next to a Sec: of 48th - so 48th
had to hold it also until some of their officers came and made them
all go back. Well this went on all night and all next day, eased off a
bit at night. We could not get rations up to us, and what with hunger
and cold it was awful. On the morning of the 24th at 4 am we managed
to get a mouthful of rum each. We had no sooner got it down than they started
an attack, beginning with gas, then they started to shell the Reserve
Trenches and they did do it to some tune, one could hardly get breath
for the concussion they also had the range and the loss of life was awful,
and oh, horrors, the sights were dreadful. One poor beggar come along
crying for someone to tie his arm up. Nobody seemed to care for the
job so 1 got hold of him and did my best. The arm was completely off up
to the elbow, a fearful sight. While attending him 1 got a flesh
wound on the head and lord, it did bleed, but was not sore. 1 had
fired about 150 rounds by this time and had sent two men for
ammunition, and saw them coming back. They had only about 30 yds
to 90, when one of them was shot right through the head. Well 1 knew the
other could not carry it himself, so 1 crawled out to give him a
lift, and on my way 1 got it right through the sole of the right foot.
It was not very painful at the time however. We got the box of ammunition
to the Trench somehow, then 1 looked for the quickest way to a Ist
Aid Station and beat it as quick as 1 could, 1 could walk on it fairly
well, and in fact could sometimes do a little trot. Well 1 got there
and found that an order had been given to retire so they could do
nothing for me, so 1 kept going on and on in a perfect hail of bullets
and shrapnel, at last found an English Battery.
A Dr. was there and put me in a little shed on straw, took off my boot
and cut off my sock and dressed it.
He asked how far 1 had come, 1 told him about 3 miles, he said
he did not know however 1 got the length. He told me to sleep until
he could find a stretcher, 1 must have slept for hours, but was awakened
by bursting shells, so thought 1 had better get out, but how was
the question. The Battery fellows had gone, and my boot being off,
1 had nothing to hold it together. There was a farm about 200 yds away.
1 thought if 1 could get that length 1 should be all right, as 1
saw people moving about. 1 noticed an aid shovel lying near. 1 hopped over
and got it, used it as a crutch, 1 started but found it was going
to be more difficult than 1 thought, as my foot started to bleed
again, the blood dripping through the bandages. The ground was so rough,
1 could not hop with safety, and 1 found 1 had a marsh to get over
which 1 knew was impossible. So here was a fine fix, 1 could neither go
back or forward and shells bursting all around - 1 lay down. Then
1 saw two soldiers running towards me; they carried me up to the
farm where they were and laid me in the barn, gave me some Army Biscuits
and cheese and a bowl of milk, the best they had. 1 lay back for
a while when all at once a shell crashed through the building and
killed one of the men billetted there, so they said they would have to
try and get me out. There was a Dressing Station not far off, if
they could get a stretcher they would take me over, but it was very dangerous
owing to the shelling. 1 said 1 would go. 1 was then carried on their
shoulders, was laid on the floor beside a lot more. Here it was they
gave me an injection for lock-jaw. 1 was then taken from there to a small
place outside Ypres, and at daylight next morning to Ypres, from
there by motor to a place, the name of which 1 do not know, but out of
sound of guns, put into a school, from there next put on the Ambulance
Train for Boulogne, from there by motor
to Wimereux 3 miles out of Boulogne, to a military hospital where
1 was for a week and also underwent an
operation there - a lot of bad flesh had to be cut out of my
foot and also take out some of the toe bones as they ere all splintered.
The hole now on the instep is bigger than a crownpiece, an awful looking
sight - 1 cannot remember now the name of the boat by which we left
Boulogne, however we landed at Southampton, 1 did not know where
1 was being sent or anything until quite some way on by train, then they
told us Huddersf ield, to beat all - the train stopped 15 minutes
at Snow Hill Station, Birmingham. 1 would liked to have seen Carrie, of
course it was useless -Well Mother dear 1 am doing all right and not suffering
an awful lot, but am very weak, it has taken me two afternoons to
write this, so you may know - you might send me some Cigs: and pipe
tobacco as what we get here are cheap vile things - 1 was going to ask
Carrie to do so, thinking 1 would get them quicker, but do not feel
able to write. You can tell her my experiences - perhaps some of you will
come over to see me - Do not worry yourself Mother about me 1 am
fairfy comfortable and not suffering a great lot. 1 may mention the
parcel you were sending for my birthday 1 never got as they could neither
get mail or anything to do us.
With fondest love-your loving Son
Jim.
A field dressing station (We might call it a first-aid post)
A Priest's View The Somme: 21st Casualty Clearing Station, 1 -.3 July 1916
Reverend John M. S. Walker
Saturday 1 July. 7.30, the heavens and earth were rolling up, the crazy hour had begun, every gun we owned fired as hard as ever it could for more than an hour. From a hill near Veils over us to left and right great observation balloons hung, eighteen in view. Aeroplanes dashed about, morning mist and gun smoke obscured the view. We got back for a late breakfast and soon the wounded by German shells came in, then all day long cars of dying and wounded, but all cheerful for they told us of a day of glorious successes. They are literally piled up - beds gone, lucky to get space on floor of tent, hut or ward, and though the surgeons work like Trojans many must yet die for lack of operation. All the CCSs [Casualty Clearing Stations] are overflowing.
Later. We have 1,500 in and still they come, 300-400 officers, it is a sight ~ chaps with fearful wounds lying in agony, many so patient, some make a noise, one goes to a stretcher, lays one's hand. on the forehead, it is cold, strike a match, he is dead - here, a., Communion, there an absolution, there a drink, there a madman. there a hot-water bottle and so on,- one madman was swearing and kicking, 1 gave him a drink, he tried to bite my hand and squirted the water frgm his mouth into my face - well, it is an experience beside which all previous experience pales. Oh I am tired, excuse writing.
2 July. What a day, I had no corner in the hospital even for Holy Communion, the Colonel said that no services might be under cover, fortunately it was fine so rigged up my packing-case altar on a wood behind the sisters' camp. lien all day squatting or kneeling by stretchers administering Holy Communion, etc. Twice 1 went to bury, of course we used the trench we had prepared in a field adjoining. 1 first held a service of consecration, when 1 turned round the old man labouring in the field was on his knees in the soil. 1 buried thirty-seven but have some left over till tomorrow. Saddest place of all is the moribund ward, two large tents laced together packed with dying officers and men, here they lie given up as hopeless, of course they do not know it. But 1 can't write. 1 am too tired and 1 have some patients' letters.
3 July. Now I know something of the horrors of war, the staff is redoubled but what of that, imagine 1,000 badly wounded per diem. The surgeons are beginning to get sleep, because after working night and day they realize we may be at this for some months, as Verdun. We hear of great successes but there are of course setbacks and one hears of ramparts of dead English and Germans. Oh, if you could see our wards, tents, huts, crammed with terrible wounds - see the rows of abdominals and lung penetrations dying - you meet a compound fracture of femur walking about - in strict confidence, please, 1 got hold of some morphia and 1 go to that black hole of Calcutta (Moribund) and use it or 1 creep into the long tents where two or three hundred Germans lie, you can imagine what attention they get with our own neglected, the cries and groans are too much to withstand and 1 cannot feel less pity for them than for our own.
At the Somme (1 July - 13 November 1916)
the British sustained 60,000 casualties on the first day. In October
torrential rains turned the battlefield to a quagmire. By mid-November
the Allies had advanced 5 miles at a cost of 450,000 German, 200,000
French and 420,000 British lives.
Sister Calder was a nurse at a hospital for soldiers
In a camp hospital it's dirty because the ground is earth, there's
no linoleum on the floor, nor wood. It was simply grass, we were
walking on grass all the time-or rather it was grass before it turned into
mud. And, of course, we were shelled and had
shell-holes round about. It was that week at No. 19 that Matron
fell into a shell-hole one night when she was doing a night round. We searched
for her all over the place, because she was needed in the hospital and
couldn't be found. Finally she was found dragging herself out of
this shell-hole, a great deep one from one of those very heavy high-explosive
shells. She'd been in it an hour and she'd just managed to prevent
herself from being drowned, for it was full of water.
We'd had boys coming in all week, of course, and we'd been busy,
but the ones we got at the weekend were in a shocking state, because
so many of them had been lying out in the mud before they could be picked
up by the first-aid orderlies. Their clothes were simply filthy. They didn't
look like clothes at all. We had to cut them off and do what we could.
But it was too late for a lot of them, and many a one lost an arm or a
leg that would have healed up right away if he'd been brought straight
in. We felt terribly sorry for them but we had to try not to show our feelings,
because it would never have done. We'd all have been sunk in gloom and
then we'd have been no good to the men. But it was difficult when a man
was very badly wounded, wounded in a very difficult place perhaps.
It was hard not to show sympathy.
(Sister j. Calder, No. 19 Casualty Clearing Station at Remy Siding,
in They Called it Passchendaele, L. Macdoiiald, 1978, )
British soldiers blinded by gas
Unexpected deaths
They knew that many of those who left the trenches in an attack would
be killed or wounded. They had to live with the sights and sounds of death:
9th June Going along whistling I saw a group of men bending over a man
bring in the bottom of a trench. He was making a snoring noise mixed with
animal groans. By his feet lay his cap splashed with his brains. One can
joke with a wounded man, one can disregard a dead man, but no one can joke
over a man who takes three hours to die after the top of his head has been
taken qf by a bullet fired at twenty yards range. Robert Graves,
Burial of the dead
Extra material
Look at sources 29 and 30 on page 31 of your textbook, these tell
you about the conditions from the point of view of two women working
as nurses.