VADs

Although members of Voluntary Aid Detachments left behind many personal reminiscences and accounts of their time working in hospitals during the Great War, there's not a lot available online that looks at the 'official' side of their service. It's hard to find details of things like pay and conditions of service, where they worked and what they actually did. Also, there are often comments made about 'problems,' but rarely any clear indication of what the problems were. So I've started putting together a few pages about VAD service during the Great War, based mainly on official documents that originated with the British Red Cross Society and are now held online at the Imperial War Museum as part of their Women's Work Collection. All the items on the website are transcriptions of the original documents with photos that I've collected over time. I intend to add a good deal more over time, but the pages can be found here:

Voluntary Aid Detachments

A Nurse at the Front

Yesterday saw the publication of 'A Nurse at the Front, the First World War Diaries of Sister Edith Appleton.' Edited by Ruth Cowen, and published by Simon and Schuster in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum, it relates the daily trials and pleasures of 'Edie' who worked throughout the war as a Nursing Sister with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. The background to Edie's life and work, and the story of the diaries can be found on Dick Robinson's website here:

Edith Appleton

and an interview with Dick at the IWM on publication day can be viewed here:

Dick at the IWM **

I'm sure that this book will become a classic among Great War nursing publications, so don't hesitate - you really might as well go out and buy it now, and as it also comes in a Kindle edition there's no excuse!

A Nurse at the Front (this link to Amazon - other booksellers are available)

**Note: the photo of a nurse used in this clip is not actually Edie, but her great friend Kate Maxey.

The Ghost of 13 Stationary Hospital

A couple of years ago I wrote several posts about No.13 Stationary Hospital in Boulogne, which spent its first few months in the Sugar Sheds at the Gare Maritime - the links and a photo are here:

A Hospital in France - the early days, part one
A Hospital in France - the early days, part two
13 Stationary Hospital, Boulogne

I've recently been reading 'Eighteen Months in the War Zone' by Kate John Finzi, and found it thoroughly enjoyable. Kate Finzi went to France with the British Red Cross Society at the outbreak of war and later worked for the Y.M.C.A. The early part of her book outlines her early days at No.13 Stationary Hospital during 1914 and her later work at Wimereux, but rather refreshingly concentrates on the areas that aren't usually mentioned. On the whole she avoids tales of convoys, wounds and dying, and instead explains how the British workers in France lived, their life in Boulogne, their relationship with British soldiers, the French population, and how the war was viewed by those not intimately involved with the enemy. Simple descriptions of hospitals are so hard to find and during the late autumn of 1915 Kate Finzi re-visited the empty sheds at the Gare Maritime that had been home to 13 Stationary Hospital in those early days and she leaves an evocative glimpse of a time passed.

"An irresistible something drew me once more towards the now deserted hospital on the quay. It had had to be abandoned for reasons of hygiene. For even after the rise of its now celebrated dental, ocular and aural departments, even when the lavatories and baths and X-ray apparatus had been satisfactorily installed, its situation low down by the sluggish water, its lack of proper ventilation, made it untenable, and within the space of a few days it was transferred to healthier quarters facing the sea and refreshed by sun and breezes, where there was no fear of the low fever that continually attacked the staff in that original charnel-house. Once more it is an evil-smelling empty barn. I clapped my hands to my eyes to see if I was awake. Could this ever have been the place we knew, the harbour of so much pain! Oh, could those white- washed walls and dirty floors speak ! No tales of massacre could be more lurid than the remembrance of the original British Expeditionary Force who passed through and will not come again. In spite of the dead stillness that reigned I could feel the throbbing of the many souls who passed away. Vividly, as if no intervening year had elapsed, their faces rose up to greet me with cries for water and release from pain, whilst eager blue-ticketed crowds pressed forward as the arrival of a hospital ship was announced.

A rat ran across the concrete, emphasising the desolation of the scene. Out of the gloom of a certain corner the spirit of a nameless prisoner greeted me. With a last tetanus spasm — a writhe — a death-rattle — the jaw relaxed like a gaping fish, and a strange little sigh seemed to betoken a released spirit. The mortuary door was blacked over. Why not removed? For what purpose could such a place ever be used again ? The theatres still stood — deprived of their hardly accumulated equipment. A sigh of wind came through a broken pane. Was it imagination, or did it bear with it faintly from afar the old oft-heard cry : " Christ help us!"

Bah ! It was but an evil nightmare. They are all gone. I alone am left to tell the tale ; and generations to come will never know. Outside things are not much changed. The cobblestones, responsible for the premature demise of such innumerable pairs of stout boots and shoes, are as uneven as ever. The best part of the road, however,has now been railed off for the use of ambulances only, in order that the wounded may be subjected to as little jolting as possible. I recall how, after our first few days at the Gare Maritime Hospital, one of the nurses discovered an easier method of getting from our billets to our work, and how the half-hour's walk to the hospital was soon superseded by a ten- minutes' row in one of the many ferryboats from one side of the harbour to the other. Sometimes, of course, it had been toorough. Once, indeed, there was nearly a calamity when an old boatman, rather more anxious for the welfare of his pocket than the safety of his passengers, ventured out in a storm so violent that the little boat was in danger of being swamped by the waves, and necessitated the putting out of the lifeboat, or whatever is the Boulognese equivalent. Even then the strong current proved almost too much for the frail craft, which was gradually drifting seawards. For several days afterwards most of us risked extra weary feet rather than face the elements at sea.

Sometimes, of course, we obtained a lift in an ambulance or private car, for even to-day the laws of meum and tuum are less rigorous here than at home. It is no unusual occurrence for a driver going along a desolate road with no passengers to offer a lift to any solitary pedestrian he may find on the road. He will not, needless to say, go out of his way if duty forbids, but just drop his passenger at the nearest point to the destination for which he is bound. Nor, in a place where there are hardly any public vehicles to be had, is one shy of "asking for a lift," a proceeding which one can hardly picture at home.

Out of evil comes good, and if ill-health has temporarily paralysed my activities, it has at least given me time and opportunity to see something of the environment of the place that has been our home for so long."

A good read for anyone who wants to know more about life well behind the front line:
Eighteen Months in the War Zone Kate John Finzi

Devonshire House

Devonshire House in London's Piccadilly was the London home of the Dukes of Devonshire, and in 1914 part of the house was taken over by the British Red Cross Society and used as its Headquarters throughout the war. During the first year of the war it was still used by the family, but after 1919 it remained empty and was demolished in 1924. It was a busy place in wartime. Its palatial rooms became a myriad of offices that dealt with recruiting, training and managing the staff of hundreds of auxiliary hospitals at home, and sending staff to hospitals overseas. Many new recruits to the service would have trodden the corridors there, to be interviewed, measured and kitted out ready to be added to the ever-growing ranks. I recently came across this painting by Clare Atwood of the inside of Devonshire House while in use as VAD Headquarters. The chandeliers have been safely tucked away and more practical lighting installed - it certainly looks to be a hive of industry. On the desks are the card indexes which were a fundamental part of keeping track of more than 1,800 hospitals and 100,000 VADs who served in wartime - all the surviving cards are now kept at the British Red Cross Society Archives in Moorfields, London. If only they could have looked into the future and seen this magical thing called a computer!

The Old School

Nothing to do with military nurses, but I thought rather interesting. I bought a copy of this image recently, originally published as an appendix to 'The Medical History of the Meath Hospital' in 1892. It shows four members of the nursing staff of Meath Hospital, Dublin, in 1872, and is an outstanding example of a reputable group of nurses of that time. I use the word 'reputable' as many nurses were known to be drunken, illiterate and untrustworthy, often incapable of earning a living elsewhere. Meath Hospital was Ireland's most firmly established civil hospital, being founded in 1753, and I think it has to be assumed that these four were chosen to represent the best of its staff in 1872. With the organised training of nurses in its infancy at that time, there were enormous changes over the next twenty years, which meant similar group of the 1890s looked very different indeed.

It's often extremely difficult to stretch our minds away from the crisp, uniformed nurses that have been familiar in our hospitals since the beginning of the twentieth century. Luckily, the survival of images such as these are a reminder that hospital life wasn't always so! The four women are named, from left to right as:

Fever nurse Hodgens
Night nurse Spring
Surgical nurse Murray
Accident nurse Brazil

A toast to the old school, fading fast.

Something to be learnt ...

My fingers need to be typing ... preferably lists. Lists of anything really. I thought lists might become boring after a while, but with the radio on and my brain detached, typing lists is really very relaxing. After toying with a few medal roll bits and pieces, I've decided to transcribe some medal rolls in full. I discovered that quite a few of the medal rolls at The National Archives cover 'miscellaneous' medical units, which seem to be useful as they not only give full names, but also state which unit a person was attached - information not easily found elsewhere. So I've started with the British Red Cross Society 1914 Star roll (WO329/2505), and it's proving rather interesting. I've already typed my way through W. Somerset Maugham working as a volunteer driver, artist C. R. Nevinson slogging away (I hope) with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, and a few of the great and the good such as Fabian Ware and Lord Robert Cecil.

I've now reached a part of the roll devoted to the rank and file British Red Cross orderlies who went to France between August and November 1914. As a few of them have rather unusual names, it's been possible to check their occupations with the help of the 1911 census. Rather surprisingly (to me, anyway) most of those I've been able to find so far were pre-war coal miners from County Durham, or from Wales, and it seems likely that they were recruited as a group early on in the war. I wonder who initiated 'coal miners as hospital orderlies' and why the men found it so appealing at the time? But it proves that however boring lists might seem, there's always something to be learnt ...

United States Army Nurse Corps

It's hard to find sources which outline the involvement of American nurses in the Great War. A few served with the British Expeditionary Force in France from as early as 1915, but the majority arrived with the entrance of the US into the war in 1917, and worked with the American forces in areas outside of those controlled by the British. Recently a friend came across a brief history of the US Army Nurse Corps and bought it for me (thanks Harry!). Below is an extract which describes the activities of American nurses during WW1. It surprises me that considering the short period that the US were involved overseas, and the small numbers of both troops and casualties, relative to the other Allied nations, that there was such a high number of American trained nurses taking part in some capacity or another. I can only wonder at how so many women were kept fully employed.

***

30 June 1918
Of the 12,186 nurses on active duty, 5,350 were serving overseas

9 July 1918
The Nurse Corps (female) was redesignated the Army Nurse Corps by the Army Reorganization Act of 1918. The 1918 Act restricted appointments to women nurses. Base pay was increased to $60 per month.

11 November 1918
Armistice Day. During World War 1, the peak strength of the Army Nurse Corps reached 21,480 on 11 November 1918. More than ten thousand nurses had served in overseas areas in France, Belgium, England, Italy, and Serbia, as well as in Siberia, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Included were ten Sisters of Charity who served with Base Hospital No.102 in Vicenza, Italy. Army nurses were assigned to casualty clearing stations and surgical teams in field hospitals as well as to mobile, evacuation, base, camp and convalescent hospitals. They also served on hospital trains and transport ships. Following the Armistice, nurses served with the occupation forces in German until the American forces were returned in 1923.

Several nurses were wounded, but none died as a result of enemy action. There were, however, more than two hundred deaths largely caused by influenza and pneumonia. The Distinguished Service Cross (second in rank only to the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration in combat) was awarded to 3 Army nurses. The Distinguished Service Medal (highest decoration in noncombat) was awarded to 23 Army nurses. In addition to other United States Army decorations, 28 Army nurses were awarded the French Croix de Guerre, 69 the British Royal Red Cross, and 2 the British Military Medal. Many Army nurses were named in British Army dispatches for their meritorious service.

Nurses who remained in the United States served with distinction in busy cantonment and general hospitals, at ports of embarkation, and at other military outposts. Many were cited for meritorious service.

Highlights in the History of the Army Nurse Corps
Edited by Carolyn M. Feller and Constance J. Moore
U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995