Some Hospital Visiting for the New Year

I've recently been looking through some photos of military hospital wards during the Great War and am amazed at what a variety there were. I can't imagine what a sick or wounded man would be expecting as he was loaded on, and then off, the ambulance, but here are just a few examples of what was waiting for him after admission to a base hospital in France.  All these images are courtesy of the Imperial War Museum and are free for non-commercial use - references are given individually.

No.2 General Hospital, Le Havre, IWM Q10557. This hospital was built above the station on the Quai d'Escale and you can see the doors for 1st and 2nd Class passengers and also the Customs office

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No.2 General Hospital, Le Havre, IWM Q10561: Another section of the same hospital in the Casino Lechin, still in all its pre-war grandeur

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No.10 Stationary Hospital, St. Omer, IWM Q28925: This beautiful building is Chapel Ward, part of the seminary which housed the hospital

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No.13 Stationary Hospital, Boulogne, IWM Q29155:  This is 'A' Ward - a bit less glamorous but maybe more functional than those above

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No.32 Stationary Hospital, Wimereux, IWM Q8002: A more relaxed and informal scene, perhaps because it was taken in the early spring of 1919

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No.13 General Hospital, Boulogne, IWM Q29162: A bit more glamour to finish


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Christmas Gifts for the Nurses

While it's well known that soldiers in France and Flanders received a Christmas gift in 1914, it was something also extended to nurses on active service. A present from Princess Mary was given to women abroad, a card from the King and Queen, and an extra present from Queen Alexandra to members of her own service with additional items from other sources such as the Daily Express. Maud McCarthy, the Matron-in-Chief, wrote about the distributions of these gifts, sometimes a difficult undertaking, in her war diary (TNA,WO95/3988):

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25.12.14
Christmas Day
Received the King and Queen’s cards. The little Company at Headquarters were paraded. D.M.S. addressed them and presented the cards to all officers and men. In the afternoon visited the little Red Cross Hospital; gave the Nurses Princess Mary’s gift.
Sent a telegram to Queen Alexandra:
“The members of Your Majesty’s Military Nursing Service respectfully offer their heartfelt thanks for the beautiful gifts which are being distributed, and offer you every possible good wish for Christmas”

And one to Princess Mary:

“The Q.A.I.M.N.S. and Reserve thank your Royal Highness for their Christmas gifts and wish you every happiness.”

Miss Barbier and I dined with Colonel Leishmann and Major Burrell. Letter from Matron-in-Chief saying gifts were coming from Lady Galway – turkeys and puddings – Princess Mary’s book for everyone – wallets and soap from the Daily Express, so that I am returning to Boulogne to arrange about their distribution. It is not noted where they are arriving but I presume Boulogne.


05.01.15
Boulogne
To A.D.M.S. office, then to supply stores to find no gifts had yet arrived ....
Miss Wohlmann came to see me wearing Queen Alexandra’s Christmas Gift, a beautiful fur lined cloak with fur collar, a muff, a hood which I didn’t see, which she had received enclosed in a bag tied with ribbons and containing also her photograph and a letter in her own hand writing – Miss Steenson also came from her ship.
Left Abbeville early for Boulogne in order to meet Miss Sydney Browne R.R.C., Matron-in-Chief T.F.N.S. who was arriving with gifts from Her Majesty Queen Alexandra, with gifts for the Territorial Nursing Staff. Instructions were sent from the War Office requesting that every facility should be given.

18.1.15
Abbeville
Saw Miss Browne off, then distributed Queen A’s gifts at all the hospitals. Had lunch and then Miss Barbier and I returned to Abbeville, arriving 5pm, to find many letters awaiting me, as well as nurses being required at 10 Stationary, 4 Clearing, 13 General, 3 Ambulance Train, to fill vacancies made by Sisters being laid up with influenza.
A large number of beautiful gifts – writing cases and needle cases for the nurses have arrived from the Daily Express which I have acknowledged and will distribute without delay.

And this extract is from the personal diary of Nursing Sister Jean Todd, R.R.C., Q.A.I.M.N.S.:

1st January 1915 
No.9 General Hospital (Rouen)
Well, well. Five months war and nearly five months in France and one Christmas over. Wonder what will have happened by next Christmas, and what a marvellous Christmas it has been. The gifts we have had. Queen Alexandra sent us fur-lined capes – grey, down below the waist – quaint hoods and muffs and a Christmas card. The King and Queen their photographs and a message. Princess Mary acid drops and note paper in a special box, and then all kinds of gifts from Newspapers – plum puddings, parcels of clothing – and friends and relatives all sending things. It was lovely… I was far too busy seeing to food for the surgical walking cases to open parcels or read letters, so when anything fresh came… they just joined the pile on our beds.

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An Unlucky Hospital

While one or two high-profile nurse casualties of the Great War are well documented, others who died or suffered injuries are rarely, if ever, mentioned. 
No.58 (Scottish) General Hospital arrived in France in the early summer of 1917. It was set up on open land on the outskirts of St. Omer and its early days seemed to be beset by difficulties. Due to a great shortage of hospital beds in France it was pushed into accepting patients before it had either adequate staff or facilities, but within a few weeks it was operating at near full capacity and by August things seemed to be going smoothly.

However, from the first days of September the town of St. Omer became the target for night-time aerial bombing by German planes, and No.58 General Hospital was busy taking in and caring for both military and French civilian casualties, many of whom died. As the situation became worse, arrangements were made for caves in the nearby public gardens to be taken over as air-raid shelters for staff of the hospital and also for any patients able to make their own way there on foot. At the same time, specially reinforced huts were erected where essential nursing staff could sleep safely. On the night of the 30th September, 1917, the worst fears became reality when the hospital received direct hits from German bombs. The account in the unit war diary (TNA WO95/4088) gives the details:

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1 October 1917
During a hostile air-raid on the night of 30/9/17-1/10/17 three bombs were dropped in the Camp at 10.40 p.m., (two on marquees for patients and one in the Nurses' Compound). Of the two bombs which dropped on the marquees one struck a marquee which was, fortunately, unoccupied. The other struck a Marquee occupied by patients and two nurses, who were on duty. The bomb which fell in the Nurses' Compound struck a Bell Tent, which was unoccupied as the two Nurses who sleep in the Tent were on Night Duty. The casualties which have resulted are:-
Nurses, killed three, wounded three (one dangerous).
Other ranks, killed 16, wounded 60.
Total killed 19, wounded 63.

Of the other ranks wounded 14 were transferred to other hospitals and one of these has since died. There has been much damage to canvas and equipment. 54 marquees (Hospital, large) have been damaged, more or less. Two have been absolutely demolished while the damage to the others varies from almost complete destruction to mere riddling. 21 Bell tents have been damaged, one was completely destroyed by a bomb and 20 have been riddled. Many pieces of iron pierced the new corrugated iron sleeping hut for Sisters. One piece pierced iron and three pieces of asbestos boarding. Numerous panes of glass have been broken in the permanent buildings. One of the Ablution Houses has been damaged.

SURGEON GENERAL MACPHERSON, the A.D.M.S., and the MATRON-IN-CHIEF called today and it was arranged for the transfer of all lying cases to other hospitals so that at night the walking cases left in hospital might go to the Cave in the Public Gardens and sleep there. It was also arranged that all the nurses should sleep in other hospitals. In the evening patients and Unit moved to the Cave in the Public Garden and only Police and a few orderlies were left in the Camp. The three wounded nurses were transferred today to No.10 Stationary Hospital.

2 October 1917
The three nurses (Sister Climie, Nurse Thomson and Nurse Coles) and the 16 other ranks killed by hostile aircraft on the night of 30/9/17 and 1/10/17 were buried at 4 p.m. today in the Souvenir Cemetery, Longuenesse. Sister Milne who was dangerously injured in the same air-raid died last night in No.10 Stationary Hospital. Two other ranks who were wounded have died today so that the statistics as a result of the raid are to date:
Dead: Nurses 4, Other Ranks, 18.
Wounded: Nurses 2, Other ranks, 58
Total: Dead 22, Wounded 60.

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The graves of Daisy Coles and Mabel Milne at Longuenesse (St. Omer) Souvenir Cemetery

The nursing staff who died as a result of that raid were all either members of, or attached to, the Territorial Force Nursing Service:

Staff Nurse Agnes CLIMIE

Staff Nurse Mabel MILNE

VAD Daisy COLES

VAD Elizabeth THOMSON

and the two wounded nurses:

Staff Nurse Christina. A. DAVIDSON

Staff Nurse Florence McKELLAR

Honours and Awards to Women - The Military Medal

Despite the mass of books written in recent years about the service of men during the Great War, the contribution of women has never proved popular as a subject of serious study. This new book by Norman Gooding is a most welcome addition and a complement to his previous volume 'Honours and Awards to Women to 1914' (2007).

The introduction outlines the background to the award, and includes details of the ensuing controversy around the wishes of the Canadian authorities that their nurses were entitled to rather more in the way of awards than those of other nations. There is a thorough biography of every woman attached to the British and Dominion Forces who received the Military Medal, most with photographs and all with citations and background detail. This is followed by a section on those awards that were not announced in the London Gazette, mainly to foreign nationals, and lastly a section on awards of the Military Medal made in the years following the end of the Great War.

The book is meticulously researched and brings together at last the mass of scattered information which has previously been so difficult to gather in one place. It will prove a most useful and complete reference guide for anyone researching women's service during the Great War and a fitting tribute to the contribution they made.

HONOURS AND AWARDS TO WOMEN - THE MILITARY MEDAL
Norman G. Gooding
Savannah Publications, 2013
9 781902 366562

Substance with a great deal of Style

RECONSTRUCTING FACES 

The Art and Wartime Surgery of Gillies, Pickerill, McIndoe and Mowlem

Murray C. Meikle

Otago University Press, 2013

I was very fortunate to be sent a copy of this book recently, and it's a real joy in every respect. The first thing you notice is that it's beautiful, which seems an increasingly rare blessing in books these days. Printed on heavy semi-gloss paper it has the feel, in some ways, of a coffee-table volume which, though lovely to look at is a bit lightweight inside. On the contrary, in this case the inside couldn't be better.

Researched to a pitch that leaves the reader breathless, it traces the lives and work of four men, Harold Gillies, Archibald McIndoe, Henry Pickerill and Arthur Mowlem, all four with roots in New Zealand, and in particlar the town of Dunedin and the University of Otago. It outlines the work of surgeons in the Great War on the Western Front and at Aldershot, Wandsworth and Queen's Hospital, Sidcup. It continues with the development of Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead during the inter-war years, the 'Guinea Pig Club' of the Second World War, the work at Hill End House, St. Albans and post-war at Rooksdown House, Basingstoke. Throughout it's crammed with images of people and places, both colour and black and white - a combination of historical photos and portraits, fine art and facial reconstruction, which illustrate the text in an instructional and dramatic manner. The numerous appendices cover not only the usual references but also biographies of the book's lesser players, a list of all 642 members of the Guinea Pig Club and the names of all medical staff who held appointments at Queen's Hospital, Sidcup up to 1929.

In addition, the end cover also contains a DVD which has a series of films of plastic surgery produced in 1945 and converted from 16mm film. It adds up to a meticulously researched and beautifully produced book which will become a definitive account of facial reconstruction through two world wars and more than five decades.

Sick Sisters' Hospital, Alexandria

In view of my previous post about 'The Daughters of Mars,' I thought I'd add an item here about one of the many Sick Sisters' Hospitals overseas, showing the level of care and comfort afforded to nurses on active service.

THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK SISTERS, ALEXANDRIA
The Nursing Times, 29 July 1916

     A nightmare haunts the footsteps of Army nurses working abroad, the nightmare of being taken seriously ill. They see personal friends invalided home suffering from the effects of enteric, dysentery, nephritis, and other diseases which attack one with fiercer intensity when the system is already lowered by the effects of strenuous war nursing in a trying climate.  It may interest Army nurses to know that there is a very comfortable and well-equipped hospital in Alexandria for nursing sisters and military probationers. Visitors are at once struck by the air of coolness, restfulness, and daintiness which is characteristic of this hospital. Before the war it was a nursing home for paying patients; and the distempered walls, the marble floors, the many windows, and general structure of the building show how the comfort of the patients has been thought of in every detail. The wards give an impression of cool whiteness. The beds and lockers are white. The only note of colour is the deep saxe-blue linen covering the white screens. Flowers are arranged in highly polished brass jars and pots. The enterick, dysentery, and general wards, each containing seven beds, are on the ground floor.  There is also a small ward with three beds for observation cases. On the next floor there is a large ward with twenty beds, and one small ward with five beds. There is also on this floor a charmingly restful sitting-room, which can be turned into a ward should the need arise. The large, cool corridor on the ground floor is also used as a sitting-room. Patients are often wheeled there as a little change from the monotony of the ward, or they are carried into the garden when advisable. The hospital is provided with light, comfortable beds, which can be wheeled or carried outside, so that patients who are still very ill or very weak can have the benefit of the outside air with the minimum of discomfort in being moved.

     The sister-in-charge has a Red Cross fund, which pays for drives ordered for patients after exhausting illnesses. The hospital ship sisters have found this arrangement a great boon, as they are debarred from the allowances granted to the more fortunate sisters working in Egypt. From November 1915 to April 1916, 113 sick sisters have been admitted suffering from enteric, dysentery, paratyphoid, nephritis and jaundice. Only one death occurred, although the majority of the cases were serious.

     The hospital owes a great deal to the untiring efforts of Miss Dorothy Bates, who was sister-in-charge for some months. Miss Bates was trained at the Sussex County Hospital, and before going to Egypt did war work in the Sheffield and Woolwich military hospitals. Her staff at Alexandria consisted of two staff nurses and three probationers for day duty and one staff nurse and one probationer for night work. The kitchens, in a detached building, were in charge of an Arab chef. One house-boy and one Greek maid comprised the domestic staff. When the top floor was full another maid was allowed. It needs good management to nurse patients efficiently and keep a hospital in immaculate condition, but everything was done punctually, and the building was kept spotless. A recent patient writes that she never had to wait for the answering of the electric bell provided for each bed, and apparently small matter which affects a patient's peace of mind enormously.

     The sick nurses were very much attached to Miss Orr, late matron of the Orwa el Waska Medical Hospital, and also matron of the sick sisters' hospital which adjoined. Although matron of nearly, if not quite, a thousand beds she always found time for a daily visit to the sick sisters. Many times her comforting handclasp and sympathetic 'Poor child, I am sorry,' has cheered miserable sisters and probationers fighting for their lives in a strange land and far away from their dearly-loved 'ain folk.'

Bravery - It Started with a Tweet

 

I've always had quite strong views on Great War nurses being described as angels and heroines, and the assertion that they were all  'brave.'So I was interested in a thread on Twitter which went as follows:

Tweeter A.  Army Nurse Corps took hot water bottles to bed with them then made tea with that hot water next morning!*
Tweeter B.  Some WW stories would be amazing to collate a brave history that we are loosing [sic] day by day
Tweeter C.  Perhaps bravery comes behind professionalism, stoicism, dertermination and skill
Tweeter A.  Bravery, the right choice under terrible circumstances, against all odds.

Obviously A. felt that 'brave' was the best word to describe these military nurses but it made me think again about war, nurses, and bravery. The early 20th century was a time when British nurses were fighting to have their qualifications officially recognised through a process of registration, to ensure that poorly trained and inexperienced women could no longer pass themselves off as fully-trained nurses. Many of them relished the chance that war gave them - to know that they would at last have a platform to show off their skills in a public and wide-ranging manner - the eyes of the nation and the wider world were on them as they were released from the anonynimity of their peacetime role.

I doubt if they were thinking about being brave when they first put on their new uniform and entered the doors of a military hospital. More likely they were thinking about being tested in a strange environment; about what skills they would need; how this new experience would give them an advantage in years to come as they climbed the nursing ladder. They must have wondered who would be working alongside them? Would there be any familiar faces from their training days? Would their pay and conditions be comparable to what they were already getting and would Army discipline defeat them? And when a few months later they added their names to the list of those wishing to go on active service overseas, did they do it because they were brave? I suggest that most of them were desperate to get nearer the action; to feel closer to their brothers, fathers and friends who were already abroad; to grasp the opportunity to visit places and see things they had never contemplated before. Nursing in France had an urgency and importance about it which was lacking in home hospitals - it made them special. And they wanted to be seen as being special.

They knew how hard the work could be - the rushes, the pushes, the pauses; the long hours and early mornings; the boring patches and the restrictions.  They knew that if they asked to be considered for duty nearer the front, at a casualty clearing station, they were nearer the guns, nearer danger, nearer the most badly wounded men. Did they go because they wanted to be brave?  My view is they went because they wanted to make a difference, and to be seen as making a difference.

One of the few nurses who died as a result of enemy action is universally described as 'brave.'  Nellie Spindler died in her bed, while sleeping, the result of a shrapnel wound during an enemy bombing raid on her casualty clearing station. Can 'brave' be the best word to describe her? Unlucky, certainly, but hardly brave.

There were nurses of all sorts, good, indifferent, and some very bad - bad behaviour, poor nursing skills, lack of tact, no sense of discipline. They were not all heroines, and of course, none of them were angels. Angels don't actually exist and trained nurses are very much of the real world. While there were undoubtedly individual acts of bravery by nurses during the war, it was not the lot of the majority. When they were in dangerous and difficult situations, being bombed or shelled or retreating with the enemy at their heels, they relied on their long experience, their skill, their confidence, determination, dedication and fortitude, and on an instant learnt response to emergencies. I would still say that all these came before bravery.

* This surely cannot be true. I have heard of nurses using the water for washing the following morning, but never for tea!