Helping the wounded - Passchendaele

And poor Jim was laying there cuddled up in a heap as men die. Don’t forget we was all young, we didn’t die easy. You don’t die at once, you’re not shot and killed stone dead. You don’t die at once. We were all fit and highly trained and of course we didn’t die easy, you see. You were slow to die and you’d find them huddled up in a heap like kids gone to sleep, you know, cuddled up dead.

From interview with Sidney Stanfield - hear and read more

War meant casualties. New Zealand’s battles in Belgium took their toll in lives and limbs – more than 14,000 New Zealanders were wounded between June and December 1917. Shellfire and shrapnel punctured flesh and severed limbs; gas poisoned bodies; bacteria from the stinking mud infected wounds. Those who recovered felt the effects for years afterwards; hallucinations and nightmares wracked men suffering from shell-shock.

Moving the wounded

Wounded men would be moved (by stretcher-bearers if necessary) to regimental aid posts for hurried medical treatment. Another team of stretcher-bearers would carry them to dressing stations. There, treatment was limited: bleeding was stopped; splints were applied; wounds were quickly stitched; shock was treated as well as possible; and badly shattered limbs were removed. Morphia and other anaesthetics would be given only in small doses, if at all. The use of penicillin for fighting infection had not yet been developed. 

The wounded were then taken to the relative safety of casualty clearing stations, which were often a few miles from the dressing station. Ambulances (motorised or horse-drawn) and stretcher-bearers carried those who could not walk. Surgical teams – made up of a surgeon, anaesthetist, sister and orderly – worked at clearing stations, along with other medical staff, orderlies, chaplains and stretcher-bearers. Once treated or diagnosed, men would be sent on. Some went to the New Zealand Stationary Hospitals in Hazebrouck or Wisques for more serious operations or treatments. Others went to hospitals in the United Kingdom where some remained for the rest of the war. Still others returned to the front. More ...

New Zealand nurses

New Zealand Stationary Hospital at Wisques, France

In May 1917 medical staff, including 35 nurses from the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, moved from Amiens to set up the New Zealand Stationary Hospital at Hazebrouck, closer to the front. It was a makeshift hospital: a girls’ boarding school and a couple of big tents converted into wards and operating theatres.

There the doctors and nurses waited for the wounded who would inevitably come once the planned offensive against the Germans started. The first New Zealanders arrived on 9 June, two days after the Battle of Messines had started. Many had head injuries, which this hospital specialised in.

It is terrible to see these men wounded in the head — numbers of them become paralysed and quite a number were minus arms and legs or eyes. For the first few days they were quite silly — lost their reasons and some speechless. Oh, it was ghastly and desperately busy — we just went on and on doing dressings no hope of finishing … Crowds died of course.

Elsie Grey, New Zealand Army Nursing Service, in Anna Rogers, While you’re away: New Zealand nurses at war 1899–1948, 2003

Victims of gas

July 1917 also saw the emergence of a deadly new problem when the Germans began using mustard or yellow cross gas (dichlorethyl sulphide). It was a much more potent gas than other types used during the war. Eyes were burned and became swollen, and men eventually lost their sight. Lungs were seared from inhaling the gas. Bronchitis would set in, and, in a weakened state, men died of pneumonia.

Private Laurence Patrick Donohue from Papanui was one of the many New Zealanders who died from complications due to mustard gas. As a member of the New Zealand Field Ambulance Company, his job was to help the wounded at Passchendaele. He joined their ranks on 13 October 1917 when he was affected by mustard gas. He was evacuated to a hospital in St Omer but died six days later. His twin brother was killed in action six weeks later, also in Belgium.