AWM41 1041 - [Nurses Narratives] Sister A N Smith - Part 2

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Experiences during Messines Ridge Battle, and the 2 months dating from
xx January 1917, to October 4th 1917, in the 2nd Australian
Casualty Clearing Station
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On the 4th of January I was sent to the 2nd Aust C.C.S. stationed
at Trois Arberes, between Neippe and Bailleul. I am afraid my idea of
a C.C.S. at that time was rather vague. So I was surprised to find
that it consisted of quite an up-to-date hospital, in many ways, with
excellent appliances and X ray plant. The building consisted principally
of shacks, Nissen huts and tents all connected by duckboards
to keep out, if possible, the mud and slouch so well known in Northern
France. There was little excitements the first three months, after that
the excitement never finished for a very long time, and it lasted,
so did the hard work.
The contents of the wards often told us what was going to happen
"when we take Messines Ridge." We had heard of that ridge so often,
and the time it was going to be taken, that we only laughed when they
spoke of it, and decided the day had not yet dawned for "that ridge".
However, when the Ridge was really to be taken, we feared very little
about it. Carpenters arrived one morning and immediately commenced
working in various places. Our dressing room where patients had their
wounds attended to, on admission was enlarged to accomodate 10 tables
where it had previously held two. Our operating theatre was also made
capable of running six different operating tables. Tents sprang up on
all available space, with duckboards leading to them. All necessary
equipment was installed in them. Primus' were issued, often an additional
one in case of accident. Then splints, bandages, pyjamas, blankets and
one hundred and one small things needed in a busy ward arrived by motor
transport, until we knew that ridge really was going to be taken. All
patients able to travel were sent to the base, leaving us with practically
an empty hospital with the exception of a few convalescents kept
for light duty. Doctors, Orderlies and strecher Bearers arrived in
large numbers and our staff of sisters was made up to 20, including
3 sisters attached to surgical Teams.
Of course, we were used to Bombardment, that the noise which preceded
Messines Ridge Battle was little noticed. For the bombardment had
seemed perpetual for weeks and weeks. Shells had been bursting above
us in the daytime, and will the noise of bombs a short distance away,
and anti air craft guns, we had little to learn of noise.
I was sleeping in a tent at this time, and it was from here, I heard
the noise of the mines blowing up, and felt the concussion of the earth
which preceded the Messines Battle. .  We could not sleep after this
wondering how the Australians and other troops were faring. Wondering
if they had won the hill, or were being slaughtered, and know which
ever way it happened, we were bound to have hundreds of wounded coming
in shortly. About 7 a.m. we heard the Ridge had been taken with light
casualties, and shortly after the first wounded started to arrive. I
couldn't see where the light casualties came in, as all these strong
healthy men came in dead, dying, unconscious and moaning. We had a large
marque erected near the entrance much like a circus ten in its size.
There the wounded were received, examined by an M.O., who ordered their
further disposal. After he had examined their condition, they were
stripped of their bloodstained duty khaki - parts of which had often
been slit up or cut away to allow the doctors in the forward areas to
dress their wounds and give them injections of Anti Telamlo Serum.
Their various private belongings were collected into a Dorothy bag bearing
their name and rank. The men were dressed in Red Cross pyjamas and
carried on stretchers to the dressing room and put on one of the ten
tables, which were constantly kept going during the days which succeeded
the battle.
Again they were seen by another Med.Off. who ordered their special
dressing and often dress them if time permitted, and sent them to
different wards I may say the wards and were many and varied.
Perhaps it was straight to the Operating Theatre - in case of haemmorrhage 
or abdominal wounds. Many of the boys coming in with a leg
blown off. It was dressed in the Aid Posts, a Tourniquet applied to stop
bleeding, and sent hurriedly to the C.C.S. in charge of an A.M.C. man,
for immediate operation. Sometimes they died on the way, and never reached
the hospital alive. Then we had a post operative ward, a pre-operative
ward, resusitation, chest, abdominal,  [[ja?]] multiple wound, and lastly
a moribund or dying ward.

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Each patient was sent to a ward, sorted accordingly to his wound and all
necessary treatment and dressing done. We had no time to think of the
hundreds of casualties. We only knew that work was waiting to be done
everywhere, and men were suffering - waiting to be dressed, or to have
an injection of morphia, strychnine or other stimulant, and that many
of them had not had a drink or food for hours.
Everybody worked may hours at a stretch. We had a day and night
staff, but how could anyone go off duty with dying and wounded men all
waiting their turn to be next, and you know that it would be for
hours, before the night or day staff as it happened to be, could cope
with the crowded wards. Everybody tried to have enough sleep to keep
them going, without interfering with the way they did their work, realising
the best work could not be done without some sleep. But how
could anyone sleep, with our big guns firing a short distance from us.
Shells bursting overhead, and air craft and maching guns going continually
with the noise or the general bombardment and the screech of shells
overhead on their way to Bailleul, or Neuys Eglise. Colonel received
great praise, afterwards, for putting through 2,300 cases in 19 hours -
the greater part of which were operated on, and the foreign bodies
removed. Everything must have been well planned. We had all we wanted
and everything went very smoothly. All working very cheerfully together
from the Padre who served the patients with the tea, if we were busy, 
to the stretcher bearer who looked, judging by his appearance as if he 
were just fit to be carried out on a stretcher himself, instead
of carrying others.
Disposal of patients.
Many patients on admittance were sent to the pre Operative Ward, 
there to wait their turn for the X Ray room and theatre. There was

little time for preparation, only that which was necessary being done.
Many of them were too badly wounded to know they were going to the
theatre, Others less wounded were remarkably bright, and only seemed
to want a cigarette, and for you to look after someone who was worse
hit than themselves. Occasionally a doctor came in, and left list of
names as they were to go to the theatre, or a padre came in to see
someone who had not long to live. From the theatre, the very serious
cases were sent to wards for further treatment, and to wait till they
would have recovered from shock and haemorrhage, sufficiently to go
down the line to the Base. The lesser wounded we put in a tent till
the effects of the anasthetic had passed off, they were then put on
the train which ran beside the C.C.S. When one hospital train was
full, it pulled out and an empty hospital train pulled in, waiting
to be filled. I worked in various parts of the hospital, sometimes
in the Operating Room, Abdominal Ward or Dressing Room, or perhaps
the Resusitation Ward assisting the doctors with the various methods
of combating shock and haemorrhage, and trying to help the patients
over this critical time, by giving injections, and special feeding,
to prepare them for the operating theatre, their only hope.
Often we were successful, sometimes our best efforts failed, sometimes
it was hopeless from the beginning.
For some time I had charge of the Moribund or Dying Ward. It was
a hopeless heartbreaking place, roves of dying men, mostly Australians
and New Zealanders, nearly all headcases and uncon/scious and unconscious
or else raving in delirium, and pulling their bandages off. None likely
to live more than a few hours, and pronounced hopeless by the doctors.
Each on a mattress on a stretcher, mostly in their khaki. They were
the only cases not undressed in the admitting tent. Every hour or
so, someone dying and being taken out, only to be followed by someone
else in an hour or so. All we do was try and get them to take
nourishment, give injections to deaden pain; undress them and make them
comfortable. Many of them wore [[?discs]] with their rank and unit on one
side and the next-of-kin's address on the other, seemingly asking
for some one to write to their people and tell them how and when they
died.
German Prisoners (Wounded).
In a tent next to these were German prisoners, mostly wounded and
needing quick operative attention if they were to live. Our own men
were attended to first, unless the germans were very seriously wounded.

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Some of them had been lying out some time, and gas gangrene had been
developed very quickly, where otherwise the wound was not very serious.
They were operated on as quickly as possible and sent xx down the line
to make room for others. Very few could speak a word of English, but
as I had an orderly who could speak German it did not matter much.
Our own men were wonderfully brave about their wounds, seldom complaining,
now and then a groan bursting from them which told how they were
suffering. The germans seldom complained, either, they were good patients.
Only once, and officer complained to me in broken English, but it was
not of his wound. It was to speak of the degradation of the officers
being "put" as he expressed it to "lie with the common soldiers". The 
officers were afterwards screened of and their stretchers put on trestles.
Shelling and Bombing of the Cas.Clearing Station.
During all this time of severe work and for weeks after Messines
the C.C.S. had been receiving shells, parts of shells or shrapnel.
Sometimes directed at a balloon between us and the bombs. Sometimes
the germans were shelling the Railway Line and trucks hoping to find
a 12in gun which was kept on a line very close to us, camouflaged as
a truck, and was generally sent up the line at night, at other times
it seemed to us just the shelling of back areas. The staff and patients

had sometimes an anxious time,. Numerous narrow escapes ocurred, but
no one was seriously wounded. For three days and nights after Messines
the night staff worked hours, later than their usual hours and were
kept awake by the noise, until they got so tired they would have slept
thro anything. Bombs were continually being dropped on different
camps, and on the Bailleul-Nieppe road. No one bothered much about
them. We all had the idea that we were safe, because we were a
hospital.
However in July 1917 a taube dropped several bombs just outside
a tent, killing two patients, two orderlies, and wounding 14 or 15
other men. This happened about 10 o'clock at night.
On the afternoon of this same day, the Germans had been shelling
the balloon pretty frequently and pieces were falling in different parts 
of the camp. One large piece came down and buried it self in a tent
between two patients, who were side by side on stretchers. It missed
both and one of the patients was an elderly man, and was very much
terrified, and practically suffered from shellshock all the afternoon.
This luck was further out however, as he was one of the patients
killed by the bomb that night.
After this the sisters peace was at an end, a dugout was built for
them. It did not matter where we were working, if a taube appeared
we had to leave our task and go to a dugout, and perhaps remain hours
there. At the time I speak of, the taubes were kept out of the sky
by our machine guns and anti air-craft guns during the day, but always
came over us at night, generally on their way to bomb Hazebrouck and
Bailleul. So we spent most of the day wondering, and spent most of the
night in the dugout - not sleeping. It was underground, and pretty
damp and miserable - until a new one was built above ground for us.
We arose at 5 a.m. to dress the patients to leave by the hospital train
at 6 a.m.
To give some idea of the uncertainty of life surrounding the C.C.S.
One evening a man was admitted, badly wounded by a shell which
exploded in a motor transport waggon on the Bailleul Armentiera Road.
Two friends in his unit hearing he was wounded, rode 14 miles to see
him, on horseback, arriving at 10 p.m. at night just as lights were to be
put out. I spoke to the two men, and told them they need not hurry
away, as their friend was to go down on the hospital train, and they
would not see him again. I left the two men with him and went to supper.
I was not away ½ an hour, when I returned to another ward. As I entered
the stretcher Bearers were taking another man our of a red cross
waggon, I went up to have a look at the patient, as I did so, he
exclaimed "Why, we must be in the same hospital, this is the sister
we were talking to". They were the two men I left talking to their
friend. They had got their horses, rode a few hundred yards from the
camp. A bomb fell between them, killing both horses and wounding pretty
badly the two men - one having his foot blown off.  There were so
dazed they did not recognise that it was the same hospital,

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they had just left, till they saw me. All three went down on the
train the next morning.
(Sgd)A.N.Smith, N.S.
No. 1 Aust.Gen.Hospital,
Sutton Veny.

Item Control
Australian War Memorial
005172285