AWM41 969 - [Nurses Narratives] Sister G Douglas - Part 3

18/ a few miles of the Stations which were generally very mobile 

indeed  The sisters stay in the Australian Service was limited

 to six months at a Casualty Clearing Station.  

Their work was splendid both in theatre, resuscitation, 

surgical & medical wards & their presence valuable to 

their patients apart from their very evident worth as 

skilled & experienced nurses.

Recreation which was taken between evacuation & 

admitting, often only a brief period of an hour or two , 

consisted of riding, tennis on a cinder court of their 

own preparation, tentative gardening & walking the flat 

fields of the Flanders.  Hospitality was exchanged between 

neighbouring station & camps. 

All entertainments were overlooked by the British 

authorities & practically every division & brigade & 

head-quarters staff had excellent Companies of entertainers 

& actors who visited the various districts between 

"pushes".

Each Casualty Clearing Station largely specialised in 

one or two classes of cases which were of course getting

increasingly severe as the war progressed in horror.  

At times a convoy might consist of nearly all gassed 

patients.  These were to Some the most hideous of all

the hideous sights one had to work among.  

The stations worked in cojnjunction & while one was 

evacuating its neighbour was admitting patients.  

The continuous noise of  bombardments, barrages, 

shelling  day & night with the whirr of aeroplanes & 

their bombing proved very tiring & nerve-racking   

Often the locality of the Station was under direct fire 

from shells or bombs & as everyone knows, the Red 

Cross painted or marked conspicuously, proved no 

protection for those working among the wounded  

Personal danger was gradually increasing for the 

sisters who stood steady while men were brought 

in dead as a result of shelling only ten minutes 

walk distant

19/  During the Great Offensive of March 1918 all 

preparations were made for rapidly moving the Stations 

back if the Germans came nearer. And as the tide of 

war ebbed &flowed So did the Sisters English, Canadian, 

Australian,  South African,  American move to & fro 

tending the wounded with no thought of their own 

safety or comfort.

At times instead ofliving in permanent huts or tents 

& messing at the station, the Sisters were provided for in 

billets with French or Belgian residents until a 

permanent camp was established

Many amusing incidents occurred at Such times 

owing to the French point of view of what was seemly 

in domestic life.  

While an air-raid was in progress during the moonlight 

nights, sisters had orders to repair to the dug-outs upon 

hearing the warning Sirens. Thus were spent many hours

of the night during the otherwise lovely summer evenings 

of 1918 & this served to further rack the nurses 

worn out by war.

When in London on leave Sisters often had to endure 

an air-raid there too

But at last war ceased & the Armistice was declared at 

the beginning of another winter.

Nothing remained now but to care for the wounded 

till they were evacuated to Australia from all the 

British Hospitals as rapidly as ships could be 

Commissioned and to nurse the Soldiers during 

the two influenza epidemics

Australian Sisters messed at the three Australian 

Auxiliary Hospitals in Harefield, Southall & 

Dartford until they sailed for Australia on duty 

while travelling back with Soldiers & their dependants.

Other Sisters while waiting for transport were permitted to take 

up non-military employment which included horticulture, 

bee keeping, motor-driving, midwifery, baby health  music

language and needlework & painting.

 

 

 

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