The Grim Reality Of WW1 Front-Line Nurses & Doctors | The Last Voices of World War One | Timeline

In a remarkable exercise spanning 15 years, the last survivors of the Great War were interviewed on film. These are unique stories of courage, sacrifice and tragedy, told by the men and women who were there. These extraordinary interviews have been brought together for the first time. In this film, we hear from soldiers who suffered terrible injuries in the fighting, and from those who helped to save their lives. From the stretcher bearers who dashed into no man's land to rescue them, to the young nurses whose devotion to duty helped them to recover. Heap of rags, most of them. And that was awful to handle them. You know, you'd practically pick them up in pieces. This young fella, he did want his mummy so much he cried for his mummy. Oh, I said, I'll be your mummy tonight, and I gave him a hug. I can tell you truly, there was a state where I just wanted to give in, you know. It would have been, you know, quite pleasant. Give up the struggle. These are the last voices of World War I. Ever since the days of Florence Nightingale and her campaign for soldiers' welfare during the Crimean War, the British Army has prided itself on the quality of its medical care. But during the course of the First World War, the number of casualties far exceeded anything that had gone before. In the four years of fighting, over two million British and Commonwealth soldiers were wounded. In the days of industrialised warfare, machine gun bullets and shell fire caused dreadful wounds, and in the worst battles there could be well over 10,000 casualties in a single day. The strain on Britain's medical services was enormous. Soldiers at the front lived with the constant threat of death or injury, and the life-changing moment when the shrapnel from a shell or the bullet from a sniper's rifle tore into their flesh could happen without warning. Nineteen-year-old Jock Gaffran arrived on the Somme in May 1916. All my life I've had conscience that something is going to happen, and they've come true. And I said to my friend next to me, I said, what a nice morning for a cushy blighty and home. Cushy being a real nice one, you see. And I never remember another thing. I have no earthly idea what came down or how it came down, but I just had one stiffening burn, and I went like a poke. And when I came to, I noticed that my right foot had gone. I was hit behind the heel, which took the sole clean away, and the big toe was left dangling round and round and round, you see. So the Red Cross men, when they came, they just casually cut the toe away and threw it on the roadside. For Jock, this brutal roadside amputation was just the first of a series of painful operations, hardly the cushy blighty he had hoped for. For men wounded at the front, initial help came from stretcher bearers, both from their own battalion and from those in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Often trained only in the basics of first aid, these men risked life and limb to recover the injured from the battlefields. Nineteen-year-old Dick Barron from Liverpool was one of them. Like so many who served in the Great War, he had volunteered out of a sense of duty and patriotism instilled in him during his school days. I think I got my idea, with a lot of young fellas, from boys' old paper. The soldiers were very, very spectacular creatures. And how they fought in the Crimea, and the wonderful charge of the Light Brigade, it was all very romantic. We didn't think of the worst part of warfare. We had no idea, it was only very spectacular. As a member of the Boys' Life Brigade, Dick had won trophies for his first aid skills, a fact quickly picked up by his recruiting sergeant. A number of chaps from the Boys' Life Brigade, we went up to Duke of York's headquarters, and we all joined up together. And when they learnt my history, I was sent immediately to the field ambulance. It wasn't just men who volunteered to serve their country. With the expansion of wartime nursing services, thousands of young women were drawn into a profession they had never previously considered. Nora Clay from Macclesfield had been inspired to volunteer after both her father and brother were sent overseas to fight. When her brother was killed, she threw herself wholeheartedly into her new career. Well, my brother was killed by the Turks, and that was a fearful blow to me. And I think it did rather alter my feeling to these men, that you felt that you wanted to do anything you could to get them well and to make them happy. I went to Leeds, a very unsophisticated little 20-year-old. But I loved it, and it was there, you see, that I had my first introduction to wounded soldiers. The number of men wounded overseas grew more rapidly than anyone had expected. A week after the Battle of Mons in August 1914, of the 90,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force sent to France, one in six was reported as a casualty. Although this figure included those taken prisoner, the large majority would have been wounded men. When Dick Barron set sail for the front in September 1914, the reaction of the other soldiers on board ship quickly brought home the fact that his chances of making it back in one piece were slim. The whole of the ship's company, from the top deck right down, including ourselves, suddenly burst into song, in unison. Homeland, homeland, when shall I see you again? Land of my birth, dearest place on earth, I'm leaving you, oh, it may be for years, and it may be forever. Homeland, homeland, up to then, the whole thing had been most enjoyable, but my heart stood still. I suddenly realised that this was a warfare, I may not return. My heart stood still, and we set sail. Within weeks, thoughts of Homeland had all but vanished, and Dick was lying in a hospital ward, wishing he was dead. The romanticism that had led him to volunteer would soon be gone forever. The Royal Army Medical Corps was formed in 1898, and by the outbreak of the Great War, the RAMC had 9,000 officers and men in its ranks. But such were the terrible casualty rates, that by the end of the fighting, that figure had risen to over 110,000. For men wounded at the front, their chances of survival depended on how quickly their injuries were treated, and a chain of evacuation was put in place to ensure medical care was administered as soon as possible. Stretcher-bearers like 19-year-old Dick Barron had the arduous task of carrying the wounded from No Man's Land back to regimental aid posts and advanced dressing stations. It's bloody awful. If you ever carried a chap on a stretcher, I felt that my arms were coming out their sockets. A chap gets very heavy, you know, to carry him very far on a stretcher. I was only a youth, and I hadn't got all that strength. To carry a chap on a stretcher, you don't want to have to go very far with him. Especially when you've gone across terrain where it's all bumpy and very difficult terrain. So work on a stretcher is very exhausting. The men worked in teams with a minimum of two to a casualty, increasing to four or more where the terrain was difficult. It was dangerous work, and many stretcher-bearers became casualties themselves as they searched for the wounded in No Man's Land. When he was posted to the front, 19-year-old Bill Easton from Norfolk was teamed up with a more experienced stretcher-bearer called Tom Barras, who did his best to put Bill at ease. He told me, he said, if you're going to be hit by one of these shells, you'll get hit, and that's all you'll know. He'd say, so I'd kick up a hell of a fuss about it. He used to swear like a trooper, and Tom, he was an inspiration. At the time I was with him, we walked through, I don't know how many shells used to come over, but they were flying overhead, and Tom, he'd be walking along with them and take no notes of them. Stick your head up, he said, and get along. But nothing could prepare stretcher-bearers like Bill for the terrible consequences of modern warfare. Most wounds came from shell fire, and shrapnel had a devastating effect on the human body. Most of them, they were chest or stomach wounds, and they were really serious, and that was awful to handle them. You know, you practically pick them up in pieces, but if they were still alive, you had to cast them away, and you know jolly well that they'd die any time. The main thing was getting them out of it, and that's what we used to do. Although the priority for stretcher-bearers was the speedy evacuation of the wounded, they did carry basic field dressings for use in emergencies, but these were of little use in cases of severe blood loss. If blood was coming with pulses, you felt and you knew that he'd had it, and all you could do was to put a dressing on and either send him back or... But you felt you had to do something. You know what I mean? Even if it was only putting a dressing on it. It was unavoidable, but Bill Easton hated having the blood of wounded men on his hands. I didn't like it. If you had to touch a man and you got it and that dried on your hands, that was a horrible feeling. They used to be sticky and awful. That was a horrible feeling. Fortunately, in most cases, the stretcher-bearers didn't know the identity of the men they were rescuing. But only weeks after going into action, Dick Barron saw one of his close friends hit in the head by shrapnel. He fell and I looked at it and I could see his brains. It sounds gruesome, but all I could do was to put the brain which had exuded through the wound back into the cranium. Immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description. You can't imagine to see your pal wounded like that. You felt you've got to do something. And that's what I did. No good, of course, was it? In an instant, Dick had learnt the dreadful truth behind the boy's own stories that had led him to join up. I had been long in warfare where it lost all its romanticism. Warfare was a grim, unsatisfactory, bloody silly business. Wounded soldiers recovered from the battlefields were given first aid before being taken by ambulance to casualty clearing stations, normally located around 20 miles behind the front lines. Here the men received emergency operations, including amputations, before being sent on to base hospitals near the coast. After battle, these clearing stations were often so overrun with casualties that surgeons operated round the clock without a break and unqualified staff dressed wounds and even anaesthetised patients. As a volunteer nurse, Marjorie Grigsby from Portsmouth spent part of her war working in a clearing station in France. Hell. Absolute hell. We were doing things we knew nothing about, giving injections to people with legs hanging out of trousers, heads half blown off, and using the same needle just dipped in carbolic 20. Just one after another. We didn't really know what we were doing. All we were anxious to do was to put them out of their pain. It's an absolute bed of blood and thunder. Initially only fully trained nurses were allowed to serve at the front. But by the autumn of 1915, the medical services were so overrun that unpaid volunteer nurses like Marjorie were sent abroad to help. These nurses, or VADs as they became known, after the voluntary aid detachments they had joined, were often from sheltered middle and upper class families. With only basic first aid training, it was a shock to find themselves suddenly nursing and comforting men close to death. Often there was little they could do to help them. I remember once I said to one, have you got a mother and father? And he said, I haven't got a mother, she's dead. But I said to him, well you'll be with her in a few minutes, so don't worry. That was all I said to him. There wasn't anything else to say. Those who made it through the casualty clearing stations were taken to base hospitals set up near the coast in towns like Rouen and Calais. The injured remained here until they were either sent home to England or deemed fit enough to return to their units. Although they were far enough behind the lines to avoid shell fire, base hospitals were sometimes hit during air raids. Whether intentional or not, the results made effective propaganda. This newsreel shows the funeral of nurses and patients killed when the base hospital at Étaples was bombed in 1918. 23-year-old nurse Alice Blood from Bourne in Lincolnshire was working at Étaples when the bombs fell. Her ward was close to the stable block. And I had ten patients on one side and ten on that side. And I'd walk up and down, up and down. Well this night they dropped a bomb, which I suppose was meant for us. We had big red crosses on the roof, all our roofs. But they dropped their bomb and it missed us evidently and it hit the horses. The noise, the noise was something terrible, something terrible. I never knew before that a horse could scream, scream all over, screaming. And that was that week. I kept walking up and down as fast as I could because the men of course, I think they were more nervous than I was. But I always thought if I walked up and down perhaps the bomb would drop the other end and I'd be that end and I'd walk back again. Back and forth I'd go. It was to the hospital at Camier just north of Étaples that 19-year-old Jock Gaffran was taken after being hit by a shell. He'd already had his toe cut off in a hasty roadside amputation and the sole of his foot had been completely blown away by the blast. And the doctors had a look at me and I said that I did not want to lose my leg. My foot if possible. But he said we will do what we can but it was hopeless. The foot had to go and that was that. They put me on a table with a mattress. I think it was in the kitchen that they did it. And at last let me say I had the chloroform in those days. And it was done. They amputated my foot through the ankle. And I can assure you that was no easy job. And it was extremely painful. I can assure you if I ever howled in my life when I came out. I howled and I made no bones about it. I really cried my eyes out when I saw the result. At my age to have that injury was quite a shock. It meant that you would have to adapt your life in many ways. And that's just what I had to do. The final stage in the evacuation of wounded soldiers was the journey back to Blighty. Ambulance trains and barges were used to transport the men to hospital ships waiting at the ports. It was the moment most soldiers longed for. 20-year-old Londoner Fred Taylor was hit by shrapnel from an exploding shell just four weeks before the end of the war. After being rushed to an operating theatre, Fred was taken to an ambulance train. Only then did he discover the true extent of his injuries. It was one of those ambulance trains where there's no seats. There are racks and there's three racks on each side of the carriage and the centre is all empty. So when they lifted me up to the officials that were inside the train, they called out, what's this one? And the chap looked at the label on me and said, it's amputation. And that's the first I knew that it was off. So I put my head down and there it was, gone. So they just put me on the bottom deck. I wasn't in any pain. I hadn't been in any pain all along. When I was wounded or anything, I just didn't feel any pain. So it was quite a shock to hear someone say, you've got an amputation. That was the finish until I got out of Carlisle. For many of the men who crossed the Channel back to England, there followed a long and painful period of rehabilitation. Some would have to undergo further operations and learn how to use artificial limbs, while others suffered from dreadful mental illness. And all the while the nurses who cared for them, put on a brave face as they dressed gangrenous wounds, helped to sever limbs and cradled dying men in their arms. For them, the horrors of war were just beginning. During the Great War, perhaps the biggest threat facing men wounded at the front, was the onset of gangrene. In the days before antibiotics, gangrene spread quickly, and without the swift amputation of the affected area, soldiers had little chance of recovery. Most feared was the condition known as gas gangrene, caused by bacteria which thrived in the muddy fields of France, often entering wounds on fragments of filthy uniforms pushed into the body by shrapnel. General Nurse Nora Clay worked at a hospital in Leeds. They came in with terribly septic, deep, gangrenous wounds. And one of my vivid recollections, when I was on the military ward, was a man with a gaping wound about 14 inches long, right down to the bones of his lower leg. And I should think about two inches deep, and in the depth of that wound, there was patches of gangrene. And they found that by introducing maggots into the wound, the maggots ate the gangrene, and then they could start to heal the leg up. That was a shock to me, to see, first of all, these nasty little things crawling about in the man's leg. They didn't come loose in the bed, it was exposed, you see, and they were having their feet. Over 40,000 British soldiers lost limbs due to their injuries, and many of these amputations were carried out once the man had returned home. For the untrained volunteer nurses, witnessing their first amputation was a shocking rite of passage. I was warned by somebody who knew, that if, when you go the first time into the theatre, so many nurses who go out to attend their first operation will faint when the first incision is made. But if you make a point of looking over there, when they're doing the incision there, and then turn your head afterwards, if you don't see the first incision made, you're all right. You will stick it out. But if you see the blood oozing out, you're done for. And I found that work beautifully. I've never fainted in the theatre, yes. I've done a lot of theatre work. Nora Clay saw so many amputations they became a routine part of her work. If I was on the theatre staff, then I would help to cover him with sterile towels, just exposing the leg that was going to be amputated. And I can't remember that I was ever, what you call, deeply affected by the sight of the tissues being divided and the bone either being cut through or disjointed, and the limb carried away. It may sound heartless, but it's all part of the training. When Jock Gaffran returned to England after having his foot amputated, he was sent to hospital in York. He was on the ward when doctors noticed that gangrene had formed in his wound. When I heard them mention gangrene, I was terrified. They took my leg off from the ankle to four, six inches below the knee. And that was a big one. And I can assure it was sore, very sore. And I felt it. And once again, I did a hell of a lot of crying. Good, hefty stuff. Jock's ordeal didn't end there. He began to suffer from terrible phantom pains and also had to endure the agony of having his dressings regularly changed. Dressing time was an ordeal at all times. I dreaded this because the bandages that I had on had dried and they had to be pulled away. And much of the dressing adhered to the skin. Jock's stay in hospital was made bearable only through the friendship he made with a volunteer nurse, known simply to him as Nurse Sutherland. She was my nurse and she certainly looked after me in every way. It wasn't a case of attraction or anything. She was good at her job. Very good at her job. She never spoke hardly except words of comfort. And I did nothing else but cry. And being a soldier, and being 20 or 21, I didn't want to be more or less a child and cry. But cry I did, and plenty of it. For all amputees coming to terms with their disability, there followed the awful realisation that life would never be the same again. One time apprentice printer, Fred Taylor, was 20 when he lost his leg, just four weeks before the end of the war. You just wonder, you wonder what the future holds. You don't think of, I don't think you think of anything, one thing in particular. Because your whole life is going to be different, isn't it? You see? So that's what I think. That's the way I look at it anyway. I think that's the way it affects you. Some people may not be able to stand the strain. In my case, you can't do the same job. So what's your parents going to say or do? What else can you do? You can't think straight. So just hope for the best. The other great threat to men at the front was disease. Rotting bodies could lie on the battlefields for weeks and rats and lice were a constant nuisance. In these conditions, trench hygiene was an important part of the daily routine, but there were still outbreaks of illnesses like typhus and dysentery. The 1918 influenza pandemic that killed over 20 million people worldwide ravaged the armies of both sides, as the close proximity of the men, combined with frequent troop movements, helped the virus to spread. Stretcher-bearer Dick Barron was struck down by dysentery, but being a conscientious volunteer, he tried to carry on as normal. It nearly cost him his life. You know, I'd delayed too long. Silly little boy, silly kid really. I should have reported sick earlier. Would have stood much more chance. And one morning I found I couldn't stand and I had to be casual. I was dangerously ill. I thought and I hoped I was going to die and the medical officer, I'm sure, never thought I would recover. And I can tell you truly, there was a state where I just wanted to give in. It would have been, you know, quite pleasant. Give up the struggle. I can't describe it more than that. That death had no fear for me. Not all injuries suffered by men at the front were physical. By the end of the war, 30,000 men had been returned to Britain suffering from shell shock. This remarkable film, made in 1917, captured in stark clarity the debilitating effects of this frightening mental illness. In 1918, Mary Jolly from Edinburgh was made a sister on a specialist shell shock ward in Knox County War Hospital where she saw the effects of the condition at first hand. The appearance of the men was very terrible to see because they were trembling, facial trembling and hands trembling and they just couldn't control themselves. Although they tried hard to control because they probably knew that they were upsetting the person who was treating them. But it was very terrible to see. And they had tremors, hands and face. Saliva even, could be dripping with saliva. But for Mary, the most upsetting aspect of shell shock were the nightmares suffered by the men in the darkness of her hospital ward. Terrifying flashbacks to the scenes of horror that they had witnessed but were unable to talk about. There was one soldier and he was so afraid of going to sleep because of the nightmares that he had. And of course it wasn't my business to go into that. That was the medical officer's business. But I couldn't help trying to ease the situation. And I said, what did you see? And he said, well I saw wounded men. On the ground. And our tanks coming along and just mowing through the wounded men. He said it was very terrible. But that was one of the worst ones. That's me very much, that's me now. Despite the dreadful condition of the men nurses like Mary had to put on a brave face and do their best not to reveal their true feelings. It was essential to keep up the good spirits of their patients. Naturally the nurses knew from what they'd heard what they'd endured. And so one felt sympathetic towards them. And I think a nurse develops a certain amount of what I call motherliness. The fact that she may only be in her early twenties but because you've been caring for people so closely you develop that feeling that you are responsible for their happiness. Nurse Alice Blood never forgot the night when she had to play a parental role to a young soldier who was about to be returned home to England suffering from severe flu. This young fellow, I suppose he was perhaps taller than I was but he did want his mummy so much he cried for his mummy. Oh I said, I'll be your mummy tonight and I gave him a hug and he went to sleep quite quietly. But this act of kindness was the last Alice would do for the young soldier. Although she argued that he was too weak to travel that night he was taken to a hospital ship for the journey home. And by the grapevine I heard that he saw his mummy and then he died. And I still feel sad about that summary. Kind of unnecessary. The care the men received from their nurses often meant the difference between life and death. And for some soldiers the relationships they formed really would change their lives forever. The Great War led to considerable advances in modern medicine. There were significant developments in many fields including blood transfusions, x-rays, facial surgery, psychiatry and the manufacture and fitting of artificial limbs. Jock Gaffran was one of those given a new prosthetic leg he suffered from terrible blisters on his stump as he learned to walk again. But as a disabled war hero the reaction he got from the public helped to give him the strength he needed to make it through. We went out with some of the boys about a dozen of the boys, wounded boys we all went in a bus and we went into the movies we got in for nothing. You were always a bit of a what do you call an eye catcher. They would always stop in the street and look at you or some people would come up and talk to you. Sometimes you'd get packets of cigarettes or chocolates or things like that. But Jock's greatest source of strength came from his nurse Nurse Sutherland. After the war they kept in touch until she moved away. It was some years later when Jock received a surprise letter in the post. She wrote and she was I think she was retiring I don't know what happened so I wrote her and I said I'd come in with my friend we'd call her and see her. But about a week before we were due to leave I had a letter saying that she had died. I don't know the cause or anything but she eventually died. I miss her a lot. Although soldiers and their nurses enjoyed recreational time together romance was strictly forbidden but that didn't stop it happening. After having his leg amputated in France gunner Fred Taylor was sent to hospital in Carlisle. Miles from his home in London Fred became deeply worried about his prospects for the future but things were about to change. One day the patron came in with a nurse and said this is a new nurse for this ward she said she comes from London she said it might be a bit of a help with you. And as I came from London I thought that was very nice. she came and had a chat after she'd been around all the patients she'd come back to me and we had our little chat and our friendship gradually grew and grew and grew. We used to go to the cinema in Carlisle we had to go out of the hospital separately I said naturally I was always on Chris Pratchett's and she would go out singly and not meet until we were at the cinema or even if we went out and had a meal out it'd be the same. Despite the furtive beginnings to their relationship Fred and his nurse Beatty were married just after he left hospital. They remained happily together for 62 years. Dick Barron spent weeks in hospital suffering from severe dysentery. He thought and hoped he would die but the medical care he received eventually began to take effect. The doctor said to me one morning Barron, when you're a bit stronger we're going to send you back to England. Well that sparked something all I wanted to do was to get back to see my mother and dad England meant something. As Dick sailed back to England there was none of the patriotic singing that had accompanied his journey to war. It took years for him to recover from his illness but he never forgot the men he lost on the field of battle. And as a stretcher bearer he saw more than most the courage and sacrifice of the men who gave their lives for their country. The men that won the war was the ordinary Tommy who was always cheerful and always got a story to tell. The chap who carries on Right through and when you're tired he'll carry your pack for you. He's the bloke that won the war.