HEROIC MEASURES, digital, $1.99 only for Centennial of Declarations of War August 3-4

BUY LINK: http://amzn.to/1dWojVz

In commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Declarations of War by various countries, the publisher has reduced the price of digital version of HEROIC MEASURES for the next few days. (The price of the print version remains the same.) Buy Link: http://amzn.to/1dWojVz

August 3-4, 1914 are dates considered the official start date of the hostilities given that many declared by writ or by action that they existed in state of war.

The assassinations of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo June 28, 1914 certainly began the tragic series of events that culminated in millions of men, women and children dying world wide in the 4 year conflict that followed.

HEROIC MEASURES tells the story of the 22,000+ American women who volunteered to serve in the Army Nurse Corps and sail to France to serve.

What facts about them should you know and honor them for:

• They volunteered, but were considered Army recruits.
• They earned half—yes, HALF—the pay of an Army private.
• They worked shifts that lasted 12 hour, but as the battles intensified and many wounded came to their operating tents and base hospitals—they worked 24 and 36 hours. Many of them dropped from fatigue. Hundreds died of tuberculosis, diseases and influenza. None died in combat, but hundreds served right in back of the front lines.
• This is the first time that American woman go abroad to serve in the thousands.
• Because this is the period in American history when the civil rights rule was to have "separate but equal" facilities for African-Americans, the Army established a separate African American Army Nurse Corps to serve the African-American recruits. 
• A nurse signed a pledge to serve until the end of the war. She could not decide to go home at will, but had to remain in the Corps until the end. Just like a soldier.
• I hope you will read my book for more insight into these marvelous women who served in a time of abject need.

American Nurses in WWI trained in Army camps and marched in parades!

   Women recruited for Army Nurse Corps and for American Red Cross all had field training by the American Expeditionary Forces. Army Nurse Corps recruits were all registered nurses, or the equivalent, having had two to three years professional nurses training. American Red Cross recruits, on average, had only a few months training (and as a result took on lesser responsibility in the wards). But all of them went through medical training specific to the care and treatment of those with wounds, or suffering from trench foot, trench fever, dysentery and Spanish flu.

   Army Nurse Corps recruits went to Army posts for training and many of them had French and British instructors. All were considered contract labor, without rank and yet were expected to act like regular Army recruits, "falling into line."

  They were housed in separate barracks, ate in mess halls separate from officers. When ready to ship out, they were housed in hotels near their embarkation points. A few of these were in Hoboken, New Jersey and others in Manhattan. Sometimes depending on the Navy's warnings of U-boat activities, nurses waited for more than 2 months in these hotels ready to leave at a moment's notice. And what could they take with them? One steamer truck (no larger than 36" wide), one small suitcase and a blanket roll!

   Many were also expected to march in parades. Here is a unit from Houston, Texas, marching together before they ship out!

Accession number	1999.20
Description	Black and white photograph of a Red Cross parade in Houston, TX. From the service of Rose Baker (?), American Red Cross Nurse - Army Nurses Corps.

Accession number

1999.20

Description

Black and white photograph of a Red Cross parade in Houston, TX.

From the service of Rose Baker (?), American Red Cross Nurse - Army Nurses Corps.

 
And here, in dress uniforms, a group of Army Nurse Corps recruits march in France!

A group outside their barracks.

18+ Days in AEF's footsteps, DAY 5: OISE-AISNE American Cemetery, France

     I had girded myself for months before this first venture into an American cemetery where Americans who served in the First World War are buried. I feared the worst: I feared I would sob.

     I knew I would clutch. But I told myself I would be fine. Just fine. After all, over the decades, I had visited Arlington National Cemetery, watched the Vietnam War Unknown Parade and Dedication in Washington. I had gone to sites like Gettysburg, Antietam, Valley Forge, Yorktown, Concord and Lexington and more. I had taken my children, too, and frankly the only other time I ever cried was the day I saw a re-enactment of General Pickett's ill-fated charge at the 130th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. 
       
     No, I was not related to anyone buried in France. I knew no one who knew anyone who had served and was laid to rest here. Furthermore, the topic of nurses who served in France in 1917-1919 had originally been simply a unique bit of American history I liked investigating. As a child I loved to hear my mother tell tales of her childhood and my father tell very salty tales of his. I predicted that walking the cemetaries of those who repose in France would not affect me.
     But the closer the day came to our departure, and the closer the hour arrived when my husband and I would walk into those grounds came sooner than we anticipated. Quite by accident, we drove a different route than planned from Compiegne to Chateau Thierry where we had reservations for a few nights at a B&B. As we sailed down one rolling hill in the Champagne, admiring the miles of forests with pink and white cherry blossoms and yellow flowers and well-tended fields of flax, suddenly there stood a sign, American Cemetery.
     We were stunned. 
     That was not on our map, we told each other. 
     Why and how did I miss that one, I asked myself, in all my detailed planning for this trip?
     My husband, chauffeur extraodinaire and kind fellow, said we'd better go back.
    We did.
     Here far off the main road where we saw that sign is the stunningly peaceful sight of Oise-Aisne Cemetery. With 6,012 of our men and women buried here in Fere-en-Tardenois, this cemetery is the third largest of those serving those who fought and died in The Great War. Named for the rivers the campaigns fought to retain for the Entente, this cemetery was originally a temporary one for the 42nd Division, or the Rainbow Division. While most resting here fought in that Division, many others lie here also, including nurses who served in hospitals and mobile facilities along the front lines.
     The grounds strike you for their pristine beauty. Carefully manicured and lovingly tended, each grave is marked by white marble cut to the exact measurements of every other. The linden trees are an exact square so that they grow in unison and provide a canopy and protection from the summer sun.
     When you go, do enter the reception area and introduce yourself to the director. Here at Oise-Aisne as at all the other  cemeteries we visited, each of the personnel was warm and welcoming. They are, too, a font of knowledge about those whose graves they care for. Do ask them. They love to share their insights and they recommend reading for you, too!
     None of my pictures can possibly portray the grandeur or the solemnity of this site. The vast number of graves shocks your breath from you. The peace, the birds chirping in the trees and the chimes on the hour and quarter hour belie what happened here nearly a century ago. I will simply tell you that you must go when next you go to France. You will feel confident and fulfilled to have paid these men and women your homage. 

     To walk among the graves is heart-wrenching. To read their names, their rank and their duties, reminds you of the variety and the breadth of what is required to prosecute a war. Their ages, their youth startles you, you who have lived so long and so well and they, who died so young to ensure you might endure longer than they.
     
Here are two of the nurses buried here. Both are Army Nursing Corps volunteers.

Gertrude O'Connor, Army Nurse Corps, Base Hospital 7
Massachusetts, February 8, 1919

Alice A. Ireland
Army Nurse Corps, Base Hospital 34
Pennsylvania, February 3, 1919

     Here are a few of their compatriots who aided them in their duties. Note the variety of duties—and the fact that working in medical services could be as hazardous as combat.

William F. Lacey, Private, Field Hospital 44
Rhode Island, March 1, 1919

Paul Farnum, Private, 101 Sanitary Train, 26 Div.
Massachusetts, March 18, 1918

William Carstensen, Wagoner, Camp Hospital
Iowa, July 3, 1919

Thomas E. Wilcox, Private 1st Class, 18 Evacuation Ambulance Company,
Pennsylvania, October 18, 1918

18+ days in AEF's footsteps: Day 4, Cantigny

Soldier of the First Division

One side of the hilltop of Cantigny, France

         Cantigny is a tiny village in the French countryside north of Paris. The tranquil village surrounds the mountain top. At most, twenty homes dot the crown. Most are farmhouses. One church stands amid them.

     In May 1918, just as the American Expeditionary Force was arriving in great numbers, the French faced a formidable attack by Germans. This offensive, part of huge drive by the German forces to win the war before the Americans could arrive in great numbers, was the first of many such efforts along the front lines.
     The First Division, or as it is now known the First Army or Big Red One, came from the south to push the German line back toward the north.
     While it is not my attempt here to describe the battle in any detail (I leave that to your own search of good military records), I will tell you that as the Americans joined the French in this hotly contested area this battle was the first fought by AEF and won by them. It is the first in which the German Army and their general staff took note of American strengths and strategies and it is the first in which the AEF's wounded were aided by the first of the medical teams to sail to France. (For a superb description of the battle, please go to this source: The First Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois, http://www.firstdivisionmuseum.org/museum/online/toward_the_front/battle_of_cantigny/default.aspx

One road atop the hill village of Cantigny.
Notice the blue sign!

The Avenue of the First Division, U.S.A.

     I can show you many pictures of this locale. But I can also tell you that for those who wish to see why a certain spot becomes a battleground, this town exemplifies the importance of that. As you stand on this hilltop and look 360 degrees into the surrounding valley south and north to the plain, you realize that this town afforded a great view of the distances in all directions. The roads lead to many strategic places, including the larger town nearby, Montdidier. Here is a picture of the valley across which AEF forces advanced uphill to take and hold the town.

Valley to south of Cantigny, peaceful today and a farm.

    The destroyed village of Cantigny exemplifies the devastation of these campaigns on the people who lived here.

USA, Army photo, Public Domain

    Commemorating the effort of the First Division is this bronze statue of an AEF soldier. An explanation of the battle is accompanied by a map. Please do download the picture to enlarge the type and read the explanation of the battle.

Description of battle.

Atop the hill are other monuments to the men who fought here. In a circle of shrubs and trees is this tall monument. You can see here the view of the church on the hill.

You can view easily the American eagles here on the sides of this monument.

Another view of the monument.

     At one end of this grove atop the hill is this cross and the memorial flowers.

     As we left the village to have lunch in Montdidier and to return to our B&B in Compiegne, we spotted this monument. At first, thinking it a French memorial, we passed it. Every French town has one or more of these obelisks to those of their own countrymen who fought and died in La Grande Guerre. But we thought we spotted an eagle on top of the memorial and so we our drove back to great reward! Here is another memorial to the First Division and their heroic efforts in the Spring Offensive of 1918.

Memorial to First Division in Battle of Cantigny, south of the hill town.

AEF Map, Public domain

Gas attacks, Belleau Wood, effects, treatment and recovery, June 1918

Gas victims, walking out of battlefield,
Public Domain,

National Archives photo, courtesy of the Indiana War Memorial

     Belleau Wood is one of the most famous of the American Marine Corps' battles (June 1-28 1918).
    Remembered for the victory that was theirs, the Marines also mark this battle for the German use of mustard gas on them.
     With more than 2,000 Marines inhaling the poisonous mustard gas that blinded as it burned the skin and lungs, the Marines who survived the attack came out of the woods only by standing one man in back of the other, one hand to the man in front of them, and walking out of the danger zone.


     Various types of chemical gas compounds were used by both sides during the war. Some were more damaging than others. The worst, the mustard gas of the latter years, blistered the skin and the eyes. Worse, the gas inflamed the lungs making breathing impossible. But the gas also permeated clothing.
     The American Marine Corps fighting at Belleau Wood in June 1918 suffered heavy casualties from gas warfare. Here in the next picture, we see a nurse at a clearing station administering drops to the eyes of a Marine affected with gas. The sooner the wounded received these drops, the more likely he was to regain his sight.

American nurse administering eye drops to a Marine.

U.S. public domain, recruiting poster

This engagement at Belleau Wood was one of the most difficult for the U.S. Marine Corps during the war. Still named as one of the Corps' greatest victories, the men fought so fiercely that the Germans called them, Teufel Hunden, or Devil Dogs. Inspiring a recruiting poster in the United States, the Marines commemorated the bravery of their corpsmen by maintaining a museum at Belleau Wood which they have appropriately named, The Devil Dog Museum.

Here we see one Canadian solider affected by mustard gas. Chances of total recovery depended on concentration of gas the soldier was exposed to and the speed with which he was treated.

Canadian government photo, in public domain.

Wounded warriors of WWI, home front knowledge of, and new interest in prosthetics

      The US Archives are filled with hundreds of photographs of American wounded soldiers who had amputations and were maimed in battle.
     Yet, during the war and much afterward, almost all pictures (like most personal letters) were censored, i.e., redacted, meaning they were never published at home in newspapers or magazines. This was by order of the War Department, lest morale at home and among the troops suffer. (Yes, this is very similar to the recent contemporary regulations forbidding media coverage of reception of wounded and deceased soldiers from front lines in the Iraqi war or Afghanistan conflicts.)
     Here first is one rare photo of a nurse with two wounded soldiers, one of few pictures to survive the thick black mark of the censor's slanted on the bias across the center.

http://www.amputee-coalition.org/military-instep/rich-history.html

     Another is of a trio of soldiers in a hospital in Vaucaire, France, and the third of two men recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/hec.11308/

     "During World War I, there were 2,635 major amputations among American soldiers." 
(Reference:  http://www.amputee-coalition.org/military-instep/rich-history.html) 
     After they returned home form the front, many wounded required protheses for arms, hands and legs lost in the fighting. Prosthetics became a new interest among doctors and medical technicians. World War One, known for massive destruction by shrapnel, chlorine gas and bombs, was the first war in which men survived wounds which heretofore had been lethal.  Prosthetics were vital to these soldiers in their attempt to return home and adapt to their physical conditions.
    Here is an American prosthetic arm of wooden fingers and metal joints. From the American History Museum, website beneath the photo, is this description: "Arm is a Carnes model from the late teens, William Carnes being an amputee who fashioned the first workable shoulder harness design around 1915."

http://amhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/exhibition/flash.html

Nurses' uniforms: dress, street, ward and surgical!

http://history.amedd.army.mil/
ancwebsite/uniformpres_files/ClassAWWI-70s.html

     Nurses going to the front needed multiple uniforms.
Each Army Nurse going abroad received different types of uniforms, each with a different use. These outfits came complete with hats, insignia and shoes/boots. Each woman was to wash and take care of her own clothes.
Street wear, seen to the left and below, was of dark navy wool. (This brown uniform has faded from its original dark navy.)

United States Army Center of Military History http://www.history.army.mil/html/museums/aom/2009-03.html

The ward uniform, all white and seen next, was donned by those working in the recovery wards.

http://history.amedd.army.mil/
ancwebsite/uniformpres_files/ClassAWWI-70s.html

For dressing wounds, preparing men for surgery and in operating rooms, nurses wore this grey dress with white butcher's apron.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/prs-tpic/nurses/nrs-e8d.htm

And here is her linen ward cap, banded with the small red cross (and not to be confused with the fact that she is an Army nurse, not Red Cross nurse.)

http://www.history.army.mil/html/museums/aom/2009-03.html

Care of recruited nurses and how they were trained, stationed and provisioned

The need for nurses to assist doctors, dentists, medics, stretcher bearers and ambulance drivers was immediate after Congress declared war in April 1917.

Since at that time, the United States had a very small standing army, expanding the current base to a fighting force of more than 1 million meant the development of a huge and almost instant medical assistance group.

Furthermore, recruiting women meant an entirely separate set of arrangements for training, transport, domicile and services had to be built into the organization of a mobile fighting army, navy and marine corps. Providing our fighting forces and medical support unit with barracks—or some similar accommodations—required either appropriation of current homes, chateaux, public buildings such as hotels, etc., or building them.

In France, many donated the use of their homes and chateaux. Many towns and cities offered their public buildings, such as city halls or old factories. The result was that nurses, in particular, those back of the line, might sleep in very nice surroundings—and others find themselves in tents.
Here are a few examples:

Base Hospital #3, Vauclaire, France

Tents used by Evacuation Hospital #1

Accommodating one million men as well as approximately 40,000 medical professionals (including 22,00+ nurses was a huge task, necessary to care of the American fighting man. But it was also a difficult one, made more complex by the fact that women were still considered to be the "weaker sex." Separation of them from their male counterparts implied not only sequestered housing accommodations but also dining, bathing (if possible considering field conditions) and latrine facilities. In the early days of the American war effort, the women even had separate common rooms where they spent their off-duty hours. However, as the frequency and intensity of battles increased, many of these social constraints bowed to the need for efficient responses by medical personnel. As mobile units, immediately behind the lines, became overwhelmed with casualties and as allied hospital units (particularly the French) were destroyed in German advances, social strictures of separating women from the men fell.

Male officers mess, Vichy Hospital Center

What these nurses did not have was rank within the Army.

To quote the Army official history of nursing service (from http://www.army.mil/women/nurses.html ):
"Army nurses during World War I did not have officer status. They were not commissioned, but appointed into the ANC. Medics sometimes refused to accept nurses’ authority on the wards. After the war, Congress, to show their appreciation, gave nurses officer status by allotting them “Relative Rank,” meaning that an Army nurse first lieutenant, for example, received less pay and status than a male first lieutenant."

Other challenges of supply and demand caused controversy within the Nurse Corps command and among other leaders within the greater Army. The most vital need was, of course, to recruit as many qualified, well-trained nurses as possible as quickly as possible. When that number lagged behind quotas, the Army decided to recruit unqualified women to serve abroad. Many of these women worked in other professions or had none at all, joining out of national pride and compassion for wounded Americans. For these women, they were sent to training camps for what we would call a crash course in medical emergency care. Many of them had no idea how to use a hypodermic needle or change a dressing. To train many of these women quickly, the Army established its Army Nursing School and pushed through many aides toward the front.

Another controversial issue was the "separate but equal" status of African-Americans. Black men were enlisted as soldiers and Marines, but were assigned to units separate from white troops. This meant that they would also receive medical care apart from their white brothers in arms. Hence, black women who volunteered to join the nursing corps were also enlisted and served black combat units in "separate but equal" facilities.

Planning transport into France of soldiers and wounded from front lines to home

Photo Copyright, Jo-Ann Power.
Exhibit:
Fort Sam Houston Medical Museum,
San Antonio, Texas.

Transporting all Americans, both military personnel and medical staff, into France to the front lines was a huge logistical problem.
This is one reason why arrival of American fighting force levels took nearly a full year from the date of declaration of war.
The flow of personnel in presented one challenge. However removing wounded American soldiers from the A.E.F. front lines back through French countryside to base hospitals, rehabilitation sites, onward to the French Atlantic coast and home to the United States was an immensely more complex logistical challenge.
Planning routes was the first task, but in fact, the simplest. Drawing lines on a map seems easy, yet the best routes were not the ones which could be used. The front lines of British and French troops meant a southwest exit from American lines northeast and east of Paris was necessary. But huge problems existed.

Most American soldiers did not speak French. Secondly, they served in a terrain new to them.  Still more confounding was the fact that French rail lines were badly in need of repair and without synchronized gauges to lock one train route/system to another. (French trains transporting nurses from their embarkation point in St. Nazaire often stopped at the end of a line for hours awaiting the next train east. Nurses recount stories of waiting, tired, hungry and often bitterly cold.)
Here are a few pictures of the types of transport and machinery needed to ensure adequate transport home for wounded American soldiers.

Horse-drawn ambulance
Photo, Copyright Jo-Ann Power.
Exhibit: Fort Sam Houston Medical Museum,
San Antonio, Texas

Interior of motorized ambulance, U.S. Army Ambulance Service

Transport by boat and barge was also necessary. These, like ambulance trains, had nursing staff to aid wounded during their journey across country and on the Atlantic Ocean.

Hospital barge, stretcher bearers and nurse on board.

Interior of hospital train ward car, shown from attendant's compartment.

Nurses served as attendants on these transports because the nature of many soldiers' conditions were precarious. Doctors were needed at the front, as were male stretcher bearers. Nurses on board responded to the immediate needs of wounded men whose physical needs could change in an instant.

Here is the photograph of the interior of an operating room on board a hospital train.