Countdown to 11.11.13: What is your definition of heroism? How heroic are you?

 

Poster, public domain, USA

    What is your definition of heroism?
   Are women as heroic as men?
   Are you heroic?
   Who is your hero and what have they done to win this place in your heart and mind?
   These are valid questions each of us should ask ourselves as we prepare to commemorate on Veterans Day those who gave their all for us in war.
   These are men and women, not only in the armed services in all countries, but also in support services.
   In The Great War, we see the growth of the Salvation Army, the YMCA, more than one thousand different volunteer groups who gave of their time and services. The Salvation Army girls made Doughnuts. Yes, many say that the term DOUGHBOY came from the famous fried dough these women made for men to enjoy back of the line!
What did the YMCA do? Both men and women volunteers in that organization operated canteens for soldiers to buy hot chocolate, candy or cigarettes.
   Among the women who joined the Army Nurse Corps, we see women who worked 24 hour shifts as the fighting intensified, women who worked in wards where men dealt with discovering they were amputees or otherwise physically impaired. These women found a way to aid these men who realized that when they went home, they would be challenged by their new physical conditions. Some were paralyzed. Some were visually impaired. Others bore facial wounds. Others had wounds to the mind that we then termed "shell shock" and today we call PTSD.
   Many of these women died in the line of duty. Although not permitted to the front lines, women did suffer from malnutrition, pneumonia, ear infections, influenza and infections. Quite a few are buried in our American Cemeteries in France alongside our soldiers. Do ask the attendants when you visit to give  you the platts so that you can visit and pay homage to them.

USA Public domain, Poster.

And for those who cannot speak for themselves, then or now, I will show you a few pictures of the brave animals taken into service during the war. Note their varied roles.

Canaries who sang to wounded in hospital trains.

French Blue Cross Hospital for sick and wounded horses.

Here, to end on a note of joy, is a picture of Sergeant Stubby. Stubby served throughout the war, even capturing an enemy and holding him by the seat of his pants until relieved of his duty by a human! Stubby won many medals. A true hero for all of us to applaud!

Bull terrier Sergeant Stubby in his dress uniform with decorations!

Video: History of US Army Nursing Corps, intro with footage of WWI Nurses

With marvelous footage and narration by former Army Nurse Corps Historian, this video is a comprehensive introduction to learning about American women who have served throughout US history to wounded and dying men in arms.

Significant here are notes that a nurse in 1917 volunteered for the duration of the conflict, she received pay half of officers and she held no rank. Indeed, she was addressed by her last name, a practice in civilian hospitals, or by the term, "Nurse!"
Hope all of you are reading HEROIC MEASURES to learn more about these courageous women who served in a foreign land under horrific conditions to save their fellow countrymen.

Plastic Surgery began when thousands of WWI survivors needed to go on with their lives

Illustration of one man's facial wounds
Musee de la Grande Guerre,
Meaux, France
(My photo)

Prostheses for various types of wounds,
as seen in Musee de la Grande Guerre,
Meaux, France
(my photo)

Today, plastic surgery is so common that it is an elective procedure for many.
But in 1917, when America entered the Great War, plastic surgery was so new that even attempts at skin grafting were primary challenges for surgeons. As surgeons continued to improve their techniques, others assisted soldiers who needed a way to literally face the world and return to their normal lives.

IN American surgical front line units, nurses assisted in 3 main types of severe wounds: those wounds to the head, chest and abdomen were considered the most severe.  Soldiers with these types of wounds who might best survive surgery were "triaged" to be put at the front of the line for care. Yet of course many of the men who incurred these wounds suffered the most hideous disfigurations. These men, capable of living normal lives despite these facial wounds, were the ones that many medical professionals wished to save to live more appropriate daily lives.

Two such people who helped were not surgeons, but sculptors. In fact, one was a woman, Anna Coleman Ladd, an American who worked in Paris in her own studio and whose fame spread as her work helped hundreds of disfigured wounded. In her studio, mirrors were banned. By 1919, she had created more than 180 masks for disfigured soldiers. To read more about her, read this SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/mask.html#

Another sculptor was Derwent Wood, British, who had volunteered to work in hospital wards when he learned he was too old to volunteer to fight. Wood began a practice of molding thin metal to the shape of the soldier's face, then painting it to match skin color and attaching behind the head. He is known for working in the "Tin Noses Shop" or as it was officially termed, Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department, located in the Third London General Hospital,Wandsworth. For more than 20,000 British facially wounded in the war, Wood was able to help hundreds. Others depended on advances in surgical procedures to alter their appearances.

Englishman Derwent Wood putting finishing touches
to one soldier's partial face mask.

Anna Coleman Ladd, American sculptress, 1878-1939 

Examples of facial masks or prostheses developed to aid soldiers wounded facially in Great War. These are 
from the British, called the Tin Nose Shop.

AEF Operating Rooms, trauma care in WWI France, Nurses take active roles

Accession number	1991.86
Description	Black and white photograph. Hospital scene. Man with leg in traction and having a cast applied. Medical personnel surrounding him, including one nurse. From the service of Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Benjamin Francisco, American Medical Officer, assigned to 1st, 32nd, and 35th Division in France after working at Old Mill Hospital, Aberdeen, Scotland.

Accession number

1991.86

Description

Black and white photograph. Hospital scene. Man with leg in traction and having a cast applied. Medical personnel surrounding him, including one nurse.

From the service of Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Benjamin Francisco, American Medical Officer, assigned to 1st, 32nd, and 35th Division in France after working at Old Mill Hospital, Aberdeen, Scotland.

Archives of National World War I Museum

Accession number	1991.86
Description	Black and white photograph. Operating scene in an operating room. Female nurse and another male assisting doctor while averting eyes away from patient. From the service of Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Benjamin Francisco, American Medical Officer, assigned to 1st, 32nd, and 35th Division in France after working at Old Mill Hospital, Aberdeen, Scotland.

Accession number

1991.86

Description

Black and white photograph. Operating scene in an operating room. Female nurse and another male assisting doctor while averting eyes away from patient.

From the service of Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Benjamin Francisco, American Medical Officer, assigned to 1st, 32nd, and 35th Division in France after working at Old Mill Hospital, Aberdeen, Scotland.

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, Verdun, The Citadel, a bastion carved into the hills of the city!

During the Great War,  the French fought desperately to protect the city of Verdun, nestled in the hills along the Meuse River. Long a bastion protecting the gateway west to Paris and the lush Champagne region, Verdun sits amid a ring of fortifications first built in the medieval period. The French added to these over the centuries so that by 1914, the City of Verdun seemed to be well protected.

Meuse River as it flows through City of Verdun today.

Yet German ingenuity and military skill brought them into the hills above the City and their lightning attacks spread panic through the whole of France as they seized more land than any Frenchman imagined possible.

The Citadel, literally a fortification dug into the hillside south of the old city, served as the headquarters for protection of the this city. Today, the cave-like structure astounds for its durability and its vast expanse. Yes, it smells of mild dew. Yes, it is dark and dreary. But yes, it is also one of the most awe-inspiring sites in the northeast sector of front line Great War sites.

One story in particular about Verdun's Citadel that I found in primary records was of an American nurse who was sent with two orderlies up and an ambulance driver (from a base hospital south of Verdun) to the fortification. Their purpose was to lead back shell-shocked Doughboys. The US Medical Corps did operate a few base hospitals totally devoted to those who suffered from shell-shock, or as we now term it, PTSD. Usually these soldiers were examined by doctors carefully before they were categorized as needing (as they termed it) "neuro-psychiatric" treatment. But in this particular case, the need seemed urgent and the normal routine was suspended.  This was most likely due to the intense fighting of our troops in this Meuse-Argonne sector. Many orderly rituals of wound/disability analysis changed rapidly out of necessity as the fighting increased in the September through November 1918 in this region.

Did I include this in my novel, HEROIC MEASURES? I did want to. But as often occurs in plotting, the need to make the actions logical and the rule of thumb to ensure they are useful to the story arc, meant that I gave that up—and list it here for those of you who love intriguing historical fact as much as I do! What I did do in the novel was discuss briefly how neuro-psych cases were usually sent to one particular base hospital up in this northeast sector, a hospital by the name of La Faure.

Tours of the Citadel continue to this day and justly so in this vast cave that once housed thousands of French soldiers and their generals. Here, men lived and worked in the bitter cold and damp. French poilus baked their comrades' bread here, prepared their meals, repaired guns, collected ammunition and planned strategies to hold the city and the mountains surrounding it.

Notable for their tenacity here, the French sought to retain control over this town and river by sheer force of will. Outnumbered often throughout the four years of war, they held on. The ground around the city and up into the hills is riddled with foxholes, bomb craters and trench lines. It seems unimaginable to calculate the tens of thousands of men who lost their lives and were wounded here. In the town itself, thousands of civilians lost their lives, their homes, their livestock and livelihoods as the bombs continued to fall over and over again.

Entrance to Citadel, Verdun, carved into the side of this mountain. Tour possible. Do visit to marvel
at French dedication to hold this fort and city at all costs.

French 75 mm cannon emplacement, circa 1914-1919, outside entrance, protecting The Citadel.

Interesting aspects of the City itself are that almost everything is marked in French, English and German. Much of the architecture speaks of German Rhineland influence. So does the cuisine. Then too the land is so rich, so arable that it is easy to understand why the burgeoning German population of the period would find this Lorraine-Alsace area very attractive to produce crops.

For more about the Meuse-Argonne region and Americans campaign here, do return here to this blog. Simply fill in your email address in the block that says, Subscribe by Email.

And do buy my new novel, Heroic Measures, so accurate and rich in historical detail that you will have a rich experience viewing the war from the American nurses' point of view! Buy Links are to the top right of this blog!

Thank you!

HEROIC MEASURES debuts worldwide in print and digital!

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      In 1917, more than 10,000 American nurses volunteered to go abroad to nurse American soldiers in the Great War. With more than 28 years of interest and primary document research in the records, I am delighted to give you the dramatic tale of these courageous women in Army Nurse Corps.

                                * * * * *       

      Honoring those who have served their country in war, most focus on those who have fought on the battlefields. But one group’s heroics under fire have slipped through the pages of history, a group whose blood and sweat were left in operating rooms and hospital tents, a group whose heroism has seldom been measured.

            For nurse Gwen Spencer, fighting battles is nothing new. An orphan sent to live with a vengeful aunt, Gwen picked coal and scrubbed floors to earn a living. But when she decides to become a nurse, she steps outside the boundaries of her aunt’s demands…and into a world of her own making.

            Leaving her hometown for France, she helps doctors mend thousands of brutally injured Doughboys under primitive conditions. Amid the chaos, she volunteers to go ever forward to the front lines. Braving bombings and the madness of men crazed by the hell of war, she is stunned to discover one man she can love. A man she can share her life with.

            But in the insanity and bloodshed she learns the measures of her own desires. Dare she attempt to become a woman of accomplishment? Or has looking into the face of war and death given her the courage to live her life to the fullest?

Excerpt: Copyright, Jo-Ann Power, 2013. All rights reserved.

After a blissful minute of silence, Gwen faced Pearl. “So you really are thinking of volunteering?”

Pearl stared over the rims of her glasses. “I am. Want to come? It’s a set of uniforms, an overcoat, two pairs of boots, a trip to France and all the work you can get until the war ends and all the men in the entire world are dead. Oh, and especially for you, Spencer, a raincoat. The one you never afforded for yourself because you gave half your pay to that ungrateful aunt of yours.”

“A raincoat. Golly,” Gwen mused half-seriously. “A worthy reason to join. Plus, if I go with you, I could listen to you complain all the time.”

Markham threw a pillow at her.

“I might look into this, just to learn what it’s got to offer,” Gwen teased her, but inside a seed of interest grew roots.

“Ask Dalton. She knows more.”

“Why?”

“She’s going. O’Bryan persuaded her.”

“Doc is going to France?” Gwen couldn’t believe it. O’Bryan didn’t seem like the adventurous type, nor the noble type, either. She misjudged him. Why would he volunteer?

“For a million soldiers,” Anna chimed in. “You need thousands of doctors and nurses. Dentists, too.”

“Of course,” Gwen murmured. How many people do you need to care for millions of men? How many scalpels and needles? How much ether and debridement solution? How many sterilizers and…just how do you get all that where it’s needed to save lives of men in pain and bleeding? “I want to learn more.”

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18+ Days in A.E.F.'s footsteps: Day 9, St. Mihiel Battle and Montsec Memorial

     St. Mihiel is a little town along a peacefully flowing river in eastern France. South of Verdun, the town was vital to that city and to all points west for its control of train traffic. When the German Army attacked the town and held it in a tight grip in 1918, General Pershing decided to attack their fortifications and open communications and transportation before attacking the Germans in the Meuse River-Argonne Forest region to the north.
     In only 3 days, the Americans fought fiercely taking the ridges and the valley near St. Mihiel.
Today, the area consists of small villages and many farms.

American engineers march into St. Mihiel after taking the area within 3 days fierce fighting in September 1918.

The Montsec Memorial to those AEF forces who took this ridge and the towns below within 3 days is a beautiful tribute to the men who fought here. With a commanding view of the valley that they struggled to take, this Memorial offers a panoramic view—and inspires you to marvel at the feat these men accomplished.
In these few photographs, I attempt to show you a glimpse into their efforts–and their victory.

Montsec Memorial to AEF's 3 day battle of St. Mihiel

A closer view

A panorama into the valley near Thiacourt

Inside the rotunda sits a relief map of the valley that the AEF had to take from entrenched German Army.

Official description of the Battle of St. Mihiel at Montsec Memorial. Do enlarge to read.

Army Medical Corps cadeusus. Atop each pillar of Montsec is the insignia of a corps unit
contributing to the AEF's victory in this valley.

Atop Montsec, this floor map shows the villages AEF soldiers took in the 3 day offensive.

Dedication on steps up to top of Memorial.

To show the irony of both world wars, this plaque details how this land was once again a battleground.

18+Days in the AEF's footsteps: Day 8, Traveling through Champagne, East to the extended American front line and City of Verdun

 

Town Center of City of Verdun
This statue symbolizes the resistance
of the people of Verdun
to the German advances north of the town
in the Ring of Forts

     As the First Division arrived in France in 1917 and more Divisions came to fill in the ranks and enlarge the battalions, the American front line became more of a reality, less of a concept.
 
     Remember that the American sector, such as it was defined, was a creation of General Pershing who refused to combine the American forces with those of the French or British. Those allies wished for more men to fill out their ranks, decimated as they had been by three years of bitter trench warfare.
 
    With the arrival of more and more American soldiers and Marines, Pershing foresaw that he could build a fighting force as strong or stronger than his allies'. He wisely engaged French and British instructors in every type of training from flame-throwing to grenade use to efficient medical procedures. Furthermore, Pershing was an advocate of aggressive tactics and refused to fight the inch-by-inch warfare that had stymied the French and British efforts to get out of the trenches and pierce the German lines.
 
    Driving east from Chateau-Thierry through the Champagne is a peaceful agrarian scene. Bright yellow with mustard plants or grape vines along the rolling hills, the land is a lovely vision. Pictures of the landscape in 1917-1918 show a stark contrast. Awed as we were by the huge expanses of crops and large number of privately held farms, my husband and I had to research the level of farm production in France. Sure enough, it is huge, producing 20% of all food for Europe. Although this French percentage to the food basket of Europe is larger today than in the war years, we saw the potential that Germany must have gauged. Germany, before the war, had a prosperous economy with a growing population. Given the emphasis on industrial production, fertile French land must have been a lure to feed their hungry people.

Along the banks of the River Meuse stand these five French soldiers of
La Grande Guerre. Ever-mindful of the enormous efforts of the French military
to save the City manning The Citadel and in the Ring of Forts,
the citizens prize this sculpture which represents
each type of soldier who served in the war.

 
     We chose to make our base the City of Verdun as we explored the areas of the American eastern front lines. We were happy we did. Why? The City is one of the loveliest and best preserved even from that period. Assaulted as it was from most sides, the City represents to this day the stalwart nature of the French who retained the land at the cost of hundreds of thousands of French poilus, the near-starvation of the City's populace and the Americans who came to help them save it.

  On Sunday along the west bank of the quai, we ate our dinner. Prosperous, the citizens shop, eat, take their children and walk their dogs along the River. (Enlarge this pix to see the 5 French soldiers situated near the pole here, but along the eastern bank of the Meuse.)

   We stayed in a hotel along the banks of the Meuse, within walking distance of The Citadel. (Return for my next post when I take you there.) Verdun today is a serene city along the River Meuse. There on a weekend, we strolled along the quai and ate in a riverside cafe. We marveled that this city was once the prize fought over by millions of men on both sides of the conflict. But nestled as it is along the ridge of mountains near the Alsace and German border, we see the town's vulnerability. Controlling it meant access to the other rivers and major cities west, including Paris.

   We marveled too at the influence of Americans and Germans. How did we gauge it? Everything—signs, brochures, menus and more—are most often given in triplicate: French, German and English. (A treat for this gal whose German-American family taught her the German language!)

18+ Days in AEF's footsteps: DAY 7, Chateau Thierry and the Second Battle of the Marne

USA Monument to those who fought and fell at Chateau-Thierry
sits atop a hill overlooking the prosperous city.

(River Marne to the left of pix and this road which runs along the river.) 

Sculpture on the Chateau-Thierry Monument
France and USA, holding hands,
Partners in War and Peace

    Chateau Thierry is a lovely town along the Marne River approximately 50 miles east of Paris. In the spring of 1918, the Germans decided to attack their lines in France with great force and hopefully win the war before the Americans could arrive in massive numbers.
   A year had passed since America had declared war and finally, the country had enough recruits, transportation routes and sufficient supplies to convey a million men to Europe, feed, clothe and care for them.
   No small part of this was the need to provide medical care. While a few Base Hospitals (as the primary structure of medical personnel was called by the Army Medical Corps) had arrived in France in spring 1917, they assisted the French and British caring for those nationals.
   Now with the arrival of American men, other based hospital units arrived in huge numbers. Consisting of doctors, dentists, orderlies and pharmacists and nurses, these units could vary in numbers. (In fact, as the Spring Offensives of 1918 proceeded, the US Army called for more recruiting of doctors and nurses. The Army originally thought 50 nurses per Base would be sufficient but soon sought 100 per Base.) While Army Nurse Corps recruits assisted in the Operating Rooms and ran the wards, American Red Cross nurses who had much less training worked as their staff. Usually 50 to 100 nurses worked the Base Hospital wards and surgical units along with 50 or more doctors and dentists. Orderlies and pharmacists (or trained orderlies who did this work) were fewer in number and varied according to location, total force numbers in the area and notice of imminent attack of the enemy.
   Within one mile of the town was a major Base Hospital at Aulnois. Here, the nurses often sponsored dances for their patients. Men who played instruments practiced in the wards and became pick-up bands. These entertainments were welcomed by the staff and the soldiers breaking the tedium of their days and the journey back to health.

One of Operating Rooms, Mars Hospital Center, France*
Note cinder block structure in this OR
as opposed to wooden structures or tents used for Mobile Hospital Units.
Note, too, nurses in grey crepe uniforms with white butcher aprons used in ward duty.
*Mars was composite center far back of front lines and not in Chateau-Thierry sector but farther east near Toul.

Lab at Mars Hospital Center, France
Orderly Mixing Compounds

Memorial atop a hill overlooking the town.
Inscription: "This monument has been erected by the United States of America to commemorate the services of her troops and those of France who fought in this region during the World War. It stands as a lasting symbol of the friendship and cooperation between the French and American Armies."

   Traveling the area around Chateau-Thierry, I easily saw the importance of this town along the Marne. Hold it and any military force could easily attack or defend the river's access to the capital city of Paris.
Do see the picture at the top of this post once more. There on that hilltop, I capture its position which was a disputed territory taken eventually by the American First, Second and Third Divisions. See also views east and west along the Marne, now serene.

Along the River Marne, looking in the same direction
as American Monument

View of the Marne, flowing east, in this lovely city.

American troops crossing the Marne in Chateau-Thierry.

American troops in public square after capture
of Chateau-Thierry,  July 1918.
This square facing Hotel de Ville to the right of picture and Marne to the left is now a parking lot!

Ruins of Chateau-Thierry, in upper right you see Hotel de Ville, City Hall.

American troops clearing a road in Chateau-Thierry.

Aisne-Marne Salient Map on the American Monument high above Chateau-Theirry.