A haunting book lays bare, as never before, the blood-soaked days when the wounded envied the dead
Soldiers in the First World War suffered horrific wounds in battle
They were treated in unsanitary conditions by overstretched doctors
Many of the men would die on their painful journey to Britain
Wounded, a new book by Emily Mayhew, tells the awful story of the injured and their carers in The Great War
Tending the wounded on the Somme in World War I, Nurse Winifred Kenyon stumbled on a godsend to help with the grim job she had to do - tiny muslin bags filled with sweet-smelling lavender, which she pinned to the pillows of the worst cases.
Though the little bags had been sent to the Front in error (the soldiers should have been sent small drawstring bags to hold their few possessions), Nurse Kenyon found the sweet smell seemed to calm soldiers hovering close to death and remind them of home.
It also disguised from them the stench of the gangrene and rot in their own shattered bodies.
More @ Daily Mail
Mons-Arras-Ypres-Passchendaele-They are just words in old books now, but a century ago they spoke of mud deep enough to sink horses out of sight. Of places where ONE MILLION men died in the space of a small town, were pounded into the ground by 100000 shells a day and left to rot. Places where one battle in 1917 left 700000 dead 700000 wounded and 300000 MIAs in five months(all sides). Places that held the smell of death for ten years after the war. We forgot that 70% of the wounded sent home died before world war two. The rest suffered for the rest of their lives. We forgot the horrid stinking septic nightmare that was the trench. We see the old photos, but don't know the smell of open sewers and rotting unburied dead in their millions. We saw movies about Heroes and forgot the real people sent to hell for the greater glory of wealth and power--Ray
ReplyDeleteWell said. Thanks.
Deletei was wounded by a bounceing betty in my side it went thru my flak jacket my utility shirt and skivvy shirt and carried all that stuff into the wound the piece of sharpnel was about as big as your little finger nail the fella that stepped on the mine was blown clean into i didnt know that i was wounded it felt like someone poked hard with their finger a few minutes later some blod run out the bottom of my flak jacketi thout well sh@t im hit.i walked and run around for three days by then i had gas gangreen when the docs said that word they sounded like i was doomed i had a small slit about a half a inch long to begin with then as i rotted they would go in and srape the rotten stuff out i was in a purty bad way i ended up after a long plane ride in balboa naval hosipital where they waited for me to die.the folks at home around mars hill raised money and sent my grannie to san diego on the bus think granny on the beverly hillbillies she brung some maggots and put them in the wound they ate the dead meat and i lived i now have a much bigger scra kind of l shaped she gone on to her reward but she was a hell of a lady! your friend truckwilkins
Deletemaggots
DeleteI've heard about that. Where were you in Vietnam?
yes three tours usmc.but i was wounded twice in cambodia when i worked for tony po your friend truckwilkins
ReplyDeleteps i am legally blind and i have a hard time with the letter thing robot deal
ReplyDeleteps i am legally blind and i have a hard time with the letter thing robot deal
Thanks and don't feel pregnant.:) What years were you there?
i was at cam lo with fox 2/3 in may of 70 then i went to force recon for a while and my last combat was the mayaques incident in may 12 1975 i worked for the company for five years.your friend truck wilkins
ReplyDeletemayaquez incident
DeleteDisgraceful!
http://www.namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=222&highlight=disgraceful