100 years since WW1, everyone is celebrating our heroes who won the war with our allies. In this article I will be exploring about nursing in WW1, based on our English class reading a book called ‘The Foreshadowing’.

Nursing has been surrounded by a myth with their voluntary contributions going unrecognised. Nurses had the most horrific job, being exhausted and experiencing war at first hand. Some Nurses paid the ultimate price when helping a injured soldier, DEATH!

A historian, named Paul Fussell, wrote a much-admired book ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’, published in 1975. He hardly mentioned anything about nurses, not even the most famous nurse, Florence Nightingale. Yet, the myth of the gentle, young girl, who was a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurse) in her white, spotless uniform, was universally admired. It was mentioned for centuries from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table to Shakespeare’s Henry V when hard working fearful soldiers went to the comforting of women nurses, who cared for them. Vera Britain, also came apart of the myth. She was the author of ‘Testament Of Youth’, where she wrote about her own wartime experience. She joined nursing and threw herself into the battleground and tried to ease the pain of the wounded soldiers. In her book she quotes ‘Epitaph On My Days in Hospital: I found in you a holy place apart, Sublime endurance, God in man revealed, Where mending broken bodies slowly healed, My broken heart.’

In 1914 there were 9,000 VAD’s but by 1918 there were 23,000 nurses and 18,000 orderlies. Most women were very keen to be a VAD/Nurse; all VAD’s were trained by Red Cross or St Johns Ambulance Brigade. Unfortunately because they were Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurses they did not get paid. Edith Cavell is a great example growing up from starting with her father telling her about helping people and ending with her being shot and her last words being ‘patriotism is not enough’. She travelled a lot but came home and helped at her Red Cross hospital. She did a lot of bandaging and operations.

Everyone thought the war would be over by Christmas and they kept hoping the same things each year. The same thing about the War. The end of this heart-breaking, monstrous WAR! When it came to Christmas each year, especially the nurses and soldiers hoped the war would end so they could see their families and stop the nonstop hard work, awake keeping, jobs.

So the war was horrible and lasted for what felt like forever. But luckily it has been years since this disaster has happened and everyone thought that the soldiers did the most but actually it was the ladies behind the scenes, THE NURSES!