- Australian nurse Anne Donnell describes a typical evening at the 48th Casualty Clearing Station outside Ypres:
There is such a lot of pneumonia cases coming in – 72 tonight. I feel each one should be specialled. It’s so terrible to see so much suffering, and they are so good and brave with it. Each life is so precious I think – and each life too that passes on is loved by someone, and means sorrow. It cuts me when I see the married men with little children go. Pick up the photo of them under their pillow. And they fight so hard for their lives. Such is war and its results…
…My word I could never forget the experiences of a CCS…It has been two months solid, hard, bending, anxious work. To say nothing of the bombing and shelling and then the sights of the poor battered men and the sick, sick men that it tears at your very heart-strings. And the intense cold. Hard, biting frost and snow.
Caulfield, Michael 2013, The unknown Anzacs: the real stories of our national legend, Hachette Australia, Sydney, NSW.