General view of an advanced dressing station on battleground at 'Somme Farm', Ypres Salient. This was the first treatment
station for wounded soldiers just off the battlefield. This scene includes New Zealand soldiers and German prisoners
gathered around an ambulance and a wounded soldier laying on a stretcher on the muddy ground. The two Germans have probably
helped bring the soldier in.
Motorised ambulances and an efficient railway system behind the lines ensured that the
wounded, once they had been taken off the battlefield, could recieve hospital treatment with the minimum delay. For example,
Arthur Cross was wounded on the 12th of October at Passchendaele and was in hospital at Camiers (on the French coast near Etaples)
the next day. However, he was one of the luckier ones; many of the wounded remained on the battlefield in the mud for 24 hours
or more because so many stretcher bearers had been killed or it was too dangerous to move out into the open.
Photograph taken 19th October 1917 by Henry Armytage Sanders. 1
References:
- Reference number: 1/2-012928-G. Part of Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association :New Zealand official negatives, World War 1914-1918 (PA-Group-00051) Alexander Turnbull Library