It has been omitted from history the suffering females experienced during the great war, even though they were close enough to the firing lines to see the true monstrosities of war. It was reported that there were about 9,000 women volunteering in the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), 13,124 female nurses in the Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve) (QAIMNS(r)), about 500 women that were part of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and 82,857 in the women's Voluntary Aid Detachment's (VADs). These women saw indescribable horrors that one cannot even begin to comprehend, with FANY’s moving the mangled bodies of soldiers to hospitals while shells rained down on them. For instance,
Their experiences included tremendous violence and physical suffering; their diaries and letters home include descriptions of being fired on by enemy forces, who used the …show more content…
Another example being Vera Brittain, who worked as a nurse at a Base Hospital, turned Casualty Clearing Station, in Etaples, France during the retreat in March 1918. Brittain described that during that month there were “gassed men on stretchers, clawing the air – dying men, reeking with mud and foul green-stained bandages, shrieking and withering in a grotesque travesty of manhood – dead men with fixed, empty eyes and shiny yellow faces…. Her world was a kingdom of death.” Brittain was living a nightmare that she could not wake up from, every day had an emotional toll on her which caused her to become isolated and went into a ‘state of numb disillusion.’ These women might not have had direct interactions on the firing line, but they did witness the immediate aftermath of shells, gunshot wounds, and gas hysteria which led to many acquiring shell shock symptoms. Yet their treatments were not as extensive or immediate as those for male
Their experiences included tremendous violence and physical suffering; their diaries and letters home include descriptions of being fired on by enemy forces, who used the …show more content…
Another example being Vera Brittain, who worked as a nurse at a Base Hospital, turned Casualty Clearing Station, in Etaples, France during the retreat in March 1918. Brittain described that during that month there were “gassed men on stretchers, clawing the air – dying men, reeking with mud and foul green-stained bandages, shrieking and withering in a grotesque travesty of manhood – dead men with fixed, empty eyes and shiny yellow faces…. Her world was a kingdom of death.” Brittain was living a nightmare that she could not wake up from, every day had an emotional toll on her which caused her to become isolated and went into a ‘state of numb disillusion.’ These women might not have had direct interactions on the firing line, but they did witness the immediate aftermath of shells, gunshot wounds, and gas hysteria which led to many acquiring shell shock symptoms. Yet their treatments were not as extensive or immediate as those for male