Base Hospital No. 9, A.E.F. - a history of the work of the New York hospital unit during two years of active service (1920) (14593754660)

Identifier: 14230580R.nlm.nih.gov
Title: Base Hospital No. 9, A.E.F. : a history of the work of the New York hospital unit during two years of active service
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Brown, Raymond Shiland, author
Subjects: United States. Army. Base Hospital No. 9 Hospitals, Military World War I
Publisher:
Contributing Library: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons, U.S. National Library of Medicine



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and just how calmly and cleverlythey would remove foreign bodies under shell fire.But not so. They were summoned to the upper deckevery morning after breakfast. Here litter drill heldthe attention. Once or twice it was found that theinstruction book was wrong so our Major invented abetter way of doing it! Then they were thrilled by thereading of the Articles of War! Next day they built anoperating room and equipped it. There had beenseveral abdominal pains among the men before thiswas completed, but it was a sure cure of all ills. MajorGibson held a French class which gave all not only aspeaking acquaintance with the language, but also aknowledge of what to do on a visit to Paris! Every evening there was some kind of entertain-ment—a boxing match, a vaudeville show or a minstrelshow. The nurses of Base Hospital No. 9 burlesquedthe life on the Finland which caused so much merri-ment and applause that the Captain of the ship had tocall from the bridge less noise. After the entertain-
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38 39 40 THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL IN FRANCE ment hour, life took on a dull aspect. There was nosmoking; the nurses went to bed at 8.30, and therewere no hghts on the ship. Everybody went to bedin the dark, and many mornings toward the end of thetrip, got up in the same inky blackness. Will we everforget those terrible nights with four in a state roomand no port hole open? But it was a happy voyage and everyone laughedat the hardships and discomforts. Even the chaplainsovercame the lack of space for services by standing onthe poop-deck and conducting the worship througha megaphone so that all the decks could take part.There was a feehng of security because of the otherships in the convoy—the Henderson, the San Jacinto,the Antilles, with the cruiser Montana, and twodestroyers. However we learned that in case of attackwe were not as safe as we thought. And that bringsme to the submarine battle. This attack has been thecause of endless debate. All who were on the shipthat day beHeved and k