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An Army Hospital in Normandy, 1944

As a physiotherapist I was attached during the war to various army hospitals. I was first stationed near Bayeux in Normandy. This proved to be a base hospital and was to remain there long after the British army had gone forward. However, when we first landed in July 1944 and erected all the tented wards, theatre, x-ray etc we were very much a casualty clearing station. Many of our troops were received direct from the battlefield, had their severest wounds attended to, and were then sent back to the U.K.

Our theatre was a large marquee with three operating tables down the middle, with three surgeons working flat out day and night and two anaesthetists working between the beds. As to hygiene, there was just one basin of disinfected water between all three tables, which was occasionally changed!

My first night on duty (physiotherapy being delayed for a more peaceful period) I watched a surgeon amputate a man’s leg at the thigh and then was handed the leg to get rid of! I seem to remember it went in the nearest bin!

After some time we gained a more regular hospital routine. As the battle moved further south and east we found plenty of work to do, getting the troops back to their units when possible. By November the rains had come and the mud. We physios, who slept three to a tent, would be dressed in navy overalls, surmounted by khaki jackets, and wearing gumboots as we slid from ward to ward!

At one stage we started receiving German prisoners of war. Apart from the language difficulty, I think they were very relieved to find themselves out of the war. Any prisoners who were mobile were set to work in the camp. Our own soldiers arriving in ambulances must have had scary moments when the stretchers were carried out by a German at either end! Later, in the autumn of ’44, another camp was built close to us, surrounded by wire and that was for German patients who were fit enough to be contained there and looked after by their own doctors.

We were all still there at Christmas so the senior staff agreed that we could have a concert combined with some from the prison camp. At the end everyone sang Lili of Marlena’ at the tops of their voices, each in their own language! I found it hard to believe that battles were still raging not that far away, and what on earth were we all doing? War seemed so futile.

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