AFTER BATTLE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 18, 20 July 1918, Page 7

AFTER BATTLE

HANDLING THE WOUNDED.

From the experienced gained with the New Zealand Medical Corps, LieutenantColonel M. Holmes was able to point many useful lessons in a lecture which he delivered last night at the Wellington Officers' Institute. The address was, entitled "The Evacuation of' the Wounded After Three Modern Battles." Colonel Holmes dealt first with the work at Gallipoli, after the attack on Chunuk Bair. The whole area ■to be dealt with was exposed to shell-fire and snipers, nearly every member of the ambulance unite was suffering from dvsentry, and important ambulance details were not on the peninsula. Over 3000 wounded were gathered in a^ partially-sheltered gully, and some of these men\vere being killed, by shell and rifle fire. Before the end pf four days there were 10,000 or II,OCO wounded men on the beach. About 2000 yards out from the coast were five hospital ships. But a grave flaw in the aiv rangements was the lack of an adequate supply of small boats to take -the wounded from the beach to the ships The next battle described was the engagement at Romani, won almost unaided by the Anzac Mounted Division. _ There .was very little delay in evacuating the wounded except in the case of men wounded 18 miles from the railways, and who 'had to be conveyed on camels. This showed the need for a mobile operating station as near to the fighting as possible. Finally, Colonel Holmes described whaflie termed "one of the most successful bits of~evacuation in the history of the war," at the Battle of Messines. The New Zealand front was only about 800 yards wide, and was divided; for medical purposes into two parts, each part having an advanced dressing station. The medical corps ha.-' spent two and a-half months getting ready for the fight. In case the barrage blocked communication with the base, th» advanced dressing station had three days' supply of medical supplies, food and water for 5000 men. Every contingency seemed to have been' provided for. The arrangements worked without, a hitch. The wounded men wer,e in London the day. they were hit.