DOCTOR SEES INFERNO

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue 12998, 10 November 1916, Page 2

DOCTOR SEES INFERNO

"I've ba<l my initiation in proper warfare. an<l i can assure you it is absolutely impossible tn imagine what it is iik.-." writes Or Henrj- Hagenauer, l'ormeily of Traralgon (Vic.), who is with the A 1 mv Medical Corps in Kianco.

"One has to be in it to realise i:," he «.n to say. "We attacked the Germans. and performed creditably. \\c 'tartcd by desultory artillery fire in the morning, and by 11 u'clftck got going in earliest. There was incessant bombardment. which you could not possibly iina<;iiie. till six. ami then we charuid and took the (lerman trenches, but were only able to hold them for ten hours, and th-11 bad to flight our way back. ".Meanwhile the German artillery was in high explosives ;iii<l shrapnel without a second's stop. It was awful. My steel helmet saved my life. A piece ji .-hi-M bloke it where the rim joins the rown. Without it I would have had the base of mv skull smashed in. All round one spot tfie shells were bursting, ami the ground in iront. back, ami sides of me was simply a mass of holes bif» enough to bury a noise in each.

"But the pluck of the l*>ys was simply marvellous. .Alter l>eirw fi_\c<l up a jot wanti-d to pet back. Was going hard for thirty six hours without a stop for food or drink: dead heat afterwards, I ran tel. 1 yon. Two of us must have put over 1500 in those thirty-six hours. I low the deuce we did it I don't know. There were three of us: but at the start one got a compound fracture of the upper arm.

"These high explosives have pot me down. However, after a day or two's spell will be as fit as a fiddle. I attended to several (Jippslanders, including a couple of Traralgon boys. Of course, the battalions got nli mixed" up. "One ]Xjor fellow looked too ridiculous, srioking with his head wreathed in bandages. He had also a shrapnel wound in the arm. He said, 'Well, dee., I'm off hack at 'cm.' Naturally, I would not let him. and sent him off "to our ambulance station. \\ i-11. he had not gone two yards when he was killed.

"The lads never made a murmur, however badly wounded. When they got to an ambulance all had anti-tetanus serum injected, and were sent on.

"Having come through this inferno safrlv. 1 may be able' to go through others; but whatever happens, I feel that I have been able to do some good in this world, after all."