Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
Author: | Language: English | ISBN: B00J48AS10 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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The number of soldiers wounded in World War I is, in itself, devastating: over 21 million military wounded, and nearly 10 million killed. On the battlefield, the injuries were shocking, unlike anything those in the medical field had ever witnessed. The bullets hit fast and hard, went deep, and took bits of dirty uniform and airborne soil particles in with them. Soldier after soldier came in with the most dreaded kinds of casualty: awful, deep, ragged wounds to their heads, faces, and abdomens. And yet the medical personnel faced with these unimaginable injuries adapted with amazing aptitude, thinking and reacting on their feet to save millions of lives.
In Wounded, Emily Mayhew tells the history of the Western Front from a new perspective: the medical network that arose seemingly overnight to help sick and injured soldiers. These men and women pulled injured troops from the hellscape of trench, shell crater, and no man's land, transported them to the rear, and treated them for everything from foot rot to poison gas, venereal disease to traumatic amputation from exploding shells. Drawing on hundreds of letters and diary entries, Mayhew allows listeners to peer over the shoulder of the stretcher bearer who jumped into a trench and tried unsuccessfully to get a tightly packed line of soldiers out of the way, only to find that they were all dead. She takes us into dugouts where rescue teams awoke to dirt thrown on their faces by scores of terrified moles, digging frantically to escape the earth-shaking shellfire. Mayhew moves her account along the route followed by wounded men, from stretcher to aid station, from jolting ambulance to crowded operating tent, from railway station to the ship home, exploring actual cases of casualties who recorded their experiences. Both comprehensive and intimate, this groundbreaking book captures an often neglected aspect of the soldier's world and a transformative moment in military and medical history.
Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 48 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Audible Studios
- Audible.com Release Date: March 19, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00J48AS10
Through a masterful combination of anecdotes, biographical sketches, vignettes, and traditional history writing, the author describes and discusses: (1) the medical and psychological challenges faced by British soldiers who became casualties during World War I; (2) the trials and tribulations of the military and civilian personnel who struggled to provide medical care for the wounded in the face of horrific casualties, difficult battlefield conditions, and limited resources; and (3) the ways in which individuals and organizations coped with, and adapted to, the various physical and psychological wounds caused by modern weapons and trench warfare. A very good feature of the book is the author's informative and revealing discussion of British military medicine from the different perspectives of soldiers, stretcher bearers, regimental medical officers, surgeons, nurses, orderlies, chaplains, and ambulance personnel.
The book focuses on the human aspects of British military medicine during World War I, not the technical aspects of it. By doing so, the author provides a lively, engaging history that gives the reader an excellent and informative view of the emotional, mental, and spiritual effects that wartime wounds, disease, and psychological stress had on British soldiers at the front and the military and civilian personnel who provided medical care and medical support for the British troops. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in: (1) the history of military medicine; (2) the human dimensions of military medicine; or (3) a different perspective on World War I.
Readers interested in this book should consider taking a look at the following other books: Richard A.
I was fortunate enough to be able to read this book before its official release as an Ebook, which for some reason did not have the illustrations working properly. Nevertheless I found it an easy to read, fascinating, and important book on the western front and the great war in general.
It is not a typical history book. The author does not use much in the way of official documents, manuals and after action reports as I would normally expect. Instead, she pieces together the route a wounded British serviceman would take from the front line to the British Hospitals by telling the stories found in memoirs of men, and women, who served in the various jobs along the evacuation route. Unlike the work of Lyn McDonald, where the quotes are offset, Mayhew has written the participants of each chapter into a very readable and coherent narrative.
It's unusual in that each chapter deals with a different 'type' of jobs: stretcher bearer, orderly, hospital train nurse, chaplain, field hospital staff, and even the volunteers who moved the wounded from trains arriving in London onto ambulances that took them to the Blighty Hospitals. Even the medical services to POWs are mentioned. Normally, this type of book I find relies too much on direct (and often erroneous quotes) but pardon the pun when I call it 'ripping well done.'
It opens up a while new area of the war that is not often talked about, and portrays chaplains (well, the good ones) in a whole new light. It's not a technical history of medicine in the war by any means, but a view from the ground up of what wounded soldiers went through, and what their caretakers went through.
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