Episode 15: 31st October to 25th December, 1917

This episode covers one of Nan Reay’s longer diary entries. The bombs are very near now and the barrage of anti-aircraft guns constantly sweeps overhead the huts with unexpected casualties. Orders arrive again to pack up and move. Nan Reay is granted leave. On her return from leave she joins a base hospital, No. 26 General Hospital Etaples, a town on the north west coast of France about 77 kms from Dunkirk. In the diary , she wrote, in capital letters, ON TEMPORARY DUTY AT NO. 26 GENERAL HOSPITAL AT ETAPLES. 

No. 26 Etaples was established in June 1915 and dismantled in July1919.

C.M.E - Cristabel Mary Ellis 

DDMS - Deputy Director of Medical Services (First World War) 

Archie - Apparently derived from an old music hall song called Archibald, Certainly Not! Archie was a British military slang word for German anti-aircraft fire. 

A Base Hospital was part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Casualty Clearing Stations.

Étaples became the principal depôt and transit camp for the British Expeditionary Force in France and also the point to which the wounded were transported. During the First World War the town became a vast Allied military camp and then a giant 'hospital city'. The abundance of military infrastructure in Étaples gave the town a capacity of around 100,000 troops during the war and made the area a serious target for German aerial bombing raids, from which the town suffered heavily. Many medical facilities were established by the Australians, New Zealanders and British. Wounded soldiers were consequently often sent to Etaples to recover or en route for Britain.

World War Timeline for Episode 15

The Battle of Passchendael finally ends on 6 November, but only after months of fighting in horrific conditions and heavy casualties on both sides.

2 November 1917

Britain issues the Balfour Declaration, a statement of support for the establishment of a Jewish nation in Palestine.

7 November 1917

Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks assume complete control over the new Soviet Russian state.

6 December 1917

A French munitions ship collides with a Belgian relief ship resulting in 11,000 casualties

9 December 1917

The British capture Jerusalem from the Ottomans.

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