CASUALTY CARE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 168, 18 July 1942, Page 4

CASUALTY CARE

WHEN TANKS BATTLE

"METHODS HAVE CHANGED"

(By E. IC. GREEN)

There is nothing pleasant in the implications of the first sight that greeted me on my recent visit to the headquarters camp of the New Zealand Army Tank Brigade . . . A tank was drawn up and about it—and on it—a group of men were working. They were members of the Light Field Ambulance attached to the brigade. They wore gas-masks —and they were practising the removal of a badly wounded man from the interior of the tank. Their work was efficient yet gentle, and the man was realistically limp as he was lifted clear. Yet none of the implications of war are pleasant; and there was this to be learned from that sight. Even were it real, that man, at least, was in good hands. Up Near "The Front" Later I spent some hours with that field ambulance while its members were engaged in field exercises on the private land of a farm in rugged country some miles distant from the camp. Up along the line of hills that made the near horizon was the "battle front" . . . "wounded" were lying about up there, and down in the lower country was Advanced Dressing Station, and, further back, Main Dressing Station. I talked there with LieutenantColonel W. B. Fisher,. M.8., Ch.B., commander of the unit, who has seen service in the Middle East in this war, and I learned that in the field of ambulance work, as in every other direction, modern war has brought about changes in organisation. With the tanks, particularly, action is fast and fluid, and the organisation of units associated with the tanks has to be adjusted to meet the circumstances. Actually there is only a small percentage of a tank brigade up in the actual fighting; as with the air force, for instance, the bulk of personnel are engaged in servicing work for the fighting machines. And the tanks would be spread over a wide front. In consequence, I was told, the personnel of a Tank Brigade Light Field Ambulance was only about half what it would be if it was attached to an infantry brigade, because the number of casualties, regardless of percentages, would normally be fewer. On the other hand, it was equipped with about the same number of vehicles. Its mobility was therefore increased and, in an emergency, it could move rapidly the whole of its personnel. First Aid Training for All Though the medical officer attached to each tank battalion was equipped with five stretchers, there were actually no stretcher bearers attached in that capacity to the units. Instead, every man in each tank crew was trained in first aid, and every tank carried a first aid box, equipped with shell dressings, antiseptics, bandages and morphia. And all ranks are trained to remove casualties from the tanks. Increasing mechanisation has lessened the work of the Regimental Aid Posts and the Advanced Dressing

Stations. Actually only urgent dressings are done in the field. The old "R.A.P." is now mainly a car post, and it is in as advanced a position as possible.

To these posts casualties are brought in, mainly in unit vehicles, after the battalion medical officer, \tfho was equipped with a truck, had given first aid. The wounded were then evacuated to the advanced dressing station, which also was now mainly a comfort station and a car post.

How the work of these stations has changed is illustrated by the fact that where, in former times, a company of the Field Ambulance, with three medical officers, were stationed there, they are now staffed by never more than one medical officer, with three sections of a company.

As I have pointed out. only urgent dressings would be carried out even here. One of the main features of these stations, in fact, are the field kitchens which are set up there. The hot tea, soup and so on that they supply help to keep the wounded warm before they are sent on back for further medical treatment at the main dressing stations and the advanced and base hospitals.

In these advanced posts the Field Ambulance is mainly concerned with getting the wounded back, as fast and comfortably as possible, to the main dressing stations. M.D.S. is Further Back There was a time when it was laid down that an M.D.S. should not be fui tner tociclv than five miles from the front lines. . . . Now it will be anything up to 25 miles back. The fluid nature of modern warfare and the mechanisation that has caused that, is also responsible for this change. In an advanced position the main dressing station would be too liable to capture—and. with fast transport, a few extra miles do not matter, particularly when miles mean safety.

"It would be as far back as possible, said Lieutenant-Colonel Fisher, discussing the M.D.S. situation. "The actual distance would be dependent on the type of country the nature of the roads and other similar features."

I noted that camouflage was being used, and was told by the colonel that it is not practice to display the Red Cross, or otherwise to disclose the position of an ambulance unit near the front line until action is actually joined. To disclose its position woud also betray the presence of fighting troops in the vicinity. He told how, in Greece and Crete, his unit had actually manufactured their Red Crosses out of red quilts they had obtained from inhabitants in the vicinity of the fighting. Generally speaking, he said, the Germans respected the Red Cross, though they could not be expetced to do so if it was in close proximity to a legitimate military target. Under those circumstances ambulance units would scatter as much as possible so as to offer only small targets to the stray bomb or shell that fell among them. Up at that A.D.S. I saw the cooks in operation, and learned how the comparatively new "hot boxes" had solved some of their problems, and also assisted greatly in the provision of hot meals for troops even in forward areas—but that can be dealt with in relation to supply lines and the changing role of the A.S.C.

It is all part of the same picture of modern war.