BACK FROM THE FRONT

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1917, Page 3

BACK FROM THE FRONT

(Grey Argus.)

Looking little the worse for a trying experience in the Flanders trenohea a yousg Coaster, Corporal Lindsay Sband, who left New Zealand with the Ninth Reinforcements, arrived back in Greymouth by last evening’s overland train. Corporal Shand, who hails from the Hokitika district, where ha was employed before enlis’iDg as a linotype operator, was wounded in the arm about six months ago, during the severe fighting in which the New Zealanders participated at Armentieres. He had been several weeks in the firing line before getting wounded. He was in danger of losing tbe injured limb, but tbe medical staff at the hospital where he waß quartered in France, decided to try and save it, stating, however, that the experiment was the first of the kind which they kad at that hospital attempted. A nerve was taken from the amputated arm of a comrade and inserted in Corporal Shand’s arm, with such good results that he is now able to use the limb, though it is' of course, not yet very strong, Surgeon-General Maokin head of the British Army Medical Corps, pronoucoed the experirnant a surprising success. The corporal was not allowed to leave the /ranch hoepital until hia wound had almost healed and spent only a short time at Brockenhurst and other hospitals where there are colonials in England. All the Coast boys whom he saw weie in the best of spirits. Corporal Shand gives eome exciting narratives of trench life. The New Zealanders at Armentierea, fouod thß trenches ,of the German officers well stocked with provisions and comforts. Evidence waa not Jacking, also, of the presence near the firing lino of members of the fair sex, who had left some of their belongings in the abandoned enemy trenches. He expects it the war lasts till next year to see the Germans then on the run fiom Flanders towards Berlin.

Corporal Shand who has been granted his discharge is full of praise for the hospital itaffs in France.