Winter Conditions in the Field Hospital

Heroes Remember

Winter Conditions in the Field Hospital

Transcript

And then we were under canvas again and we were in a what they called a sportiva part of it, where the tents for the hospital were and that was like an arena. We had a hard winter, very hard winter for living in that, the water froze in the water pails and we had very little heat. We had little teeny kerosene stoves, one in each tent and we had three in a great big marquis tent for the patients. We had a board between our cots because when it started to melt it was all mud and then we were issued rubber boots. We always had an issue with things for the place and in the winter we were issued with lovely boots that came about that high, lovely boots but they had steel toes and heels and so your feet froze in them, you know. It was very cold.

Description

Ms. Carter describes the field hospital in Trani, Italy and what conditions were like in the winter.

Doris Carter

Doris Carter was born in Birkenhead, England on June 9, 1910. Her family emigrated to Woodstock, New Brunswick and in 1932 she enrolled in Nursing at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Ms. Carter graduated in 1935, and was recruited to a wartime surgical team, prior to the war's onset. On November 30, 1940 she went overseas with #1 Military Hospital to nurse civilians injured in the bombings of Coventry and Birmingham. Ms. Carter was then sent to the Mediterranean with #5 Military Hospital. She served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Northwestern Europe. After the war, Ms. Carter pursued a career in Public Health Nursing.

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