Finding Themselves / The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British / Hospital in France

These letters were written as the daily record of the work of a Unit of Red Cross nurses who were sent to France in May, 1917, in response to the request of the British authorities. The Unit, almost immediately after its arrival in England, was sent across the Channel to take over a British Base Hospital established on a race course, where they have cared continuously for a stream of from eight hundred to two thousand wounded “Tommies” at a time.

The original sixty-five American nurses were assisted for several months by English Volunteer Aids, and when these were withdrawn, they were reënforced with some thirty American nurses.

Though written with no thought of publication, as the war lengthens out, these letters have become of especial value as the record of first impressions and experiences which for those concerned were startlingly new. Since then much has been happening of tremendous significance both to the participants and to the world, but the events recorded here have not lost their interest, nor has their graphic character been blunted, by recent occurrences. Hence, though the initial purpose of printing these letters was to furnish this group of women with a permanent story of their devoted service, it has been suggested that the letters have a much wider interest, and they have therefore been given for publication by Miss Stimson’s family.

Henry A. Stimson