I Saw Them Die

This true contemporary account of an American nurse's horrific - and sometimes bizarre - experiences while serving at a French battlefield hospital near Soissons during World War I has poignant layers which even the often naive author did not see. "As our camion drove through the ch‚teau gate we could see that the grounds were covered with what looked like sleeping men." That is just her own introduction to the unit, housed in what was once a country estate,and soon she was standing hours on end treating friend and enemy alike, facing harrowing hyperreality with aplomb. Shirley Millard is throughout a willing reporter of her fascinating perspective on war, youth, loss, and love - and always slapdash surgery and gallows camaraderie, inside a MASH unit before there was M*A*S*H. And before antibiotics, it is painfully clear. But she is also an unwitting reporter of so much more. The modern reader sees truths and wrongs that Shirley fails to experience herself, some at the time and too many upon rested reflection.


An unprepared nurse from the United States volunteering in World War I France shares her diary and later reflections of the horrific and poignant events of 1918, and in the process reveals more about the fascinating people and times, and especially herself, than she apparently realized. It then becomes riveting even on levels she never intended. Answers the question, When are maggots GOOD news? And when does a man become a grateful ashtray?


Presented to modern readers with a new Foreword by Professor Elizabeth Townsend Gard. Features contemporary photographs of World War I medics in France. Original edition previously available only as a rare book.


Shirley Millard volunteered as a war nurse, serving in France in 1918. Later she wrote a book of her experiences. Elizabeth Townsend Gard is an associate professor of law at Tulane University in New Orleans, where she specializes in intellectual property, copyright, and legal history.