Photograph from the Illustrated London News entitled: The British Advance: collecting wounded under fire: With a great shell bursting near them: A stretcher squad on No Man’s Land picking up a wounded man; and another (composed of German prisoners) bringing in another stretcher case, 7 October 1916, (Catalogue ref: ZPER 34/148)
Transcript
The task of the stretcher-bearers, whose work it is to collect the wounded during a battle, is extremely perilous and is performed with the utmost devotion. They have to brave the dangers of the enemy’s barrage fire which falls behind our attacking troops to hinder the advance of reinforcements. On this photograph a big shell is seen bursting close to a stretcher squad engaged in picking up a wounded man, the huge smoke-cloud looking like nothing so much as a weird picture of a genie or afreet in an ‘Arabian Nights’ story. The other squad to the right, who have already taken up another wounded man and are bearing him back towards a dressing station, is composed, it may be noted, of German prisoners, many of whom are employed in emergency to help in this work. They are usually glad to do it, being thankful to have so far escaped with their lives; but it sometimes happens that German prisoners are killed by shells from their own guns before they can reach the security of our prison-camps.