ON THE WESTERN FRONT:
TWO IROQUOIS NURSES IN WORLD WAR I
BY LAURENCE M. HAUPTMAN I
n April 1917 when the United States entered World War I, only 403 Army nurses were on active duty. In response, the War Department recruited more than
21,000 nurses. Approximately
10,000 served overseas on ambulances, in field and convalescent hospitals, and on troop trains and transport ships, and 200 of these nurses died in the war. In spite of racial barriers, 14 Indigenous nurses served in the Nurse Corps in the Army Medical Depart- ment during World War I. This is the story of two of these women
– Cora Elm, a Wisconsin Oneida, and (Char- lotte) Edith Anderson, a Mohawk from the Grand River Reserve, in Ontario, Canada, who endured the horrors of the Western Front. Elm and Anderson were sent to the Western Front in France to care for the medical needs of American “doughboys” as well as wounded French, British and Canadian allied soldiers, and often worked in 14 to 18 hour shifts. Those who served overseas had to volun-
teer; none were assigned to the war in Europe against their will. Nurses with specialties in
28 AMERICAN INDIAN FALL 2018
orthopedics and anesthesia were especially sought after. Besides having to accommodate themselves to the ever-present fears of being captured or killed by the enemy, the volun- teers often tended to soldiers who had suf- fered ghastly wounds in trench warfare. Be- fore the discovery and use of antibiotics, they nursed soldiers who were severely wounded, those whose shrapnel wounds became in- fected and required amputation, and those who were gassed and who suffered long- term physical and psychological effects from its use. It has been estimated that about 30 percent of casualties incurred by the Ameri- can Expeditionary Force were related to at- tacks of mustard, phosgene or chlorine gases. Health conditions actually worsened in the fall of 1918, the last months of the war, when the most devastating influenza pandemic of the 20th
century hit troops stationed in Eu-
rope. This pandemic killed more worldwide than all of the soldiers and civilians who died of gunfire and disease in World War I. In 1901, the United States Congress created the Nurse Corps within the United States Army
Medical Department. Even before American troops reached the battlefields of France, the War Department in May 1917 asked the Red Cross to help mobilize nurses for six base hos- pitals to serve with the British Expeditionary Forces. The Red Cross worked closely with the Nurse Corps, handling recruitment and train- ing. Although some Red Cross nurses served close to the battlefields where they were under the supervision of the United States Army, most were assigned to base hospitals adminis- tered by the French. Army nurses were appointed by the Sur-
geon General of the United States with the approval of the Secretary of War. They were not given military rank and were paid $28.75 a month, the same as any enlisted man. The women had to be unmarried and between the ages of 28 and 35 and had to be graduates of training schools of nursing. In the racist climate of the times, the nurses initially had to be white as well as citizens of the United States; later that policy was modified, but Afri- can American nurses remained excluded.
Continued
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