Unknown Warriors: The Letters of Kate Luard, RRC and Bar, Nursing Sister in France 1914-1918

The words of Unknown Warriors resonate as powerfully today as when first written. It offers a very personal glimpse into the hidden world of the military field hospital, where patients struggled with pain and trauma and nurses fought to save lives and preserve emotional integrity. The book’s author was one of a select number of fully trained professional nurses who worked in hospital trains and casualty clearing stations during the war, coming as close to the front as a woman could. K E L was already a war veteran when she arrived in France in 1914, aged 42, having served during the 2nd Boer War. The author’s intention was to bear witness to the suffering of the ordinary soldier. Kate was the best. At the height of the Battle of Passchendaele, she had a staff of 40 nurses and nearly 100 nursing orderlies (the normal nursing workforce for a CCS was seven); and she was facing the worst—abdominal wounds, up to that point a death sentence.