flow chart on evacuation procedure

1). Stretcher bearers

They used these to recover dead and wounded during a break in fighting. They had to deal with mud, shell crates and trenches. They carried bandages and morphine to do quick treatment there. There was only 16 per battalion of up to a thousand soldiers and took four men to carry one., someones up to eight if in the thick mud of Ypres.

2). Regimental Aid Post (RAP)

The RAP was very close to front line sometimes in firing trench but at most couple of hundred metres away and moved forward when casualties were expected. In the RAP was the battalion regimental medical officer whose job was to distinguish between lightly wounded and those who needed medical attention. He would bandage light wounds and send them off, the others would be sent to dressing stations. These places were badly lit and always under fire.

3). Field ambulance and dressing stations

It was not a vehicle but a large mobile medical unit with medical officers, support staff and some nurses. They were set up in tents or derelict buildings to receive wounded from RAP and sort them into more or less serious cases. The dressing stations were between a quarter of a mile and a mile behind front line. Any serious cases were sent to casualty clearing stations

4). Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS)

The CCS was the first large well-equipped medical facility. They were seven-twelve miles from the fighting, usually in a series of large tents or huts. Normally had seven doctors with nursing and other staff. By 1917 they were performing more operations than hospitals including amputations. They had operating theatres, mobile x-ray machines, wards with beds for around fifty men . The CCS could deal with a thousand casualties at a time.

5). Base hospitals

Base hospitals were usually civilian hospitals or large converted buildings near railways so patients could be moved quickly. Many soldiers arrived by train or motor ambulance. By 1918 some hospitals could takes as many as 2,500 patients. They had operating theatres, x-ray dpartments, laboratories for identifying infection, and some specialist centres for treating things such as victims of gas poisoning. From base hospitals you were either sent back to England or be sent to a ward before returning to fighting.