Marshall, Lewis

Lewis Marshall was a Pearler who resided in both Fremantle & Broome. He enlisted in 1915 and was assigned to the 28^th Battalion with the service number 119. He served through the Gallipoli campaign with the 28^th and was promoted to Sergeant before the unit arrived in France in March 1916. Although the 28^th Battalion had participated in raids, their first major battle in France was at Pozieres, where the 28^th took heavy casualties. The following account starts from when he badly was badly wounded in the shoulder at Pozieres.

“My first thought of course was to get back to our lines. But by this time loss of blood had rendered me dizzy. I just staggered along some 20 yards towards a hedge and went through a gap. I was just about done, and collapsed on the ground. I heard voices. Not knowing whose they were I kept quiet. I could see bayonets flashing and figures. I counted about 8 of them moving. Eventually they proved to be Germans. They must have seen me; I have an idea they saw me before I fell down. At any rate they came up to me and spoke. I could not understand them, but by their gestures and general bearing I was reassured that they meant me no harm. Two of them picked me up. In doing so they must have wrenched my injured shoulder for I lost consciousness and when I came to I found myself in a deep dugout. A German doctor was bandaging me. He examined my identification disc and my pay-book and took notes from them. The doctor handed me over to two stretcher bearers and by them I was placed into a kind of sling hammock, made from waterproof groundsheets. They were carrying me away when I again swooned. When I came to my senses I still lay upon this improvised stretcher-hammock and as near as I could guess it was about mid-day. I had been dumped in an old and much battered sap and the German stretcher bearers had gone. It took me a full two hours to wriggle myself off that stretcher. Eventually I got clear and for the next three days I rambled up and down those old saps.

I scooped dirty water out of the puddles in the ground, but beyond some mouldy ration biscuits that I did not touch, I found no food. I was alternately fainting and regaining consciousness. The old sap in which I found myself led to the German firing line and in spite of continued and desperate efforts that I made to find a way out, I invariably found Germans in front of me. I was in a maze. My idea was then to ‘Lie Doggo’ in the hope that our chaps might attack again and carry the line and that then I should be picked up. On the third day, whilst getting along a sap, a “Fritz” spotted me. He promptly brought his rifle into the firing position, but when he saw my weak condition, he beckoned me, at the same time coming towards me. He helped me along to their firing line. Here there was a German machine gun crew and a German officer questioned me as to when I had been hit and how I came to have remained in their trench so long. He spoke very fair English. Then I was put in a small recess in the side of the trench.

I asked for a drink, but apparently there was none with the machine gun crew. Half an hour later they brought me some. Then two more stretcher bearers carried me away to a dressing station that had been set up in an old farm house, about a mile behind the line. There my wounds were dressed again. Two hours later a horse-ambulance carried me to a village some 2 miles further back. There a motor ambulance picked me up and I was taken to a big chateau that was being used as a hospital. From there I was conveyed per hospital train to Caudry.

I was in hospital there for two months. For the first two or three days no notice whatever was taken of me, even by the German Nursing Sisters, of whom there were two in my ward. Then a doctor examined me, inserted tubes in my shoulder, and had me put to bed. The next day a curious and perhaps somewhat sinister incident occurred. The Chief Doctor was making a tour of the ward. Glancing at my temperature card he muttered “Normal”. But as luck would have it he felt my pulse and found me in a state of high fever! He “roused” those sweet Sisters up a treat. I knew that much though I could not understand what he was saying. He had me examined under X-rays and then taken straight away to the operating theatre. There they put the “nosebag” on me but the surgeon had started business with his knife before I was properly “off”. My last recollection of him was that he was still gutturally abusing such Sisters as might be within hearing.

When I recovered I was taken into a different ward. There were no Australians there and only a few Britishers. The majority of its inmates were wounded German soldiers. During the next few days what happened was by no means clear to me – the result, probably of the anaesthetic to which I had been subjected. I was practically in a stupor. But I know that I was by no means badly treated. The doctor seemed interested in my hurts and treated me with consideration. The food issue here was plenteous enough but fearfully rough. I was given a special diet, including wine and milk on the orders of the doctor. I was also given a morphine injection every evening. From here I was to have been taken to the Lazarette at Darmstadt. But on the way a blood vessel in my wounded arm burst and I was taken off the train at Aachen. There I remained from the end of September to the 15^th December. Then I continued my long interrupted journey to Darmstadt.

At Aachen I was in the Marine Hospital, an institution conducted by nuns. These nuns were fair though by no means amiable towards us. They never let us forget that we were despised and hated “Englanders” and that, furthermore, we were prisoners of war. Then the German orderlies, on the sly, got in some fine work in the way of petty persecution. When we did make the journey from Aachen to Darmstadt, it took 42 hours to do the trip and we were asked to do it on 24 hours ration and rations of German black bread at that! At the Darmstadt Lazarette the food was atrocious – poor in quality and short in quantity. The main dish was a sort of alleged “soup” made from boiled Swedes. At this lazarette there were a number of French prisoners. Some of these had been members of the French Army Medical Corps. They were known as “Sanitaires” and did orderly work about the wards. Of trained nurses there were 4 to somewhere about 1000 men. At bandaging these “sanitaires” were fair but in the main you had to depend for your bandaging upon the help of comrades. There seemed also, to be a dearth of surgical and medical appliances. Paper bandages and paper compresses were freely used.

I remained at Darmstadt from December 16, till August 17, and it was at that camp in March 1917, that the first parcel from the Australian Red Cross Society reached me. After that they came regularly enough though there were some misses. The allowance was 13lbs of bread (from Switzerland) and 3 parcels per fortnight. The parcels were never tampered with. At this camp we were frequently visited by neutral ladies and gentlemen – American and Swiss. They were always accompanied by German officers, but would take note of any complaint that we might make.

From Darmstadt I was taken to Giessen, near Frankfurt-on-Main. Here there was a vast internment camp and our fellows generally voted it about the best “clink” of its kind they had struck in Germany. There were some 12,000 British or “Englander” prisoners attached to it. I left Giessen on December 8^th and proceeded to Mannheim, where I stayed till December 26^th. I was therefore there during the British air-raid on Christmas Eve. We were not in a position to personally see what damage had been done, but were told that the railway station and three factories had been bombed and that a number of French prisoners coming to the lazarette, had been killed. We left Mannheim on Boxing Day for the frontier post of Aachen, having been recommended for exchange. At Aachen we remained a week, leaving for Rotterdam on New Years Day. At the first station from Aachen over the Dutch border, we were greeted by the welcome gifts of food, tobacco, fruit and cakes from the Red Cross Society. At Rotterdam we were taken direct from the train to the England bound boats that were waiting in the harbour. I left Rotterdam in the “Sindoro” on January 2^nd and reached Boston, England on January 7^th.

I should mention that at Giessen I saw Pte Addis of the 13^th and Jack Milne of the 21^st Battalions. Both were practically cripples. They were there when I left Giessen on December 8^th 1917. At Giessen also there is a 28^th. Canadian Sergeant named Coover who is doing really excellent work. It appears that he belonged to a Canadian A.M.Corps, but as he was in possession of bombs when he was captured the German authorities wouldn’t agree to his exchange. Ladies help committees at Dover and Brighton send him medical and surgical appliances and with the aid of these he does really admirable work among the British and Australian prisoners of war.

Lewis Marshall left England to return home to Australia in June 1918.