Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 36
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 36]
red glare and heat which seemed like a page from Dante. These men and their officers, our friends the Engineers, must always have our greatest admiration. They know each man of them that whoever may be saved from the ship if defeat comes they will not be saved as there is practically no escape - a shell or worse a torpedo adds burning and scalding to the other terrors. Fortunately none of these calamities happened; but it speaks well for many of our young stokers not long recruited from civil employment ashore that they never once let up nor yielded, and drove the ship faster than she had ever steamed before.
Early in the action the surgeons became busy. They were in two stations in stokers bath rooms one opening off the tube forard and the other astern. Equipment and assistants were similarly divided lest a lucky shell should wipe out all.
The surgeons are supposed to have the safest billet obtainable in action, but in a ship of the Sydney class with her thirty armoured sides such cover as exists is probably only sufficient to make a well aimed shell burst better, if fired at a reasonable range. The coal bunkers which were supposed to form a further protection were always the first emptied when the ship went to sea.
Still the accommodation provided was the best to be had under the circumstances, bearing in mind its accessibility for wounded. According to regulations the wounded are not to be treated carried below except during a lull or at the conclusion of the action, so as not to take unnecessary men from the guns to act as bearers, and so as not to expose the stretcher party to the risk of going on deck.
Such treatment as is given comes from the first aid bag served out to each gun and the rough and ready methods of the crew.
As a matter of practice, in this action at any rate the regulation was not observed, and the men were brought below almost as soon as they were hit.