The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-19
Stand on the Firing Line in Grief Stricken Belgium for Moment With Red Cross Nurse Who Was One of
 the First to do Field Duty After War Was Declared
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

! O1 TAND on the firing line in grief N stricken Belgium for moment " with Mrs. Westerlund. the splendid, seIf-sacrificing, noble Red Cross
 nurse who was one of the first to do
 field duty after war was declared, and
 hear her story of the shriek of the guns, the roar of the cannon the bursting of
 the shells. Let her tell you of how the rivers run red, the sun is obscured, and new harvest is gathered in the death valley; old men, little children, helpless
 women fleeing before the advancing army; herds of lowing cattle pouring
 along the roads driven by plodding, dull eyed, sorrowful women; oX-carts filled
 with frightened children, conveyed by
 their apprehensive mothers, trundling
 over the fields, while all day and all
 night men are brought in from the bat
 tlefields wounded, scared, maimed, with
 none to look to but the patient, gentle nurses in the hospitals the only ones
 who can alleviate their suffering and calm their battle-ridden souls.
 Mrs. Wester1und who is an English
 woman from Cirencester. Gloucester shire, but now an American citizen, liv- ing in Birmingham, tells with graphic color of the horrors of the early days of war, the atrocities of the German sol- diers, and the awful havoc and wreck in pitful grief stricken Belgium!
 Mrs Westerlund is a woman of tre- mendous force and personality; eager, sincere, quietly determined to do her
 bit among us here by telling our people how much good, nurses are needed abroad and how if they can only con tribute d small amount to the Red Cross, it means that much work toward send ing somebody to look after the wounded and the dying.
 Mrs Westerlund is not looking for something to drive away the ennui of idle days. She is busy woman, whose life is full to the brim, and she has only a limited amount of free time after visit ing various places and delivering her message with patriotic fervor and first hand knowledge of the great work of the Red Cross on the battle fronts.
 The urgent need of more money, which means more nurses said Mrs. Westerlund yesterday, as she told me of her grim experiences in the early days of wars dread carnage, cannot be too definitely impressed upon the American people. War was declared on August 5, l54t. Ol lHe next udy | dpplleu lO DIT Garad Thomas, one of the most noted surgeons in Wales, under whom I'd worked in many operations and cases, and who was in charge of the Red Cross work for field duty, to go to Belgium. On the next day. Friday, I was accepted. My training at St Thomases hospital in London was investigated and in three days, to be exact, after wars wild toe sin had been sounded I had left my family, my little girl, my loved ones in Wales, for it was there that I had been living since my first marriage in the Sirhowey valley, and two of my sisters had also married and were living there, and found myself on transport bound for poor, belated Belgium"
 On August 10," Mrs. Westerlund con- tinued, exactly five days after war had been declared, I found myself in a hos pital in Belgium assisting with the 500 wounded soldiers who had been brought in from the battlefields, helping them aboard the transport I had come over on, to get back to our beloved England Be- sides that number, there were hundreds more on the fields being cared for who couldn't be brought in to the hospitals. You see, there was so little convenience and so little comfort the hospitals were merely emergency hospitals, and could not accommodate half of the wounded men, During the early days of the war l shall never forget some of the terrific experiences I went through One day the sun had burst out furiously from be- hind dull gray clouds and young French soldier lying in corner bed in the hospital called to me and asked if he could be moved so that he could lie