As the war proceeded it was quite clear that the nursing staffs, though we had secured 3,000 more trained nurses through the Red Cross in the first few weeks of the war, would be quite inadequate, and it was found necessary to use V.A.D.’s and to open V.A.D.  Hospitals, most of them being established in large private houses lent for the purpose.  Within nine months there were 800 of these at work in every part of England, Scotland and Wales.  The V.A.D.’s suffered a little at first from confusion with the ladies who insisted on rushing off to France after taking a ten day’s course in first aid.  We had suffered a great deal from that kind of thing in the South African War and were determined to have no repetition of it, so they were firmly and decisively removed from France without delay.

[Illustration:  First ambulance on duty in the first zeppelin raid on London]

To get more trained nurses, rules were relaxed and the age limit raised.  Many nurses, retired and married, returned to work, but very quickly it was perfectly clear our trained nurses were inadequate in number for the great work before us, and in less than a year in most hospitals every ward had one V.A.D. worker assisting who had been nominated by her Commandant and County Director, and in March, 1915, the Hospitals were asked by the Director General of the Army Medical Service to train V.A.D.’s in large numbers as probationers, for three or six months, to fit them for work under trained nurses.  Every possible woman, trained or partially trained, was mobilized and thousands have been trained during the three years of war, and V.A.D. members have been drafted to military and Red Cross Hospitals, abroad and at home, in addition to doing the work of the V.A.D.  Hospitals.  A V.A.D.  Hospital with a hundred beds will have two trained nurses, and all the other work is done by V.A.D.’s.  The Commandant-in-Chief now is Lady Ampthill.  Dame Katharine Furse was Commandant-in-Chief until quite recently, but is now head of the new Women’s Royal Navy Service.

Many have gone to France and done distinguished work and there is no body of women in our country who have done more faithful and useful work than our V.A.D.’s, who nurse, cook and wash dishes, serve meals, scrub the floors, look after the linen and do everything for the comfort and welfare of our men, with a capacity, zeal and endurance beyond praise.  About 60,000 women have helped in this way.  Our nurses and V.A.D.’s have distinguished themselves at home and abroad.  They have been in casualty lists on all our fronts.  They have been decorated for bravery and for heroic work.  The full value of all they have done cannot yet be appraised.  They have spent themselves unceasingly in caring for our men.  They have nursed them with shells falling around.  Hospitals have frequently been shelled and in one case two nurses worked in a theatre, wearing