Saving Lives: Frontline Medicine in a Century of Conflict, Imperial War Museum North, Salford
This is a powerful exhibition that reveals the bravery and dedication of the medics on the frontline, says Jane Weeks
I’ve always wondered what it feels like to be shot, and now I know. In the words of Sergeant Billy Moore MC, it feels like “banging into a coffee table with your leg”.
He was hit in the arm by a rifle bullet in Afghanistan in 2007 and evacuated by helicopter to the field hospital at Camp Bastion, then flown back to the UK. Four months later, he was back in the frontline. Had he been fighting in the first world war, he might have developed gangrene and died.
The Saving Lives exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North explores medical services on the frontline in the past 100 years, from the mud of Flanders to the dust of Afghanistan, told through the words and objects of the people involved.
It stresses the essentially contradictory nature of war and medicine, and highlights the major advances made through medical work on the frontline.
Out of the carnage of the first world war came many of the medical developments of the 20th century: vaccinations, x-rays, transfusions, penicillin and surgical techniques.
You enter the exhibition through a life-size re-creation of the rear of a Chinook helicopter, with the ominous background noise of whirring rotor blades.
Inside the exhibition, the story is told through graphics, images, artefacts, artwork and interactives. The pragmatic statement that “Service personnel are people but they are also essential resources” sets the tone.
Service personnel today are prepared both for the risk of injury and also for the threats to their everyday health – trench foot, malaria, VD. Then the focus moves to the frontline, and the so-called “platinum 10 minutes” after injury, which determines the chances of survival.
Transport out of the battle zone – whether in today’s Chinooks, the trains of the first world war or the trucks of the North African campaign – is crucial. In the first world war, serious casualties could expect to be back in Blighty from the trenches of France within five days.
In 2012, casualties are back in the UK within a day. From field hospitals, the story moves to convalescence, then rehabilitation, disability and long-term care.
There are relatively few objects on display – some gruesome pieces of shrapnel, some prosaic medical equipment, some poignant personal belongings and an Iraq Land Rover ambulance – but the stories that they represent are moving and inspiring.
Many of the objects were collected through War Story, the IWM’s Ministry of Defence-funded initiative to gather material relating to the conflict in Afghanistan, to enable the museum to record the war from the view of British service personnel and their families.
In this exhibition, the power is not in the object, but in the words and images.
There is the stoic voice of Lance-corporal Nick Davis, who was severely wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan; the disturbing film footage of shell-shock victims in the first world war, unable to control the movement of their limbs; and the haunting images of Sir Archibald McIndoe’s “Guinea Pig Club” burns victims given new faces through his innovative developments in plastic surgery.
Most mesmerising of all is the looped single-channel video Green Room by artist David Cotterrell documenting the anticipation and preparation for treatment of mass casualties in the field hospital in Camp Bastion.
The tension among the medical staff is almost palpable, as they stand waiting silently, putting on their latex gloves, hovering on the brink of action. As the video runs for 20 minutes, it’s a shame there isn’t a bench to watch it from.
As well as images, the exhibition displays some striking artworks, including a full-length nude portrait of Davis, which he agreed to sit for “so that people wouldn’t judge a book by its cover”.
There are also paintings by official war artists Edward Bawden and Edward Ardizzone, all the more shocking because the artists are better known for peaceful, domestic scenes and children’s book illustrations.
It’s impossible not admire the bravery and dedication of the medics who serve on the frontline or to fail to be caught up in the stories of the injured personnel.
If there is a failing, it is that their ultimate fate is not revealed. What happened to Eric Feakins, of the South Notts Hussars, who lost a leg in the second world war?
“My mind was running over what I would do if and whenever I got home with one leg because I really loved dancing and couldn’t imagine me doing the quickstep with one leg.”
Jane Weeks is a museum consultant
He was hit in the arm by a rifle bullet in Afghanistan in 2007 and evacuated by helicopter to the field hospital at Camp Bastion, then flown back to the UK. Four months later, he was back in the frontline. Had he been fighting in the first world war, he might have developed gangrene and died.
The Saving Lives exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North explores medical services on the frontline in the past 100 years, from the mud of Flanders to the dust of Afghanistan, told through the words and objects of the people involved.
It stresses the essentially contradictory nature of war and medicine, and highlights the major advances made through medical work on the frontline.
Out of the carnage of the first world war came many of the medical developments of the 20th century: vaccinations, x-rays, transfusions, penicillin and surgical techniques.
You enter the exhibition through a life-size re-creation of the rear of a Chinook helicopter, with the ominous background noise of whirring rotor blades.
Inside the exhibition, the story is told through graphics, images, artefacts, artwork and interactives. The pragmatic statement that “Service personnel are people but they are also essential resources” sets the tone.
Service personnel today are prepared both for the risk of injury and also for the threats to their everyday health – trench foot, malaria, VD. Then the focus moves to the frontline, and the so-called “platinum 10 minutes” after injury, which determines the chances of survival.
Transport out of the battle zone – whether in today’s Chinooks, the trains of the first world war or the trucks of the North African campaign – is crucial. In the first world war, serious casualties could expect to be back in Blighty from the trenches of France within five days.
In 2012, casualties are back in the UK within a day. From field hospitals, the story moves to convalescence, then rehabilitation, disability and long-term care.
There are relatively few objects on display – some gruesome pieces of shrapnel, some prosaic medical equipment, some poignant personal belongings and an Iraq Land Rover ambulance – but the stories that they represent are moving and inspiring.
Many of the objects were collected through War Story, the IWM’s Ministry of Defence-funded initiative to gather material relating to the conflict in Afghanistan, to enable the museum to record the war from the view of British service personnel and their families.
In this exhibition, the power is not in the object, but in the words and images.
There is the stoic voice of Lance-corporal Nick Davis, who was severely wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan; the disturbing film footage of shell-shock victims in the first world war, unable to control the movement of their limbs; and the haunting images of Sir Archibald McIndoe’s “Guinea Pig Club” burns victims given new faces through his innovative developments in plastic surgery.
Most mesmerising of all is the looped single-channel video Green Room by artist David Cotterrell documenting the anticipation and preparation for treatment of mass casualties in the field hospital in Camp Bastion.
The tension among the medical staff is almost palpable, as they stand waiting silently, putting on their latex gloves, hovering on the brink of action. As the video runs for 20 minutes, it’s a shame there isn’t a bench to watch it from.
As well as images, the exhibition displays some striking artworks, including a full-length nude portrait of Davis, which he agreed to sit for “so that people wouldn’t judge a book by its cover”.
There are also paintings by official war artists Edward Bawden and Edward Ardizzone, all the more shocking because the artists are better known for peaceful, domestic scenes and children’s book illustrations.
It’s impossible not admire the bravery and dedication of the medics who serve on the frontline or to fail to be caught up in the stories of the injured personnel.
If there is a failing, it is that their ultimate fate is not revealed. What happened to Eric Feakins, of the South Notts Hussars, who lost a leg in the second world war?
“My mind was running over what I would do if and whenever I got home with one leg because I really loved dancing and couldn’t imagine me doing the quickstep with one leg.”
Jane Weeks is a museum consultant
Project data
- Cost £183,500
- Main funder Little Greene Paint Company
- Design Hemisphere Design & Marketing Consultants
- Build production Factory Settings
- Exhibition ends 1 September