The AIF Project

'On the afternoon of 6th July, 1917, at GOOSEBERRY FARM Advanced Dressing Station, near MESSINES, Private WOOD was one of a party of stretcher bearers carrying cases from the Advanced Dressing Station to a waiting ambulance about 400 yards away. Owing to the heavy shelling in progress the motor ambulance was unable to approach closer. After loading the cases the ambulance proceeded down the road until it was blocked by a quantity of sleepers and debris thrown onto the track by a shell exploding near by. As the shelling was still continuing the car retired and Private WHALLIN went forward with Private WOOD and under fire they cleared the road sufficiently to enable the motor ambulance to get through. They signalled the ambulance to come on and continued their work of clearing the road until the last moment, when they swung into the moving ambulance as it went past. The work was carried out with a total disregard to personal safety and enabled the patients to be moved from a particularly dangerous spot as the enemy was shelling the whole road and delay might easily have resulted in disaster.'