The Edith Cavell Nurse from Massachusetts: The War Letters of Alice Fitzgerald, an American Nurse Serving in the British Expeditionary Force, Boulogne

A RECORD OF ONE YEAR'S PERSONAL SERVICE WITH THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN FRANCE With An Account Of The Imprisonment, Trial, And Death of Nurse Edith Cavell After the shocking execution of Nurse Edith Cavell by the Germans, American citizens asked the English director of military surgery to accept the services of the Edith Cavell Memorial Nurse from Massachusetts in the hope that it may be this nurse's high fortune to serve not only the Allies' wounded but their prisoners. Funds were raised, and a nurse with exceptional qualities was searched for. One was soon found, and in early 1916, Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald was appointed by the Edith Cavell Memorial Committee to serve with the British Expeditionary force in France for the duration of the war. From somewhere in France, Alice wrote: "I am in the thick of it, as this is the nearest Clearing Station to the Front. I am all but in the trenches We are situated in a horseshoe, with the firing line on three sides. We can only walk a short distance in all directions for fear of getting shelled. The sky is alive with aeroplanes of all kinds, the scouts, the battle planes. . . some fly so low that they almost touch the poles of our tents. About a week ago, in the middle of the night, I woke up at the sound of the dropping of bombs nearer and nearer, until one came down so near that the vibration simply knocked me out of bed."