Yolande de Baye

The shelling drew nearer. The noise, the trembling and the smoke became more and more intense. It was impossible to stay inside the huts at the evacuation hospital in Dugny-sur-Meuse. Yolande de Baye, the young nurse in charge of the department, had plenty of experience of war. She had volunteered at the beginning of the conflict, and had seen countless men killed or wounded. She knew only too well the damage that shells could do. Her team of nurses stood around her, all terrified by the explosions. Yolande couldn’t bear the thought of losing these women who had given her so much.

Shells were now falling on the village. Yolande and her nurses took shelter in one of the trenches dug between the buildings. They all put on their helmets, to protect themselves as best they could, but one of the nurses couldn’t find hers. Without stopping to think, Yolande held out her own helmet. It was a reckless thing to do, but she couldn’t take the risk of losing one of her nurses. The bombardment intensified, and shells rained down on the whole of Dugny village. It was in this month of August 1917 that the second Battle of Verdun began.

All around, explosions threw huge volumes of earth into the air, and they covered everything in their path. A shell fell nearby, burying the whole of Yolande’s medical team. The white angels were turned brown and black with dirt and blood. Three nurses were killed and four others were wounded in this living hell. But where was Yolande? On the ground, her face bleeding. Hit by shrapnel, but not mortally wounded. Yolande de Baye risked death by putting her nurses’ lives before her own. She was recognised as a true heroine and awarded the Legion of Honour by the French nation. Surrounded by all the people who died in the battle, Yolande and her nurses are commemorated at Douaumont Ossuary by a stained-glass window marking their devotion.