Soldiers say goodbye to wounded comrades leaving a casualty clearing station. The wounded are on the way to England for further treatment and convalescence. British, Canadian, and other Commonwealth soldiers described England as "Blighty," and also used it to indicate the non-fatal wound that would take you there. "Blighty" was therefore both "homeland" or "country" and, for soldiers in the field, a darkly humorous reference to non-fatal wounds leading to time spent far from the front. The word itself is an Anglicized version of the Hindi for "native land," adopted by British troops in India in the nineteenth century.
George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 19920044-819
Canada and the First World War
