The Poona Division's had planned on a maximum of 6 percent of the division becoming casualties. In addition to each battalion's surgeons, there were the field ambulance units assigned to each of the brigades. However, these units were not intended to function as hospitals, and were only supposed to triage and stabilize the wounded before sending them back to field hospital units. Line of communication troops had to donate their own supplies to the medical units that were overrun with casualties.Brevet-Colonel S. H. Climo, Mesopotamia Commission Testimony, 28 September 1916, p. 178. With Townshend's offensive, there was only one river boat equipped as a hospital ship.Townshend, vol. I, p. 157. With the ambulances full, many of the wounded were placed on A.T. carts, which were nothing more than simple carts pulled by animals that performed most of the land hauling at this point in the campaign.Lieutenant-Colonel J.F.Donegan, Mesopotamia Commission Testimony, p.230. In some cases, the wounded were simply laid atop boxes of ammunition or other supplies.Private A. Shaw, Mesopotamia Commission Testimony, p. 918. With animal transport limited by short-sighted decisions of Nixon and his predecessors, the Poona Division only 330 animal pulled carts and 740 animals to pull them.Townshend, vol. 1, p. 158.
