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Army join the front line in war on coronavirus as squaddies finish Nightingale Hospital in London NewsColony Soldiers helping to build the Nightingale hospital in London last night compared the coronavirus crisis to the Battle of the Somme. Colonel Ashleigh Boreham, who has carried out two tours of Iraq and one of Afghanistan , said it was the biggest mission of his career. As commanding officer of 256 City of London Field Hospital, he is in charge of military personnel working on the NHS facility at the ExCeL centre. Built in around ten days, it will have 4,000 beds for coronavirus patients when it opens this week. Similar hospitals are being installed in Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow to ease pressure on existing sites. Colonel Boreham, who has helped create field hospitals around the world, said: ‘We are building a hospital for people in our nation. You are saving people’s lives and they could be the lives of your families. It’s the biggest job I’ve ever done. ‘My gran...