Mauretania as a Hospital Ship

The 'Mauretania,' built for Cunard and launched in 1906, had a multi-faceted history during the First World War, some of which was as a hospital ship.  There is a war diary of her medical work during that time held at The National Archives in WO95/4146, and although very brief, a transcription is reproduced here in its entirety. It does give some small idea of how the time of a hospital ship was divided over the course of its five months in service.

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His Majesty’s Hospital Ship ‘MAURETANIA’

War Diary, 10th October 1915 to February 29th 1916

The National Archives, WO95/4146

1915

10th October:  In accordance with War Office instructions proceeded to Liverpool to arrange details as regards the fitting up of the R.M.S.S. “Mauretania” as a Hospital Carrier. Arrived Liverpool 6.30 p.m.  Visited ship and after, P.N.T.O.

11th October:  Inspected ship with Commander Currie R.N., arranged such matters as bulkheads, lavatory accommodation etc., etc.  Indented for Ordnance Stores, Clothing, Stationary, Red X Stores.

12th to 20th October:  Work in the ship.  Arrival of Stores.

21st October:  Detachment arrived, also a portion of the staff of No.27 General Hospital.  Stores embarked.  Officers addressed on their respective duties.

22nd October:  Anchored in Mersey and sailed at 7 p.m.  Weather – thick.

23rd October:  Off Scilly 12 noon.  Weather – clear.

24th October:  Off Lisbon.  Weather – clear.

25th October:  Passed Gibraltar.  Weather – clear.

26th October:  At Sea

27th October:  At Sea

28th October:  At Naples. Coaled.

29th October:  Left Naples.

31st October:  Arrived Mudros.

1st November:  Coaling.

2nd November:  Embarked wounded from H.S. “Galeka” and H.S. “Delta”.

3rd November:  Embarked wounded from shore hospital.

4th November:  Embarked wounded from shore hospital.  Pte. T. Calderbank, 1/5 Manchester Regt., died. Left Mudros 4 p.m.

5th November: No.3765 Pte. Parker F., 3rd Field Ambulance, R.N.D., died and was buried at sea. Pte. Lee operated on for appendicitis.

6th November:  At Sea.

7th November:  At Sea.  Pte. Lee, 9th W. Yorks died of Enteric with perforation. P.M. showed gangrene of the bowel.  Pte. Marchant, 5th R. Fusiliers died of Dysentery.

8th November:  Off Gibraltar 7.35 a.m.  Received signal (Wireless) asking accommodation for convalescents.  Replied 19 Officers and 81 other ranks.  Message received at 7.45, replied 7.52 a.m. Wireless instrument broke down.  Message reported delivered at 8.15 a.m.  Ship’s fireman Bowen died at --- of Dysentery and pneumonia.

9th November:  At Sea.

10th November:  Docked at 1.45, Southampton.

11th November:  Ship commenced re-fitting.

12th to 22nd November:  Ship in dock.  Improvements are almost completed the chief of which have been (1) Gutting E Deck and erection of Double Tier berths.  (2) Gutting C & D Aft, Double Tier berths.  (3) Officers dining saloon to C1 and old dining room converted into a ward for 51 swing cots.  (4) Altering aseptic theatre.  (5) Altering men’s dining room and fitting of antiseptic tank and washstands. (6) Various sanitary improvements.  (7) Additions to disinfector and increase of laundry machinery.  (8) Erection of Sisters’ Duty Rooms.

23rd November:  Left Southampton with R.A.M.C. details and nurses.

24th November:  At Sea.

25th  to 27th  November:  At Sea.

28th November:  Arrived Naples.

29th November:  Visited British Consul General at Naples. Ship inspected by Consuls of U.S. America, Denmark, Switzerland (representing Germany) accompanied by British Consul General.  Statement in writing given me signed by 4 Consuls, that this ship has no combatant troops or war-like stores on board and that the rules of the Geneva Convention are being strictly carried out.  Left Naples.

3rd December:  Arrived Mudros – Embarked sick from H.S. “Devana”, H.S. “Nevassa”, H.S. “Delta”, H.S. “Soudan” and shore hospital.

4th December:  Left Mudros.  No.10369 Pte. Poole H., died of Dysentery yesterday 1 hour after embarkation and was buried at sea today. (8th Cheshire Regt.)

5th and 6th December:  At Sea.

7th December:  Arrived Naples for coal and water.  Visited British Consul General at 10 a.m.

8th December:  Pte. J. Cuddy, Lancs. Fus., died at 1.45 a.m., from Dysentery.  Left Naples at 7.30 a.m.  Inspection 10 a.m. with Sanitary Officer and Medical Director General of Cunard S. S. Line.  Several matters connected with Sanitary improvements enquired into and a list of these prepared for authorities at port of disembarkation.

9th December:  At Sea.

10th December:  At Sea.  Passed Gibraltar 8 p.m.  Entered bay and stopped – Naval officers boarded vessel and brought papers appertaining to number of sick on board for signature.  Proceeded at 9.10 p.m. westwards.

11th December:  No.1849 Pte. Foot, 1/8 Hampshires died and was buried at 4.35 p.m. – Acute Dysentery.  N.W. Wind – ship rolling.  No.34552 Gr. J. Drawfield R.F.A. developed Tetanus and was isolated.

14th to 16th December:  Arrived Southampton 7 a.m.  Invalids disembarked at 9 a.m.  In Southampton.

23rd December:  Staff Nurse Miss Stanley died in Netley Hospital of Dysentery.

1916

7th January:  Left Southampton 12 noon.  Boat Stations and life-belt parade 2 p.m.

8th January:  Complaints re Sgts Mess.  Reported to Ship’s Officials.

9th and 10th January:  At Sea.

11th January:  At Sea.  Communicated with Master re linen of R.A.M.C.

12th January:  Naples 7 a.m.  Left at 10.15 p.m.

13th January:  At Sea.

14th January:  Arrived Mudros 4.45 p.m.  Visited “Aragon”.  No ships ready to transfer patients.  S.E. breeze freshening.

15th January:  Strong breeze from S.E.  Ship moved to new anchorage 8 a.m.

16th January:  At Mudros.  Loading patients from Hospital Ships “Morea”,  “Panama”,  “Gloucester Castle”,  &  “Essequibo”.

17th January:  Loading continued.  Left Mudros at 4 p.m.

18th January:  At Sea.

19th January:  Naples 4.30 p.m.  Nominal Rolls sent to 3rd Echelon, Alexandria.  Cable to D.D.M.S. Southampton.

20th January:  Coaling and taking in water at Naples.

25th January:  Arrived Southampton.

9th February:  Left Southampton.  Anchored in Solent.

9th to 23rd February:  In Solent.  At 4 p.m. the Officers, Nursing Sisters and Detachment disembarked at Southampton.

24th February:  8.30 a.m.  Ship proceeded to Liverpool.

25th February:  Arrived Liverpool.

29th February:  Ship being no longer required I handed over charge.

F. J. Brown
Lieut. Colonel, R.A.M.C.
O. C. Troops, H.M.H.S. “MAURETANIA”

Vera Brittain and the Old Dug-out

     I admit to not being a fan of Vera Brittain. Over the decades she has forged a prominent position both in biographies and items throughout various media, but I've never understood exactly why. She worked as a VAD during the First World War and wrote a considerable amount about her experiences, her life and her losses. Because of that, she has emerged as an icon among nurses during the Great War, eclipsing almost all others, trained or otherwise. She’s become a national model for the ‘war nurse’ despite her story being one shared by thousands of other women. Many worked for a far longer period during wartime; many were honoured in a number of ways with commendations and awards; thousands suffered the loss of loved ones due to enemy action; hundreds suffered more personal loss than did Vera Brittain. And of course, she was not a trained nurse, but an amateur – an inexperienced volunteer.

     However articulate, however smooth and emotive her writing, my relationship with her stuttered and came to a very rocky end when I got to a passage in ‘Testament of Youth’ in which she resorted to a spiteful and vindictive attack on one of the most honourable, brave and trustworthy members of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. On her way to Malta in 1916 on board the ill-fated hospital ship Britannic she described the Matron as ‘a sixty-year-old dug-out with a red cape and a row of South African medals.’ Later, recounting the tale of another nurse who had been on board the ship when it was torpedoed the following year, she wrote:

The old Matron, motionless as a rock, sat on the boat deck and counted the Sisters and nurses as they filed past her into the boats, refusing to leave until all were assembled. None of the women were lost … In one of the boats sat the Matron, looking towards the doomed Britannic while the rest of its occupants, with our friend among them, anxiously scanned the empty horizon. She saw the propeller cut a boat in half and fling its mutilated victims into the air, but, for the sake of the young women for whom she was responsible, she never uttered a sound nor moved a muscle of her grim old face. What a pity it is, I meditated as I listened, that outstanding heroism seems so often to be associated with such unmitigated limitations! How seldom it is that this type of courage goes with an imaginative heart, a sensitive, intelligent mind!

British nurses on board a hospital ship : Australian War Memorial

     The words of an arrogant, twenty-something young woman, failing to grasp much of life beyond her own narrow perspective were barely excusable in a diary entry of 1917, but unfortunate and telling that they were considered suitable in a book published by a mature woman in 1933. I suspect that she might have grown in years but not in outlook.

South Africa during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War

     So who was the ‘old dug-out’?  Elizabeth Ann Dowse was born in Bristol in 1855, and trained as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, where she worked for seven years between 1878 and 1885. She was chosen by H.R.H. The Princess of Wales as one of a group of nurses to serve in Egypt with the Nile Expedition that year, and on her return she joined the Army Nursing Service in 1886 where she remained for the next twenty-five years. She served in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War including being present at the Defence of Ladysmith, and also in Malta, Egypt, on board hospital ships and at various stations in the United Kingdom. She was compulsorily retired from Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service on reaching the age of fifty-five in 1910, but returned voluntarily to serve during the Great War, by then fifty-nine years of age. During the years between 1914 and 1919 her postings included hospitals in the UK, France, Italy, and of course on the Hospital Ship Britannic. She was one of only one hundred women ever to receive both the Royal Red Cross and a Bar to the award. Every note about her, every report on her work speaks in the highest terms of her meritorious and devoted services. She was hard-working, tactful, zealous, never lacking in energy; she showed self-reliance and common-sense of the highest order; she displayed the best influence over others, both nurses and male orderlies. A personal letter from the Matron-in-Chief at the time of her second retirement in 1919 said:

I am sure that you know that I am much more grateful than I can possibly express for all you have done for the last very strenuous five years. The loyalty and devotion to duty of the retired Matrons of the Q.A.I.M.N.S. who so readily returned to do their bit as soon as we were involved in this War will never be forgotten.

     There were, of course, thousands of other trained members of the British military nursing services, but few with such a long and impressive history as Elizabeth Ann Dowse. I cannot tell whether, as Vera Brittain inferred, she was unimaginative, unintelligent and insensitive, though I suspect she was none of those. What I am quite sure of is which of the two women I would trust in life, especially in a sticky situation, and which of the two I would choose to meet with and talk to today.

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Testament of Youth; Vera Brittain; first published by Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1933 and in many later editions