The Last Veteran?

There has been a fair bit of publicity this week for Florence Green, who on reaching her 110th birthday has been named as both a 'super-centenarian' and also the last surviving female 'veteran' of the Great War. As time goes by, the definition of 'last veteran' seems to have changed. Once it was used solely for those men who had met the Germans or other adversaries on the battlefield, but as they disappeared, it was broadened to include anyone who was in military service at any time during the Great War. Florence Green joined the Women's Royal Air Force in 1918, and served for a short time before the Armistice as a waitress at an R.A.F. station. Her position entitled her and her colleagues to both military status, and also, if unfortunate enough to die during service, commemoration by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

However, there were great numbers of other women working for their country at that time, many of whom were involved in direct contact with victims of war, but whose work did not offer them the same entitlements as Florence Green and her colleagues. More than 70,000 women worked during the Great War as nursing 'VADs' - members of Voluntary Aid Detachments. The vast majority of these women came under the auspices of the British Red Cross Society, and served in the United Kingdom only, and their status as civilians excluded them from being classed as military workers. They worked long hours to ensure that wounded and sick soldiers received the best possible care; they scrubbed and polished, made beds, lit fires and cooked meals; they helped with dressings and treatments, and faced, on a daily basis, sights and smells unimaginable today. For this, the vast majority were unpaid - they were indeed 'voluntary.' For the many who died during the course of their service, there is no official commemoration - as far as the Ministry of Defence and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are concerned they are the civilian nameless, unworthy of national recognition.

There are a number of women in the UK at present who are older than Florence Green. I wonder if any of them worked as young VADs during the Great War? If so, they will not be recognised. They were civilians. They are of little interest to the veteran-hunters. Oh that they might have spent their working lives during the Great War as waitresses in an officers' mess.

Florence Green - the last female veteran

Sidetracked

What an amazing amount there is to learn with such easy access to the internet. Still roaming through the Royal Red Cross Register, I found on entry from the London Gazette in October 1954 announcing an award to a Lieutenant Audrey Mary Jones, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps:

'In recognition of brave conduct during the fire on H.M.T. EMPIRE WINDRUSH'

Like many other people I had never contemplated a life for the 'Windrush' other than its voyage in 1948 bringing migrants from the Caribbean, but its history and eventual fate is here:

Empire Windrush

She Came from Home

I recently came across a book written in 1916 by actor Harley Granville Barker about his time serving with the British Red Cross Society in France. He was, perhaps, a rather unlikely volunteer. The book starts with an introduction by Sir Frederick Treves, and I found his final few paragraphs very touching - an emotional tribute to the thousands of women who also volunteered their services during the Great War:

'It is said that the Great War has produced no Florence Nightingale. That may be so; but it has produced a much esteemed and lovable lady, hitherto unknown in any war, who has earned for herself a reputation little less than that attained by the great pioneer of Red Cross work. She is known by the curious title of 'the V.A.D.' She works as a volunteer. She is quite a new being, yet she represents the womanhood of England, the tender-hearted, unselfish, capable woman, whose sole desire is to help the wounded soldier. She seeks no glory. She has no name. She is merely a 'V.A.D.'

She will work as a cook, as a housemaid, as a kitchen-maid, and none will beat her. She will carry trays all day and be proud of it. She will live in a railway carriage and there keep a buffet for tired men. She will tramp a station platform night and day if only she can give some comfort to a sick man in a passing train. She will nurse as far as her abilities will permit, and her abilities are considerable. She will feel it an honour to be a ward maid if only she can help to make things comfortable for the patients she scarcely sees. The men are devoted to her, and in that devotion she finds the sole reward she seeks.

One little episode that I saw in France will remain in my mind as the embodiment of the spirit of Red Cross work. A V.A.D. was holding a cup to the lips of a dying man. Looking at her with a dim curiosity he asked faintly,
"Where do you come from?"
"I come from Home," she replied
A smile spread over his face and in a while he was dead. Such was the secret of his last pleasant thought - she came from Home.'

Introduction to: The Red Cross in France: Granville Barker, Hodder and Stoughton, 1916.

Military Medals

This picture of General Plumer decorating nurses with the ribbon of the Military Medal is often seen, and in the past I've only given it a fleeting examination. But today I stopped to wonder who the women were, and if I could put names to them. The original caption in the newspaper said:

General Sir H. C. O. Plumer presents the Military Medal to nurses for outstanding courage when their hospital was bombed by a raiding squadron of enemy aeroplanes. They had no thought of their own safety when the bombs were falling.

I have other images of the nurse on the left - a nursing sister of the regular Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, so could easily identify her as Charlotte Lilian Annie Robinson. Looking at the nurses who were involved in the same incident, the Territorial Force Nursing Service Staff Nurse, second from left is likely to be Katherine Robertson Lowe, and the other two (one of whom is hidden by General Plumer), Acting Sister Minnie Maude de Guerin and Acting Sister Nellie Galvin, both members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. The citation for Miss Robinson (the others are similar) reads:

For conspicuous devotion to duty when a stationary hospital was struck by four bombs from an enemy aeroplane and one wing was practically cut in two, many patients being buried in the debris. Sister Robinson, at very great personal risk, went in amongst the ruins to assist in recovering the patients, quite regardless of danger, her one thought being the rescue of the patients. She displayed magnificent coolness and resource.

Charlotte Robinson served in QAIMNS for more than twenty-eight years, finally retiring in 1941.

It just doesn't add up!

A couple of posts ago I wrote:

For services rendered during the Great War there were more than 14,000 RRCs both 1st and 2nd class issued ...

However, I was wrong. The RRC Register starts at number 1, and proceeds sedately through 2, 3, 4, 5 and onwards relentlessly. There were about 250 pre-WW1 awards, and if you browse through to the end of the Great War awards, you arrive at (roughly speaking) number 14,350. But silly of me to assume that signified the total number of wartime awards, as someone at the War Office was not too hot on what could loosely be termed 'numeracy.' All is well until award number 3,199 is reached. What follows 3,199? Can I hear you shouting '3,200'? Wrong. 3,199 is followed by 4,000, thus missing out 801 numbers. Anyone could be forgiven for a slip like this, but unfortunately it's not unique.
Award number 4,099 is followed by number 5,000; 5,099 is followed by 6,000; 6,099 is followed by 7,000 ... you get the idea. In the first two volumes this type of mistake happens seven times, resulting in the 'loss' of thousands of awards. Adding up the actual totals, it seems that there were just under 8,000 Great War awards of the Royal Red Cross - that is, of course, if I've counted correctly.

VADs and the Great War

For a long time I've been meaning to write something for the website about VADs. I get quite a lot of emails asking for information on tracking them down -rather more than for trained nurses - probably because there were just so many of them, and I know the interest is out there. So eventually I've got round to writing a brief overview of their wartime work with some background information of the service, and a few pictures. And having started I'll try to add some more bits and pieces in the future. The article is here:

VADs and the Great War - an Overview

British Nurses in German East Africa

British Journal of Nursing, June 2nd 1917
A Roll of Honour

The story of the imprisonment of the European Missionaries working in German East Africa on the outbreak of war is one which remains to be fully told, but now that the prisoners of Tabora have been rescued, the long silence has been broken. In the Annual Report of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa just issued we learn something of their experiences. The Archdeacon of Rovurna writes:-

'Unfortunately it was our ladies who had a very much harder time than the men. In one prison to which they were sent, and on one of their journeys, they were subjected to treatment which it is almost incredible any civilized nation could inflict. But from first to last they bore it with magnificent patience, and their cheeriness never forsook them."
Not least may we be proud of the members of the nursing profession amongst them. We read:

"The nurses who were interned in German East Africa when war broke out had a laborious time. In November, 1914, Miss Wallace and Miss Burn went to Korogwe by request of the German Government, to nurse the wounded English and Indian soldiers who were taken prisoners at the battle of Tanga, and a very busy time they had. Miss Burn stayed at Korogwe looking after relays of English wounded until the British arrived last June. Miss Wallace left in June, 1915, and was sent with Miss Gunn to Tabora where they were officially recognized by the Germans as the nurses in charge of the camp hospital."

There was a great deal of fever among the prisoners, and also a large number of blackwater fever cases, many very dangerously ill; these all recovered, though without good nursing recovery in several cases would have been impossible. Miss Davey for ten months looked after the Italian women interned at Kilimatinde, three babies being born there. Afterwards she and Miss Horne had charge of the Hospital there during an outbreak of typhoid fever among the English prisoners, some of the cases being very severe, but happily all recovered. Miss Packham went to Mrogoro to nurse the German women and children, and when the town fell stayed on in charge of the British Military Hospital. One of the British doctors wrote to the Bishop of Zanzibar later:

"We found her installed in charge of the German Hospital at Mrogoro when our Hospital - the 52nd Casualty Clearing Hospital - entered the town with the first Division at the end of August 1916. One would have thought that two years in a German prison would have been enough to rob anyone of strength and will to work. But with her it was far different. She was alwaysup and in the wards in the early morning before we were about; always the last to go to bed. Up most of the nights; for the worst cases were nursed in the verandah outside her bedroom door."

Other names in this Roll of Honour are those of Miss Kemsley, who worked first among the German women at Liwali and later among the enteric patients at Dar-es-Salaam, and, when it was taken, helped to organise the English Military Hospital; Sister Mabel and Sister Elizabeth who looked after native prisoners, many extremely ill, at Kiboriani and Bugari, and Miss Dunn, who nursed in the former place, and Miss Plant, with Miss Gunn, nursed Belgian wounded soldiers when Tabora was taken. The British Military authorities have reason to be grateful to the trained nurses of the Universities' Mission whose services were of the utmost value, and the nursing profession to be proud of their record.